Sheepshead rules

What it is

Sheepshead is a five-player trick-taking game played with a 32-card deck in which all Queens, all Jacks and all Diamonds are permanent trump. It is played across the German-American Midwest and concentrated hard in Wisconsin, where it descends from the Bavarian game Schafkopf. Every hand, one player picks up a two-card blind and becomes the picker, then names an ace to recruit a secret partner. The picker's side needs 61 of the 120 card points in the deck to win the hand; the other three players win by holding them to 60. Two things surprise almost everyone who learns it: all Queens, all Jacks and all Diamonds are trump, and Tens rank second-highest in every suit. This page describes the game as it is played at jpgames.app, which is the five-hand Wisconsin form with the called-ace partner.

The deck

Thirty-two cards — Ace, Ten, King, Queen, Jack, Nine, Eight and Seven in each of the four suits. There are no cards from Two through Six.

Only twenty of those cards are worth anything. The point values are what you are counting all hand, and they total 120 across the deck:

Trump is not a suit that changes hand to hand. It is fixed for every hand of every game: all four Queens, all four Jacks, and all eight Diamonds are trump — fourteen cards. The remaining eighteen cards, the Aces through Sevens of Spades, Hearts and Clubs, are called fail.

Trump ranks in one continuous order, highest first:

Queens outrank Jacks, Jacks outrank every Diamond, and within the Queens and Jacks the suit order is clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds. The Queen of Clubs is the highest card in the game.

Each fail suit — Spades, Hearts and Clubs — ranks like this:

The Ten sits between the Ace and the King. This is the single most common mistake new players make, and it matters twice: the Ten takes the trick over a King, and it is worth 10 points when it does. The table marks trump cards in your hand with a brass edge and groups them to one side, so you never have to work out whether the Jack of Hearts is trump. It is.

The deal

Each player is dealt six cards, and two more go face down to the middle as the blind. The deal rotates clockwise each hand.

The pick, the bury and the partner call

Starting to the dealer's left, each player in turn either picks or passes.

The first player to pick takes both blind cards into their hand, which gives them eight, and becomes the picker for that hand. They then bury two cards face down. Buried cards are out of play, but their points count for the picker's side at the end of the hand — burying an Ace keeps its eleven points, which is why it is usually an Ace that goes down. Nobody else sees what was buried.

The picker then names an ace they do not hold, and whoever holds that ace is their partner for the hand. The picker must hold at least one fail card in the called suit, because they need to be able to lead it. If every ace is unreachable under that rule, the picker calls a Ten of a suit they can lead instead; and in the rare case where nothing at all is callable, the picker plays alone against the other four.

The partner stays secret. They know who they are and the picker knows the card, but nobody at the table learns who the partner is until the called ace is played. When it hits the table the site announces the partner and marks their seat for the rest of the hand.

If all five players pass, nobody picks. What happens then is a table setting — see Leaster below.

Play

The picker leads the first trick. After that the winner of each trick leads the next one.

You must follow suit if you can. Trump counts as its own suit for this purpose, so when a Diamond is led, a Queen or a Jack follows suit and a Spade does not — "a Diamond was led" and "trump was led" are the same event. If you cannot follow, you may play anything, including trump. Nothing forces you to trump in.

The highest trump takes the trick. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led takes it.

One extra rule binds the partner: once the called suit is led, the partner has to play the called ace on that trick if they are able to. They cannot hold it back for a better moment. The table enforces this — the card will simply be the only one you can play.

Scoring

At the end of the hand each side counts the points in the tricks it won. The picker's side adds the two buried cards. The two totals always add to 120.

The picker's side needs 61. At 61 or more they win the hand; at 60 or fewer the defenders win it.

How much changes hands depends on how lopsided the hand was:

The transfer is paid by each defender, or to each defender, so a normal win pays the picker's side three times the base amount and a no-trickers pays nine times. The site scores in abstract points with a fixed base of two, rather than the nickels and dimes a kitchen-table game runs on.

The picker and the partner do not split evenly. The picker takes two-thirds of what the side wins and pays two-thirds of what it loses, with the partner taking or paying the remainder. That is the standard Wisconsin ratio, and it is the reason picking is a real decision rather than a free option. A picker who played alone keeps the whole amount, win or lose.

Ending the game

A table plays a set number of hands and then stops — the host chooses how many when the table is made, and the choices are ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty. Twenty is the default. Whoever is ahead on accumulated points when the last hand is scored wins the session.

There is no running target to reach. Sheepshead settles up every hand, so the score is a ledger rather than a race.

Variants we implement

1. Called-ace partner — always on, and not currently optional. See below.
2. Leaster — on by default, and switchable off in the table settings. When all five players pass, a leaster is played: there is no picker, no partner and no blind pickup, and every player is on their own. The player who takes the fewest points wins the hand and collects the base amount from each of the other four. There is one catch that decides most leasters — a player who takes no tricks at all cannot win one. Taking nothing is not the same as taking little. With the setting off, an all-pass hand is thrown in and redealt instead.
3. Hand count — ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty hands per session, set by the host, default twenty.

Where we differ from the common rules

Sheepshead has more regional variation than almost any game on this site, and this is the five-hand Wisconsin form. If your table plays it differently, this is probably where:

1. The Jack of Diamonds partner rule is not implemented. Some tables make the holder of the J♦ the picker's partner automatically instead of calling an ace. We use the called ace, which is the Wisconsin default and which handles the awkward case where the picker holds the Jack of Diamonds themselves.
2. Three-hand and four-hand games are not implemented. Five seats only. Bots fill any seat nobody takes, so a five-hand game starts with one player present.
3. No cracking, kontra or re-kontra. There is no way to double the stakes mid-hand.
4. No doublers. Hands are not marked to score double after a passed-out hand or by dealer's convention.
5. No "mit" or "ohne" bonus for holding a run of the top trump.
6. Points are abstract. Nothing is wagered, nothing is paid out, and the base is fixed rather than set as a nickel or dime stake.

Ready to play? Start a Sheepshead table — bots fill the empty seats, so a five-handed game starts whenever you do.

For the wider game, including the regional variants above that we do not implement, see Sheepshead on Wikipedia.

Common questions

How many players do you need for Sheepshead?

Five. The Wisconsin game is built around five hands, and the deal, the blind and the scoring all assume it. On this site bots fill any seat nobody takes, so a five-handed game starts as soon as one person sits down.

What is trump in Sheepshead?

Trump never changes. All four Queens, all four Jacks and all eight Diamonds are trump in every hand — fourteen cards in total, ranked Queens first, then Jacks, then the remaining Diamonds. Everything else is called fail.

What is the highest card in Sheepshead?

The Queen of Clubs. The four Queens are the top four cards in the game, ranked clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds, and the four Jacks follow them in the same suit order.

How many points do you need to win a hand of Sheepshead?

The picker's side needs 61 of the 120 points in the deck. The three defenders win the hand by holding the picker's side to 60 or fewer.

What is a leaster in Sheepshead?

A leaster is what happens when all five players pass rather than pick. There is no picker and no partner, everyone plays for themselves, and the player who takes the fewest points wins — except that a player who takes no tricks at all cannot win one. It is on by default here and can be switched off, in which case an all-pass hand is redealt.

What is a schneider in Sheepshead?

A schneider is a lopsided hand that pays double. The picker's side schneiders the defenders by taking 91 or more of the 120 points; the defenders schneider the picker by holding them to 30 or fewer.