Eiszeit or Eichel-Sau-Zeit is a card game for 2 players that originates from Upper Bavaria and is played with 32 German-suited Bavarian pattern playing cards.
Preparation edit
Dealer is chosen by lot (highest card drawn from the pack). Dealer deals 12 cards to each player in packets of 4 and places the remaining eight in the centre of the table - four face down and four face up.
Rules edit
Cards edit
There are no trumps but the card ranking is as follows:
| Card ranks | |||
| Suits | |||
| Acorns (Eichel) | Leaves (Gras) | Hearts (Herz) | Bells (Schellen) |
 A 10 K O U 9 8 7 6
|
 A 10 K O U 9 8 7 6
|
 A 10 K O U 9 8 7 6
|
 A 10 K O U 9 8 7 6
|
Playing edit
The non-dealer leads to the first trick. Each trick comprises four cards and each player plays two cards to a trick alternately. The highest ranking card wins the trick. Suit must be followed in that a player must play a card of the same suit as the previous card in the trick. If he is unable, he may play any card. For example, a player may beat a Sow of Bells with a Seven of Hearts if they cannot follow suit with a Bell. The winner of the sixth and last trick chooses whether or not to pick up the face up or face down cards. His opponent picks up the rest and they then play the last two tricks.
Scoring edit
Eiszeit uses the Skat schedule employed in Ace-Ten games i.e.:
| Ranks and card-point values of cards | ||||||||
| Rank | Sow | 10 | K | O | U | 9 | 8 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | 11 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | – | ||
The winner is the player with at least 61 points. A score of 60-all is a draw.
Variant edit
Alternatively each player may be dealt ten cards leaving 12 in the middle.
Source edit
From: Pluspedia, but needs more sources