Card players outdid each other in German Club’s Asian Skat Masters 2017
The players arrived on November 17, 2017 for a warm-up game. The actual match happened on the next day, where the players competed from noon until late in the evening.
Roman Lindner from Singapore, who scored 3,067, was the Skat game’s highest pointer. Roland Raeuber followed suit with his 2,612 points, while Etienne Boeing of Hong Kong landed on the third spot with his 2,553 points.
Competitors from all over Asia spent a whole afternoon beating each other in a traditional German card game.
A Yearly Traditional Game
The German Club Manila has made it a custom to host annual Skat tournaments, as the card game figures prominently in German culture.
Altenburg’s official site says Skat was developed sometime in the early 1800s in Thuringia, Central Germany. Its name purportedly came from the Italian word “scartare”, which means “to lay aside”. The game earned such a name based on its players’ action of laying their cards on the table.
Asian Skat Masters Finale 2017 was held at the German Club’s richly decorated halls.
Before the game started, the players drew the names of their would-be opponents from ribboned silver cup. This cup was later awarded to the winning team.
The next Asian Skat Masters tournament will be held in the last weekend of January 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
