Sheepshead

Sheepshead is played by five players, you and four computer players, each playing for themselves from hand to hand. It uses 32 cards, the Seven up to the Ace in each suit. Everyone gets six cards, and two go face down to the blind.

Fourteen cards are trumps, highest first: Q♣ Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ J♣ J♠ J♥ J♦ A♦ 10♦ K♦ 9♦ 8♦ 7♦. The other cards of clubs, spades and hearts are the fail suits, ranking A 10 K 9 8 7. Card points: Ace 11, Ten 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2, for 120 in the pack.

Starting left of the dealer, each player may pick up the blind or pass. The picker adds the two cards to their hand and buries two, whose points count for the picker. The picker then calls the Ace of a fail suit they hold a card of but not the Ace itself. Whoever holds that Ace is the picker's secret partner, and the other three play together against them. The player left of the dealer leads; you must follow suit if you can (trumps count as one suit), otherwise play anything. The highest trump wins the trick, otherwise the highest card of the suit led.

• The picker must keep a card of the called suit, and the partner the called Ace, until that suit is first led. Then the partner must play the Ace.
• A picker holding all three fail Aces calls a Ten instead. A picker with no fail cards except Aces, or none at all, calls an Ace of a suit they hold none of and sets aside an unknown card, played face down when that suit is first led. It can't win the trick.
• The picker may go alone, and must if nothing can be called.
• The picker's side wins with 61 points or more (a 60–60 tie loses). Each defender then pays 1 point, 2 if the defenders took fewer than 30 (schneider) and 3 if they took no trick. If the picker's side loses, it pays double: 2, 4 if it took 30 or fewer, 6 with no trick. The picker's share is twice the partner's, or four times a defender's alone, so the scores always add up to zero.
• If everyone passes, the hand is a leaster: the blind is set aside, everyone plays alone, and the player with the fewest points who took at least one trick wins 1 point from each of the others. A tie scores nothing.
• A game is ten hands, so everyone deals twice.

• Tap Pick up or Pass when it's your turn to decide.
• As picker, tap two cards to bury and tap Bury these two. Then tap a Call button, or Go alone. With an unknown card, tap the card to set aside.
• On your turn, tap a highlighted card.

• Daily: everyone gets the same deals each day.
• New Game: a fresh game with new deals.

• The picker's side leads trumps; the defenders lead fail, and the called suit first if they can. When an Ace was called the picker can't win that trick, and it forces the partner to show the Ace.
• Count the trumps: fourteen in all, and the game revolves around them.
• When a friend is sure to win a trick, give it your Aces and Tens. Players call this schmier.
• In a leaster, get rid of a bare Ace or Ten early, and take a cheap trick to qualify.

Sheepshead is the American form of Schafkopf, literally sheep's head. Like Schafkopf, the national card game of Bavaria, it descends from an older German game of the same name. According to pagat.com, the oldest form was probably for four players in fixed partnerships. Nineteenth-century German and early twentieth-century American rule books describe versions for three, four, six and eight players. Three-handed play became the standard in American card-game books in the mid-twentieth century, while in Milwaukee the five-handed game became the most popular.

Sheepshead is most at home in Wisconsin, where it is sometimes called the unofficial state card game, and it's also common in the German-American counties of southern Indiana. In 1983 Milwaukee declared it the city's official card game, and tournaments run across the state every year. The name is usually explained by an old way of keeping score: drawing a stylised sheep's head with nine lines. A popular story that it comes from playing on a barrel head is rejected by experts.

The rules here follow pagat.com's main description, Eric Bushnell's five-handed Milwaukee game with a called Ace, written in our own words.

Sheepshead is a free browser version of the classic Wisconsin card game, played against four computer players, with a daily game and online leaderboards. There's nothing to download and no sign-up.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.