The games · Coolhand Cards

Sheepshead

A Wisconsin game grown from Schafkopf. Pick up the widow, call an ace you lack, and play the hand with whoever turns out to hold it.

Players: 5
Family: Bidding Games
App: Coolhand Cards · iOS and Android, soon

How it goes

Thirty-two cards, seven to ace, six each and two face down: the widow. Starting left of whoever dealt, each player in turn picks it up or passes. The first to pick takes both cards and buries two, and their points count for the picker. The picker calls an ace of clubs, spades or hearts that they lack, keeping a card of its suit, or plays alone. Its holder is the partner, a secret until the ace is played. Each trick is one card apiece, won by the highest trump (any queen, jack or diamond, all above the other suits) or else the highest card of the suit led. Follow suit if you can, with all trumps counting as one suit. The picker's side needs sixty-one of the hundred and twenty card points. Trumps run, top down, the queens of clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds, the jacks in the same order, then the diamonds ace, ten, king, nine, eight, seven. Clubs, spades and hearts rank like the diamonds. Card points run another way: aces eleven, tens ten, kings four, queens three, jacks two. The picker's side wins one on sixty-one to ninety, two on ninety-one or more, and three with every trick. It loses one on thirty-one to sixty, two on thirty or fewer, and three with no trick. Each opponent settles the value, the picker taking double the partner's share, and a lone picker settles with all four. If nobody picks, it's a Leaster: no partners, the fewest points wins among players who took a trick, and the winner takes one from each.

A good hand

Pick on trumps, the cards above every other suit. The top trumps carry little, and a buried ace is eleven points already counted.

The usual mistake

Calling without a plan. The picker keeps a card of the called suit until that suit is led, so it cannot be buried. The partner must play the ace on that first lead, may not throw it on another suit before then, and may lead the suit only with the ace itself. And misreading the value: the picker's share is double the partner's, and a lone picker settles with all four opponents.

Played differently where you are?

Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Sheepshead goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.

The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.