Five-card majors for offensive purposes. However, if the trump cards break 4-1 or 1-4, then drawing trump will result in no trumps left for offensive purposes. The value of five-card majors can be understood then on two levels: But five-card majors have several drawbacks: Both partners must agree to follow the five-card major bidding treatment on their opening bid. Opener must have at least five cards in hearts or spades to start the bidding with that suit. Responder is expected to show support with three-card support, indicating an eight-card fit. With only four cards in a major suit, the opening bidder is
History of Skat card held by the soloist. Since this solution was not satisfactory either, and idea by Carl Christian Adam Neefe was adopted whereby an auction was held to determine the soloist and trump suit. By bidding, however, further types of contract other than the basic suit contracts became possible. Early forms of Null and Grand were already being played in the 1840s. The Null was, from the outset, a plain-trick game and basically resembled its modern successor. The predecessor of Grand was called Ace Game ("As-Spiel"); it was the counterpart to Null and also had no trumps. The main difference between