Sheepshead is a trick-taking card game for three to five active players, played with a thirty-two-card deck, in which a fixed group of trump cards, including all queens and jacks, ranks above the plain suits, and players cooperate or oppose one another in a partnership arrangement that is only revealed as the hand is played out. The game descends from the German card game Schafkopf, brought to the United States by German immigrants in the nineteenth century, and it became especially deeply rooted in the state of Wisconsin, where it retains an active club and tournament culture distinct from its German ancestor.
Facts
Classification
Player Count Player CountSmall Group (3-6 Players) 1 Player CountLarge Group or Variable 1 Sport
Game Type (category) Game Type (category) Originating RegionUnited States (Wisconsin) 1 Connections
Associated With
Skat, Games Skat and Sheepshead are both descendants of the German card game Schafkopf: Skat was devised around 1810 in Altenburg by adapting Schafkopf with features borrowed from Tarock and L Hombre, while Sheepshead is Schafkopf itself carried to the United States by German immigrants and adapted there. Neither game is derived from the other; both share the same Schafkopf root, which is not yet a live entity in this atlas (filed as a mint candidate).
Source The Oxford Guide to Card Games
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Sheepshead (card game) (Wikipedia)
Lead section, distribution
Sheepshead is most commonly played in Wisconsin, where it is sometimes called the 'unofficial' state card game.
Opening sentence
Sheepshead is an American trick-taking card game.
Infobox, players field
2-8, usually 5
View the SourceWikidata: Sheepshead
Wikidata Q1517546, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source The Oxford Guide to Card Games
Oxford University Press, 1990Associated With: Skat
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