a Scalade - Repiqued Interests

Scalade

Scalade is a three-player trick-taking game, where players aim to win the next card up in each suit, in a manner reminiscent of games in the Stops family.

The core game for three is described first, although versions exist for other player counts, and alternate versions. See my notes at the bottom for which version of the game I currently recommend. Also check out the where to play section to find appropriate venues for playing.

How to play

Rules will be given for the three-player version, using Static Scalade rules. Variants are described below, although they assume an understanding of this form.

Players

The game is for three players, each playing for themself.

Equipment

The game is played with a standard 52-card pack of cards, from which the 2s and 3s have been removed, leaving a 44-card pack. The 2s and 3s themselves will ideally be kept to hand to be used to track information throughout the game, although this may be done by other means such as pen and paper.

In tricks, cards rank in the 'usual' order 4 (low), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (denoted T on this page), Jack, Queen, King, Ace (high).

You will also need something to keep score, such as pen-and-paper, some slate and chalk, or a three-track cribbage board.

It is useful, additionally, to have a pool or markers or chips available to use for tracking holding bonuses. Usually you will only need a few - ten should be far more than sufficient.

Setup

Before the first deal is played, the following cards are placed separately face-up on the table:

These represent the ladders for each suit. These particular cards are the initial rungs of each ladder. Throughout the game the rungs of each ladder will vary, but there will always be one ladder of each suit.

If it helps with remembering, this ordering is the same as in games of the Schafkopf group, which also includes Skat and Doppelkopf. To remember the ranks, just remember that to climb a ladder you need to take some Steps.

They should be placed visibly to all players, off to a side rather than in front of any players or in the centre.

The remaining forty cards will be used for the first deal, and should be thoroughly shuffled.

The deal

The initial dealer can be chosen by any suitable means. The game consists of several deals. For subsequent deals the role of dealer moves left around the table.

Before the first deal only, the player to right of dealer cuts the deck and the top two cards of the cut are turned face up for all to see. These two cards are called the grounding. They are set to the side initially. (In subsequent deals the grounding is not chosen this way - see the rules for subsequent hands).

Before each deal the following procedure is adhered to. The thirty-eight cards which are not currently rungs of the ladder or in the grounding are shuffled thoroughly. Once this is done the dealer offers this pack to the player on their right to cut.

After the pack is cut the dealer deals six cards to each player, in clockwise order beginning with the player to their left, one at a time. They then deal two cards face-down in front of them, which are the dead cards.

Now the two cards of the grounding are shuffled into the remaining pack. From this pack, a further six cards are dealt in the same fashion to each player. The final two cards are placed face-down crosswise on top of the dead cards. These two are called the spoils.

At the end of the deal, then, each player ends up with a hand of twelve cards, and the dealer has four cards face-down in front of them, positioned as two cards and another two sat orthogonally on top. Together these four are known as the cross-cards.

Players may then inspect their twelve-card hands, and once everyone is ready the play of the hand can begin.

Play

Trumps

The trump suit for the hand is set by the lowest-ranked card that is a rung of a ladder at the start of the hand, with 4 low and Ace high as described above. If more than one card has the lowest rank present, ties are broken by the suit hierarchy defined by the initial set of rungs, with preference given to the suit that starts the game with the highest rung. So Clubs beats Spades beats Hearts beats Diamonds.

Following this, the trump suit for the initial hand is always Diamonds.

Trickplay

Each hand consists of twelve tricks. The leader of each trick may play any card they like. Other players must follow suit if able, or if they are unable, may play any card.

Tricks are won by the highest trump played, or if no trumps are played by the highest card of the suit led.

Claiming ladders

If a trick contains a card which is the rank above the current rung in its suit, the winner of the trick 'claims' the ladder for that suit. It is possible for a player to claim more than one ladder in the same trick.

The new rung of the ladder will be the highest card played of that suit in the trick that consecutively follows the current rung. So if the previous rung was 5, and the 6 and 7 are played to the trick, the new rung will be 7. If only the 6 is played, without the 7, then the new rung will be 6. It does not matter for this purpose the order in which cards were played to the trick.

For this purpose the ranks 'wrap around', meaning 4 is considered to be directly above Ace.

The winner of the trick places the new rung card(s) in front of them, and places any remaining cards of the trick, as well as the previous rung(s) face-down into a discard pile. All players discard to the same pile - it makes no bearing on the rest of the hand.

Final two tricks

The winner of the penultimate trick picks up the spoils (i.e. the two topmost cards stacked in front of dealer, which should be easy to separate from the other two, being stacked crosswise), and places them face up next to the completed trick. The claiming of ladders is then resolved as if all five cards (the three of the actual trick and these extra two) belong to the trick.

The winner of the final trick scores bonus points for doing so, which depends on the current ladder rungs, as described below.

The final two cards in front of dealer are the dead cards — they do not affect anything in the hand. If another hand is played, the dead cards of this hand become the grounding for next hand, with a consequence that no card is dead for two hands in a row.

Scoring

Once all tricks are played, and the final ladders resolved, the hand is scored.

For scoring, the rungs of ladders have corresponding point values:

Players score the value of each ladder they have in front of them at the end of the hand. Additionally, the winner of the final trick scores bonus points equal to the lowest-valued ladder. This is in regards to their point value, rather than rank, meaning that e.g. if an ace is the rung of any ladder, this bonus is 1 point. For determining the final trick bonus it is the set of rungs after the final trick that set the value.

Holding bonus

At the end of the first hand, place each of the 2s of each suit face-up in front of the player who is holding the ladder of the corresponding suit, as a holding marker. Alternatively, anything representing the suits, such as suit markers, can be used for this purpose.

Following subsequent hands, if any player has a ladder of the suit they were holding at the end of the last hand, the score for that suit counts double. Then a token/chip is placed on the holding marker to indicate that the player has held it for two hands in a row. A suit with a token, if held at the end of the next hand by the same player, counts triple.

As long as a player keeps hold of the same suit in subsequent deals, these tokens can stack indefinitely, each increasing the suit multiplier for that player.

Any ladder which ends up with a different player has its suit marker passed to that new player, and any tokens removed, setting it back to counting singly.

This means that each ladder score is multiplied by a holding multiplier. For suits not held in the previous hand, this is equal to 1, but for each successive hand for which the suit is held by the same player, this multiplier is increased to 2, 3, 4, and so on.

To put this another way:

This only applies to the score for having a ladder at the end of the hand, not for winning the final trick.

It does not matter if a ladder moves between players during the course of the hand — it is only where it ends up at the end of the hand that affects how the bonus is figured.

The next hand

If the game has not finished (see ending the game) then another hand is played. In each hand after the first, the grounding consists of the dead cards from the previous hands. This means that no card will be a dead card for two hands in a row.

Ending the game

When a ladder has made it to the same rung (or higher) as it started on, it is said to have completed an escalation.

The first suit that completes an escalation is called the advance suit. If more than one completes an escalation in the same hand, the suit is the 'higher-ranked' in the same sense as breaks ties in determining trumps. So Clubs is the suit if it is one of the tied suits, failing that it is Spades, and failing that Hearts (if only Hearts and Diamonds complete the escalation together).

The game continues until the advance suit has completed its fourth escalation. The hand in which it does so is the final hand of the game. Escalations may be tracked by upturning the 3s of the pack, starting with the one of the advance suit.

However, if the escalations occur too slowly this goal is lowered. The game is reduced to three escalations if:

In any eventuality the game ends after hand 28 if it has not yet done so. In the unlikely event the first and second escalations have not been completed after hand 14 and 21 respectively the game is reduced to two escalations.

A shorter game can be agreed by playing to three, two, or even one escalation, although this should usually be agreed beforehand, in which case analagous shortenings apply.

Variants

Alternate trump rules

There are a couple of variants for how the trump suit is determined, in contrast to Static Scalade described above.

Mobile Scalade

Mobile Scalade is a version of Scalade that alters how the trump suit is determined. In 'Static Scalade' the trump suit for a hand is determined by the rungs of the ladders present at the start of a hand. In Mobile Scalade, the rule for determining the trump suit from the ladder rungs is the same, except that this determination occurs before each trick. The trump suit can therefore change, possibly several times, during the course of a hand.

For example, at the beginning of the first hand the trump suit is Diamonds as usual. In the first trick 6♦ and 7♦ are played. For the second trick, then the trump suit becomes Hearts (as 6♥ is the lowest rung, on '6'). In this trick 7♥ is played. Then for the third trick Spades will be trumps (as Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades are all on '7', and Spades ranks highest of these suits). And so on.

Retromobile Scalade

This idea is taken a step further in Retromobile Scalade. It works as Mobile Scalade, except that the determination takes place before resolving the winner of the current trick. That is to say, at the end of the trick, first the rungs of the ladders are updated, which then sets the trump suit. Then this new trump suit comes into immediate effect, and is used to determine the winner of the trick.

In the example above for Mobile Scalade, the first trick will have Hearts as trump, and the second trick will have Spades.

Double Scalade

Double Scalade is a variant of Scalade in which each suit has two distinct ladders. Play is identical to the standard form of the game ('Single Scalade'), except for the following differences.

Equipment

Include the 3s in the pack, so that a 48-card pack is used, lacking only the 2s. For scoring 3s count their face value, as other pip cards, and in trick-play they rank naturally below 4s.

Setup

The setup is as above but with an additional card in each suit, so that the initial (ownerless) ladders have rungs:

Play

The trump-suit is the suit with the overall-lowest rung at the start of the hand, with ties again being broken with the same hierarchy as in Single Scalade. Ladder capture works the same, except that there are two ladders in each suit to track.

Note that ladders of the same suit will generally have a gap between them. The only time they may abut is if one of them has the next card up in the dead cards, and the other one 'catches up'. The gap will naturally open again whenever the next rung is not dealt into the dead cards.

Scoring

Players score for each ladder as in Single Scalade.

The final trick scores the sum of the lowest two rungs of the eight ladders.

Holding bonuses

Players only get the holding marker for a suit (or add a token to one they already have) if they hold both ladders of a suit at the end of a hand. However, scoring works the same regardless of how many ladders in a suit are held. So a player holding both Hearts ladders after the first hand gets the Hearts holding marker. Next hand if that player has only one Hearts ladder it will score double, but they will relinquish the holding marker (as no other player can have both Hearts ladders).

Ending the game

The game ends in the same way as Single Scalade, except that an escalation is defined as being made when the lower ladder of a suit reaches its initial value again. This can be tracked by counting every other time a ladder of that suit gains or passes that value. For instance, in Diamonds, the first time a ladder reaches or passes 5 will be the upper ladder, and the next time a ladder reaches or passes 5 it will be the lower ladder, and thus Clubs has completed an escalation.

Holding bonus capping

Holding bonuses can create very large scores for individual hands, if a player holds a suit for several hands in a row. If you wish to have slightly less variance, particularly for shorter games where there may be less time for luck to balance out, you might want to play with capping.

The game plays the same, except that there is a maximum holding multiplier. So for instance playing with holding multipliers capped at 2 means that holding a suit at the end of one hand means it counts double the next hand, but if still held the subsequent hand the score is still just doubled, rather than tripled.

You could also cap multipliers at 3, 4, or even higher, although probably capping relatively high will make little difference to the standard rules, where the multiplier is uncapped (effectively a capping of positive infinity).

Capping the multiplier at 1 has the same effect as removing holding bonuses altogether, which may be to the taste of some.

Rubber Scalade

Sometimes large scores accumulate in Scalade. To counterbalance this, it may be preferable to play Rubber Scalade. A shorter game is played, with the winner winning 'one game'. The overall match is to a fixed number of games, with the score in each game being irrelevant beyond determining the winner.

Usually this would be one-escalation games, with the winner of the match being the first to win two such games. This of course means that the number of hands played is much more variable than in a standard four-escalation game.

Scalade for more

Scalade was designed as a three-player game. However, sometimes you find yourselves with more than three people looking to play a card game together. Of course, there are plently of other games you could consider playing, but if you are really keen to play Scalade then it is perfectly possible to adapt the game to more players.

The fact that there is game state that carry between hands (the ladders) means that it doesn't really work to simply take it in turns to sit out of hands, as happens in some other games. Instead we must adjust the game slightly to accomodate more players.

Scalade may be played with four, five, or perhaps even six players. The rules are identical to the three-player game, except that the cards that comprise the pack are altered slightly in each case, as well as the number dealt to each player (and therefore the number of tricks per hand). The details are laid out in the following table. In each case the deal follows the same format:

# players Single/Double Scalade Number of tricks Cards in pack Cards removed from 52-card pack
3 Single 12 44 2s, 3s
4 Single 10 48 2s
5 Single 8 48 2s
6 Single 6 44 2s, 3s
3 Double 12 48 2s
4 Double 10 52 -
5 Double 8 52 -
6 Double 6 48 2s

If playing with four (or six), you may wish to play in partnerships rather than individually. In such a case play is still the same — holding bonuses apply to individual players, with scores being combined at the end of each hand after being reckoned separately.

I have not tried Scalade with more than three, so not sure how well it plays. I suspect it still works reasonably well at four, and may even be superior to the three-player version, particularly playing at partners. I imagine it becomes increasingly more unwieldy with more players, and probably not worth attempting beyond six.

Where to Play

Traditionally some in Sussex say that the game should be played in the pub nearest to a castle. However, that is not always a practical or desirable option, so there are various other possibilities that still keep in the spirit. In rough descending order of preference, the game should ideally be played:

Failing any of these options it is acceptable to think of some connexion to any of the above, or to the game of Scalade in some fashion, no matter how flimsy, tortuous, or convoluted.

Pubs near castles

Committed Scalade enthusiasts may wish to consult this (highly incomplete) list of pubs nearest to specified castles for the ideal Scalading experience. Some of these pubs I have been to at some point, and are fine places to play cards. Most I have not visited, or done so recently, so it may be best to research beforehand, particularly to check opening hours / whether the pub still exists. Mostly these are Sussex-based, but I have included a few others with no particular strategy.

I used the highly scientific method of using my eyeballs and fingers on online maps, so results are approximate. Sometimes more than one were in reasonable contention, in which case I have listed multiple. If you have any additions / suggestions / corrections / other comments then do let me know. I would especially like to know any interesting locations you have played Scalade at!

Sussex

Kent

London

Pubs with Scalade-appropriate names

If you thought that list was incomplete, then check out this beaut. These are a selection of pubs that have suitable names for playing Scalade in, by my judgement. This list excludes any appearing as a 'closest-to-a-castle' pub.

Rest of the World

An even more incomplete listing for 'rest of the world' venues:

Online play

Scalade is available to play, with a few different options, in-browser against bots on the 'Play Scalade Online' page. The bots are reasonable for getting a feel for the game, but not particularly competitive.

What to play

Tastes vary, and you may want different things from a game at different times, which is partly why I have a few different flavours of Scalade available. Nevertheless, as having so many variants is a slight cop-out design-wise, I feel I should at least give some soft personal recommendations as a guide to newcomers.

In terms of trump rules, I currently (July '25) prefer Mobile Scalade over Static Scalade. I like both, and they have fairly different feels (as much as I've experienced), but for the moment I'd prefer to play Mobile, given the choice. I could well believe that will change again in the future. My rough impressions of the two:

I've not tried Retromobile yet, but my suspicion is that may be too brainburnery for the benefit. It probably feels fairly like Mobile Scalade, but with an additional layer of calculation, which for now I'm not convinced will add much.

As far as holding bonuses go, I like to play uncapped. It certainly has higher variance, and a game can easily get out of reach if someone gets a very good run, but I really like the sense of 'momentum' that builds up when players start stacking bonuses. In practice I find there's often not huge amounts you can do to push ladders away from holders, but you certainly can do some things / limit the ladder height, which help, and I think that this adds an interesting dimension to the game.

This ties in with how many escalations to play, however. For a single escalation game, which is often three or four hands, there is not enough time for momentum to swing one way, and then another. Personally I think I'd miss holding bonuses altogether, but in such games I might cap it at two (no more than double points). I might cap double escalation games at three for similar reasons, though haven't tried that out much.

I think the game probably works fine without holding bonuses, and I don't object to playing it at that way. I could probably be convinced that that is the best way. But for now I don't believe so.

Probably, however, capped bonuses of some level will be the most skillful game. But I think with playing uncapped, what you lose in the game being slightly more luck-led is gained in the excitement of building up bonuses across hands, and the joy of sacrificing the chance at higher-value ladders to get hold of a low-scoring ladder in order to stack the bonus for future hands.

I haven't played Double Scalade enough to form much of an opinion, but for now I find it a bit too much to keep track of, and thus a bit chaotic. It might work better with more players, where there is already going on, and it may help to allow a bit more to play for, so that ladders aren't so scarce relative to the number of players.

Contact

If you have any thoughts about the game, or questions / any other feedback, feel free to get in touch at: scalade 'at' repiqued-interests.co.uk.