Looking Back To 2025 Part 2

"Looking back teaches us more than predicting the future." Hannah Arendt

JULY: Four Decades of Human Child

In the middle of the month, the time had finally come – I was "allowed" to celebrate my 40th birthday. Since I was born in East Berlin in 1985, I chose the GDR as the theme for the three-day celebration. It all kicked off on Friday with the film Two to One. in the rented hall at the Union cinema . On Saturday, we first went on a bunker tour near Bernau, and afterwards we celebrated together, including some overnight guests, at our dacha, which I inherited from my grandfather.

SEPTEMBER: German Online Championships of the DOSKV

This year, I tried my hand at the German Online Championship of the DOSKV for the first time. After several qualifying rounds with hundreds of players, the German Champion was ultimately crowned from among the final 9 best players. But let's start from the beginning: In the preliminary round, I qualified for the playoffs in 41st place out of 99 with an average of 1035 points across 5 series. There, the top 53 (30th place for me with an average of 1045 across 10 series) out of nearly 300 players advanced to the semifinals. My run ended in the semifinals because after 8 of 10 rounds, I only had a score of 888 points and therefore didn't need to finish the remaining rounds.

Congratulations, Dirk Miehe , on winning the title of German Online Skat Champion 2025!!!

My epic fail, or: I won't make that mistake three times!

What happened? While researching this section, I was shocked to discover that I should have played the two missing lists in the semi-finals. Because of that, I missed out on almost €100 in prize money.

So always read the job posting carefully, kids. 😊

OCTOBER: October ranking on Euroskat and a Scrabble tournament

From the second half of the year onwards, my online skat playing schedule increased significantly. I started participating more frequently in Euroskat standard tournaments. When I suddenly achieved an average rating of 1200 per list (36 games each) after 15 such tournaments, I was now in contention for the overall victory in the October monthly ranking. To be included in the monthly ranking, players must have participated in at least 25 standard tournaments.

To put this in perspective: I had only ever achieved an average score of over 1100 over 15 rounds once before, and that was at the Online World Championship 2022. And only a handful of players had recorded an average score of 1200 at the end of a monthly ranking at that time: Zessionar, Firstking, Zinnitzking, VFL and Seher1984.

What can I tell you? The run just wouldn't stop:

The game share of 32.22%, the win rate of 92.41% and the counter-play rate of 21.00% are also impressive.

So this is what the air feels like up there.

A spontaneous meeting with a reigning European Skat champion and 3-time Skat Masters champion at a Scrabble tournament in Magdeburg, or: Kiebitzing in a different way.

At the beginning of the month, Hartmut Seeber let me know that he would be participating in a Scrabble tournament in Magdeburg and that there was still one spot available. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend. Since it only takes me two hours to get to Magdeburg from home by regional train, I spontaneously decided to attend a Scrabble tournament. As luck would have it, I had read a fascinating article about the "God of Tiles," Nigel Richards , just a few days earlier. Thinking I would please the tournament participants, I had brought the article with me. However, they all already knew it. Oh well. Nevertheless, Hartmut kindly let me sit next to him during his three tournament games, and that's how I learned how tournament Scrabble works.

Was haben "wir" denn da für Steinchen gezogen!?

DECEMBER: Tournaments in snowy surroundings and in North Rhine-Westphalia

A short skat holiday in Seefeld , Tyrol, had been planned well in advance. During the first week of December, Marion Schindhelm (I've known Marion since my first skat trip in Schlögen in 2004, where she also played) and Wolfgang Wehr organized a charming, almost familial, eight-series tournament spread over three days. I wasn't satisfied with my game, and unfortunately, my equipment couldn't compensate for my shortcomings. 24th place out of 38 in the singles and 10th place out of 13 in the tandem (with Volker Hainke) meant no money for us. ☹

What I was particularly pleased about, however, was that an "old" acquaintance, Karin Warkentin from Franconia, accepted my request to participate in the German Mixed Cup in Magdeburg in March. Together, we will compete as Karin von Bora and her partner Jörg .

I had a more enjoyable end to the year "between Christmas and New Year's" in Mönchengladbach. After Braunschweig in '23 and Bünte in '24, I participated in a skat tournament for the third time shortly after Christmas, almost as a tradition. The organizer, Natascha Rau, asked me beforehand if I would play tandem with her. In our first tandem tournament, we achieved 4th place (out of 18). In the mixed doubles, we would have even finished in first place after the four rounds. With the three-person team, we also came in 4th (out of 11). In the singles competition, I was in 15th place after three of four rounds. With 1448 points in the final round, I was even able to climb up to 6th place, thus finishing in the money in all three competitions .

In the last game of the last round, I even had an exciting decision to make: At that point, places 4 through 7 were separated by only one hand, meaning that with this card, I could still have moved in either direction. For 4th place, I would have "had to" bid 18 and play a Grand. Would that be an 18 for you in this situation? Of course, we didn't know what was in the Skat at that moment. ;-)

Thus, after many sporting disappointments and some highlights, I ended the skat year '25 with the certainty that an upward development curve can be seen.

Outlook for 2026

January: The Championship Final on Euroskat.com , the Online World Championship on skat-spielen.de

February: Berlin Individual Championships

March: German Mixed Cup in Magdeburg

April: Berlin Tandem Championships

May: German Individual and Team Championships of the ISPA in Magdeburg

June: possible qualification for the German Individual Championships DSkV in Magdeburg

August: possible qualification for the German Tandem Championships DSkV, Skat World Championship of the ISPA in Vienna

September: Elbe-Elster-Skatmarathon

Which tournaments do you have planned? Where might we see each other?

I wish you a successful Skat year 2026.

And as always: Always a good hand. Even at the skat table.

Yours, Jörg