Free Skull King Scorecard.
Live leaderboard, stepper buttons, no signup. Plays in your phone's browser. Optional QR sharing if your table wants live scores on every screen.
Add at least 2 players to begin scoring.
How scoring works in Skull King
Skull King is a 10-round pirate trick-taking game. Each round players bid the number of tricks they think they'll take from a hand whose size equals the round number. If you bid and make it exactly, you score 20 × your bid. Miss it and you lose 10 per trick you were off. Bidding zero is special: if you take no tricks, you score +10 × round; if you take any, you lose 10 × round. Special cards (Pirates, Mermaids, the Skull King) award bonus points when they capture each other — track those in the bonus field per round. Highest total after 10 rounds wins.
Rules sourced from Official Skull King rules (Grandpa Beck's Games).
Skull King scorecard — common questions
How does the zero-bid scoring work in Skull King?+
Bidding zero is a high-risk play. If you take exactly zero tricks like you bid, you score +10 × round number (so +50 in round 5, +100 in round 10). But if you take any tricks at all, you LOSE 10 × round. That's why bid-zero in late rounds is the most dramatic part of the game — it's either a huge swing your way or a brutal loss.
How do bonus points work?+
Bonus points come from specific card captures: Pirate captures a regular card = +20 each, Skull King captures a Pirate = +30 each, Mermaid captures the Skull King = +40 each. Track these in the bonus field at the end of each round. They stack on top of your trick-prediction score.
What happens if I bid wrong?+
You lose 10 × the difference between your bid and your actual tricks taken. So if you bid 3 and took 5, you lose 20 (off by 2). The math: |actual − bid| × 10 points lost. The only exception is bid zero, which has its own special scoring.
How is Skull King different from Wizard?+
Both are bid-and-trick games but Skull King has special-card capture bonuses (Pirates, Mermaids, the Skull King) that Wizard doesn't. Wizard has the cleaner math; Skull King has the chaos. The calculator supports both — see our Wizard scorecard.
Is it really free? Do I need to sign up?+
Yes, free, no signup. The scorecard runs entirely in your browser — no account, no app to install, no tile data sent anywhere. Ads on the page keep the site running.
How do I share the scorecard with my table?+
Tap the QR code button at the top of any scorecard. Everyone scans it with their phone camera and gets a live view of the same scorecard — they can watch the leaderboard update in real time as you tap.
Do scores save if I close the tab?+
Yes — the in-progress scorecard is saved automatically in your browser. Open the same scorecard URL on the same device and your scores will still be there. To clear, tap Reset.
Does it work on mobile?+
Yes — every scorecard is built phone-first. Big tap targets, big numbers, designed to be passed around the table. Bookmark to your home screen for one-tap access.
Can I undo a tap?+
Yes — every scorecard has an Undo button at the top. It rolls back the last 20 score changes. The Reset button starts the whole game over.
What if my game isn't listed?+
Use the Any Board Game generic scorecard — it gives you flexible round columns and editable labels so you can score basically any round-based game. If you want a specific game added, the AI Prompts Library link in the footer has a feedback form.
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