The International Skat Players Association (ISPA) is the worldwide umbrella organisation for all competition
Skat players. The ISPA was founded in 1976 by Peter Brand and Martha Prickartz in
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
, Germany.
It initially crossed swords with the world's largest national Skat association, the
German Skat Association
The German Skat Association (german: Deutscher Skatverband) or DSkV is the umbrella organisation for German Skat clubs. It was founded on 12 March 1899 in Halle an der Saale and the headquarters of the club is the Skat town of Altenburg. From 19 ...
(''Deutscher Skatverband'', DSkV), and promulgated different rules for the game. Towards the end of the 1990s, talks between the top officials of each organisation led to rapprochement and agreement between the two large associations. The ban on double membership was lifted and a uniform International Skat Order (''Internationale Skatordnung '', ISkO) was adopted, which has been valid worldwide ever since. The ISPA delegates two regular commissioners to the
International Skat Court
The International Skat Court is the highest decision-making body in the sport of Skat. It oversees the observance of the International Skat Order (regulations for the game of Skat), the refereeing regulations and the rules for referees in Skat. Th ...
(''Internationale Skatgericht'').
''ISPA World'' is divided into national
branches
A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...
with regional groups and further subdivisions down to local
club
Club may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Club'' (magazine)
* Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character
* Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards
* Club music
* "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea''
Brands and enterprises
...
s. It operates its own leagues as well as cup and championship competitions. Its focus is on the open
World
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
and
European Skat Championships, which have been held annually since 1978/1979 at various venues. In addition, ISPA has organized the Online Skat World Championships biennially since 2011. Furthermore, ISPA publishes the annual magazine, ''Skatmagazin''.
The subdivision of ISPA Germany (''ISPA-Deutschland'') has relatively few members in comparison with the ''DSkV'' and is ''inter alia'' jointly responsible for organising the annual German Skat Championship. This results in double events, because the DSkV also organises German championships with individual and team competitions and runs federal and regional Skat leagues.
See also
*
External links
Official website (international)Official website of ISPA Germany in:
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
, 8 May 1978
References
Skat (card game)
International sports organizations
Organisations based in North Rhine-Westphalia
1976 establishments in Germany
Sport in Aachen
Playing card organisations
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