Officers' Skat as in a normal hand (face up to the player); this is called a 'half-open' ("halb-offenes") game. In Admirals' Skat, each player is given five cards face down, five face up and five in their hand. The remaining two cards are set aside as skat or "stick" ("Stock"). The trump suit and who plays first is then determined as usual by the skat with overbidding. This variant is also called "with overbidding" ("mit Reizen"). According to Grupp (1975), the name Officers' Skat ("Offiziers-Skat" ) came from the fact that "officers only socialised with the men when they were in the
International Skat Players Association International Skat Players Association The International Skat Players Association (ISPA) is the worldwide umbrella organisation for all competition Skat players. The ISPA was founded in 1976 by Peter Brand and Martha Prickartz in Aachen, Germany. It initially crossed swords with the world's largest national Skat association, the German Skat Association ("Deutscher Skatverband", DSkV), and promulgated different rules for the game. Towards the end of the 1990s, talks between the top officials of each organisation led to rapprochement and agreement between the two large associations. The ban on double membership was lifted and a uniform International Skat Order ("Internationale Skatordnung ",