I was born and raised in a small town west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin where many German immigrants had settled. Most of the people there play Sheepshead as a social gathering game. My Grandfather's ancestors came from southern Germany. He married an english woman and they had five boys. Many of my earliest memories are of thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents house with my father and his four brothers playing SheepsHead. Right after dinner, the table would be cleared and grandpa would yell "Schafskopf". What I remember involves lots of beer drinking and yelling about, and at, people who play the wrong card at the wrong time. When I went to high school I met many other SheepsHead players and the game was often the center of the social activity. I went to the Engineering School at the University of Wisconsin in Platteville, Wisconsin. The first day I moved into the dorm I went into the basement where there was a SheepsHead game in progress. The game played there was a four player game where the person who picked up the blind played against the other three players (usually called cut-throat). We played for nickels and I could win a whole five dollars by sitting there playing from six at night until six in the morning. That game was continious for the five years I was there. There were always people waiting to get a seat at the table (when one person left another took their place) and I could often win enough money to pay for dinner or beer.

After college I went to work at an engineering firm in Sheboygan (Yes it claims to be the bratwurst capital of the world), Wisconsin. Every noon hour there was a SheepsHead game in the lunchroom with several people hanging around kibitizing about good and bad plays. It was like playing stadium SheepsHead. I worked there for 25 years and the game was played every lunch hour. My son, who still works there, tells me the game is still being played. I think we did more work and came up with great project solutions while playing. Often the president of the company would come and sit in (he was great for the company but a really bad SheepsHead player) so it was obvious that card playing in the lunchroom was a good career move.

The game can be played by 3 to seven players and there are many different variations of the basic game. I have participated in many SheepsHead tournaments where a five player game (a game with five players is usually referred to as a five handed game, three players a three handed game, etc.) is the most preferred; the picker calls(names) a card and the holder of that card will play as a partner of the picker. Five handed seems to be most preferred by groups of players when they get together. This computer program plays three popular versions of the game (by the most common rules around the areas of Wisconsin I grew up in - there are often local rules and nuiances implemented by in local areas - like the dealer always has to pick up the blind if everyone else passes).

This program plays:

 •  Five hand Call an Ace - a five-handed game where the picker names (calls) a card (usually an Ace) and the player with that card in their hand becomes the partner of the picker and the game is played with those two players against the other three
 •  Five Hand Jack-o-Diamonds - a five handed game where the picker and the player with the Jack of Diamonds in their hand becomes the partner of the picker and the game is played as those two players against the other three.

There are many other variations (four handed, first two queens partners) and four handed fixed partners with your partner sitting directly across the table from you, a six handed game where the picker has two partners (the picker names a card and the person with the Jack-of-diamonds) and those three play against the other three. The basic rules of each game are the same but the playing strategy with 3, 4, 5 or 6 players is a little different.

This computer program allows you to play the game as if you were playing with other people and is a great way to learn the game or improve you playing skills. The program was created on a bet in the 1970s. One of the people at work bet me that it could not be done. The first version was written in FORTRAN, then moved to BASIC, then VISUAL BASIC, HTML, JAVASCRIPT and a couple of other programming languages.