The History of Thirty-One
A quick pub and family game with many names, in which three cards and one suit decide everything.
An Old Target Number
Card games in which players aim for a total of 31 have been known in Europe for centuries, and the number turns up in several unrelated games. The three-card game played here belongs to the group of so-called commerce games, where players improve their hands by exchanging cards with a shared pool in the middle.
Nobody knows who first played it in its present form. Like most folk card games it spread by being played, not by being written down, and its rules were passed on from table to table with small local differences.
Swimming, Knocking, Scat
In German-speaking countries the game is known as Schwimmen, Schnauz, Knack or simply 31; in English-speaking countries as Thirty-One or Scat. The German name comes from the player who has lost all lives and is 'swimming' through a last round.
Lives were traditionally counted with coins or matches in front of each player. PaperGames shows them as filled and empty circles, so the state of the game stays clear on a black-and-white screen.