  We report on the first steps of an ongoing project to add gauge observables
and gauge corrections to the well-studied strong coupling limit of staggered
lattice QCD, which has been shown earlier to be amenable to numerical
simulations by the worm algorithm in the chiral limit and at finite density.
Here we show how to evaluate the expectation value of the Polyakov loop in the
framework of the strong coupling limit at finite temperature, allowing to study
confinement properties along with those of chiral symmetry breaking. We find
the Polyakov loop to rise smoothly, thus signalling deconfinement. The
non-analytic nature of the chiral phase transition is reflected in the
derivative of the Polyakov loop. We also discuss how to construct an effective
theory for non-zero lattice coupling, which is valid to $O(\beta)$.
