German Solo

German solo, usually called simply solo, is a German plain trick card game for four individual players using a 32 card pack, either German suited or French suited in the style associated with skat. It developed as a simplification of quadrille, itself an adaptation of the Spanish game ombre reworked for four players rather than ombre's original three, and the game is played by individual competitors rather than fixed partnerships, with alliances forming and dissolving hand to hand based on bidding. The card scholar David Parlett described German solo as a neat little descendant of quadrille and pointed to it as an accessible entry point into the wider ombre family of trick taking card games. German solo also occupies an important place in the history of card games because of its shared lineage with ombre, Tarock and Schafkopf, three games whose rules and structure fed into the later development of skat, now Germany's best known card game. Play proceeds clockwise, with each of the eight tricks per deal scored individually.