Gamehelpsheepshead

Game Overview

Sheepshead (American Schafkopf) is a trick based card game played with 5 players using a "Piquet" deck (32 cards: 7-A in 4 suits). The game is played for a predetermined number of rounds where each player has a chance to be the dealer for a hand. Each hand has a bidding phase and a play phase (similar to Spades or Bridge). 6 cards are dealt to each player with the 2 leftover cards being set aside in the blind.

Bidding

At the start of each hand, the players with determine the teams (picking vs opposing) with a simple bidding process. Biding starts with the player left of the dealer and continues around the table with each player choosing to pick or pass on receiving the 2 cards in the blind. If a player picks, they are on the picking team along with the player who has the partner card in their hand (default is the J♢). This partner is not revealed until they play that card. The picking player must bury 2 of their cards who's points will be counted towards the picking team's point total at the end of the hand. The remaining players are part of the opposing team. If no player picks, the dealer is forced to pick by default. Details regarding the partner card, going alone, no-bid rules, and doubling are described in the sections below.

Play

Play starts with the player left of the dealer who may lead any card in their hand. The lead suit must be followed for each trick with any trump card counting as a diamond lead. If a player doesn't have the lead suit, they may play any card they want including trump. The player with the strongest played card wins the trick and leads the next card (see "card strength").

Point Tallying

Once all of the cards have been played, the points are tallied (see "card point values"). The team with the most points wins the round with larger point differentials resulting in a higher score (see "scoring"). The scores are always a net 0 meaning that the winning team gets positive points while the losing team gets negative points. After the predetermined number of rounds have been played, the player with the highest score wins. In the event of a tie, the player who won the most hands wins.

Rules

Card Strength

There are 14 cards in the trump suit: all four queens, all four jacks, and all of the diamonds. The order of strength for the trump cards from highest to lowest is:

Q♣ Q♠ Q♡ Q♢ J♣ J♠ J♡ J♢ A♢ 10♢ K♢ 9♢ 8♢ 7♢

Note that the queens and jacks follow the same suit order (♣ ♠ ♡ ♢) and that the 10 has a higher rang than a king.

The remaining suits (♣ ♠ ♡, called "fail suits"), contain 6 cards. The order of strength for the fail suits from highest to lowest is:

A 10 K 9 8 7

Note again that kings have a lower rank than 10s.

Card Point Values

There are 120 points for each hand with each card having a specific point value regardless of suit:

Card Rank	Points
Ace	11
Ten	10
King	4
Queen	3
Jack	2
9, 8, 7	0

Note that the queens and jacks have low point values even though they are the strongest cards.

In the event of a tie in points taken during the hand, the opposing team will win the hand.