Description of Play

Sheepshead is a trick winning game played by 3 to 6 players. The most popular games are the 4 and 5 player games. Four player games are usually played where one person plays against the other three and five player games are usually games where one person selects a partner and is played as two people against the other three.

A hand of cards is dealt to each player (the first person to deal is chosen at random and then the deal passes to the next player on the left after each hand is played). A hand is one deal of the cards and a trick is each player around the table playing one card.

Deck of Sheepshead Cards

The game is played with 32 cards (queens, jacks, aces, kings, tens, 9s, 8s and 7s of each suit) which makes a deck of 32 cards.

There are four playing suits, Trump, Clubs, Spades, Hearts. The trump suit has 14 cards, made of the 4 queens, the 4 jacks, and all the remaining diamonds. The cards rank in the following order Q♣,Q♠, Q♥,Q♦, J♣,J♠, J♥,J♦,A♦,10♦, K♦, 9♦, 8♦, 7♦. The trump suit is always the same regardless of the game being played. Note that among the four Queens and the Four Jacks the ranking order of the cards is clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds, so the Q♠ is higher than the Q♦. and the J♠ is higher than the J♦. Also, note the order of the A, 10 and King. Ten is higher than King.

Suit	Number of Cards	Cards in the Suit
Trump	14	Q♣,Q♠,Q♥,Q♦,J♣,J♠,J♥,J♦,A♦,10♦, K♦, 9♦, 8♦,7♦
Clubs	6	A♣, 10♣, K♣, 9♣, 8♣ ,7♣
Spades	6	A♠, 10♠, K♠, 9♠, 8♠ ,7♠
Hearts	6	A♥, 10♥, K♥, 9♥, 8♥ ,7♥

Dealing the Cards

Cards are dealt to each player and cards are placed face down on the table in a group called the blind. The number of cards each player receives and the number placed into the blind is dependent upon the number of players:

· with 5 players, each player gets 6 cards, 2 cards are placed into the blind. Cards are dealt as follows;

2 to each player

2 into the blind

2 to each player

· with 4 players, each player gets 7 cards, 4 cards are placed into the blind. Cards are dealt as follows;

2 to each player

2 into the blind

3 to each player

2 into the blind

2 to each player

· with 3 players each player gets 10 cards, 2 are placed into the blind. Cards are dealt as follows;

3 to each player

4 to each player

2 into the blind,

3 to each player

After the deal, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer, each player in turn looks at the cards they were dealt and decides if they want to pick up the blind cards (become the picker) and play against the others (sometimes with a partner and sometimes not). The "picker" is then required to capture (win, gain...) enough tricks with card values that total 61 points (capturing 60 points is considered a loss for the picker).

Point value of cards

The value of each card is as follows:

Card	Value
Queen	3
Jack	2
Ace	11
Ten	10
King	4
Nine	0
Eight	0
Seven	0

for a total of 120 points. Note that the cards in the clubs, spades and heart suits (these are called the fail suits) have the same point value as the cards in the trump suit. The object of the game is to capture(win) a total of 61 points (the picker must capture 61 points to win while the other players only need to capture 60 point to win), so pay attention to the point value of the cards won on each trick. In addition the picker (or other players) must capture at least 31 points (31 for the picker, 30 for the others) to avoid being skunked (in sheepshead this is called schneider) witch counts as a double loss.

After someone picks up the blind, those cards and the cards in their hand are used to make the best hand possible and the same number of cards picked up are discarded back (buried) into the blind and placed face down on the table. The picker can count the point value of the buried blind cards at the end of the hand providing they capture at least one trick. When playing five handed partner games the picker now decides if they want to identify a partner or play alone (the picker against the other four players). If the picker wants a partner they declare (or call) the ace of the fail suit that identifies the partner and the picker must keep at least one fail card from that suit in their hand, that must be played when the called suit is led. If the picker cannot call an ace because they have the ace of the suit they want to call in their hand, the picker can call a 10 of that suit but they must clearly identify that they want the 10 as the partner and keep the Ace in their hand. The partner is not known or identified to the other players until the call suit is led and the player plays the card. When playing the Jack-of-Diamonds partner game the player with the Jack of Diamonds becomes the partner (unless the picker has the Jack of Diamonds in which case they play with no partner).

Play begins with the player immediately to the left of the dealer leading a card (placing it in the middle of the table) followed by each player around the table playing one card.

Basic Rules of Play

• Players must play a card in the same suit as the suit that was led (called following suit), unless they have no cards in that suit. If a player has no cards in the suit led they can play any card they want. Trump always capture (beat, win, rank higher than) fail cards. Suits are Trump, Clubs, Spades and Hearts. For example, if Spades are led and someone plays a Heart on that trick, the heart played cannot take (capture) the Spade, so, the heart is not useful in capturing this trick, but, the points of the heart card are counted by the winner of the trick. The only cards that can capture a suit card led are a suit card of higher rank (remember the order of fail; Ace, Ten, King, nine, eight, seven) or any trump.

• Trump cards always rank higher than fail cards (Trump capture fail).

• The first trick in the hand is played by the person on the dealer's left.

• After the first trick, the person who won the last trick leads the next trick.

• When you pick, you discard as many cards as you picked up.

• Nobody can look at the discarded blind cards until all tricks have been played.

• the picker must capture (win) 61 points to win the hand.

• If you pick and loose, you pay the other players twice the stakes ("double on the bump")

After all the cards are played, The picker (and their partner) add up the points of the cards they won, the other players add up the points of the cards they captured and a winner of the hand is declared, the cards are gathered, shuffled and dealt again.

Keeping Score

A sheepshead game is made up of many hands, usually the players play until they get tired of playing. Keeping score is a matter of paying up after each hand is played. Usually hands are played for some stake or monitary value. Let's use nickels as an example. If you pick and win you are paid one nickel from each of the loosing players (you could play for dimes, quarters, matchsticks, gumdrops, ...the players decide the stakes at the beginning of the game). If you pick and loose, you owe the other players each two nickels (you pay out double if you pick and loose). Some players pay up after each hand is played, but, usually a score sheet is kept during the game and then settled up after playing for some time (or all night long as in being in college and playing sheepshead until dawn). So, keeping a scoresheet is easy. After the hand is played and the score counted the scoresheet is updated. If you win you get 2 scores added to whatever you had before the hand started. Here's an example of a score sheet for five players:

player1 player2 player3 player4 player5

-------- --------- --------- --------- ---------

hand 1 -4 1 2 6 -5

hand 2 -5 3 3 5 -6

Looking at the scoresheet I can tell that player2 picked at hand 2 and won and that player3 was the partner of player2, so player2 had 2 added their score, player3 had one added to their score and each other players score was decreased by 1. Playing for nickels, player1 owes a quater, player6 owes thrity cents. Player 2 and 3 each get paid 15 cents and player4 gets paid 25 cents. The scoresheet is settled after the players decide to quit playing. It's easier to keep a scoresheet that shuffle nickels around the table all night (remember, you can play for whatever stakes you want... playing all night just to win twenty five cents will not pay the rent.)

Some notes on picking and playing

Picking is done by judging the cards in your hand, making a quick observation of how many trump you have, how many point cards you have and how many tricks you think you can win.In addition, look at the fail suit you have and figure out if you can burry the fail suits. Generally, you'd like to eliminate any fail suits so you can play trump on a trick when that fail suit is led (remember, in 5 player call-an-ace you must keep one card of that fail suit in your hand, don't keep the ten or king because most likely that fail suit is going to get trumped and you will loose the ten or king to the other players).

This computer program has the option to play with the cards face up. That's a good way to see what the other players have and how they would play the trick when your trying to learn the game. The program is not based on any complicated mathematical formula or percentages. I wrote this program by shooting off my mouth one day playing with some players who were adeptly bad at playing and saying I could write a computer program that played better than they did. Well of course they bet me I couldn't and I had to show them I could. It took several years to codify general playing strategies that played a game that was tollerable. It was a learning experience because the rules committee (an ad-hoc group of advisors) could not agree on exactly how to play in all situations. The program plays mostly by general intuitions or understanding of the best or most practiced plays in the game and plays very much like real players. It does not count, or look into the hands of the other players to select a card to be played. It plays like real people would play the game.

I've had several good players as consultants, coaches and reviewers and they often don't agree on the best or optimum card to play at any time. There are some general playing strategies, but, the distribution of the cards among the players is always different. I've seen the math on the different number of combinations, it's something in the millions, so a definitive playing strategy does not always work. Generally, there are playing strategies that work most of the time, but there is always the situation where the cards are distributed in ways that are unusual. The unpredictability of the game keeps it interesting. Of course there are times when the program plays cards that real SheepsHead players don't like. Remember some general playing strategies. There are six cards in each fail suit; what are the odds that one player has all six of those cards? - Not very good, but I've seen it happen. Those six fail cards are most likely to be evenly distributed among the four players, but usually somebody will not have any of them. The program decides if one of the computer players (I'd use the term virtual players but I hate the use of the word virtual) should pick based on the number of trump and the strength of those trump in their hand. It wins more than it looses, but if you learn to play well you can often win and from time to time you will be dealt a hand that you couldn't possibly misplay so badly that you loose. If you're dealt the seven highest trump you will win all the tricks and can't loose.