Talk:Sheepshead (card game)

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Incomplete section

Removed the following incomplete section:

==Playing Alone== It's the picker versus the other 4 plays. Picker had better have an awesome hand!

(More information about playing alone later...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.193.88.50 (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2003 (UTC)

Do you play Sheepshead?

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Saturday, September 13th, 02003.

If you know how to play sheepshead, and you have some spare time, please merge the content of the following pages into the main article and turn them all into redirects. (God knows *I* can't make heads or tails of it at this hour.)

1. Sheepshead/blind
2. Sheepshead/cheat-sheet
3. Sheepshead/Leasters
4. Sheepshead/long
5. Sheepshead/schmear
6. Sheepshead/schneider
7. Sheepshead/variations
8. Sheepshead/walk

Thanks, Cyan 05:17, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Other images needed

The only images i could find were the ones on the right which obviously do not fit into the table. If anyone happens to have the approriate pictures, that would be great :)

RichiH 16:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Schafkopfen entry needs major overhaul

I looked up the wikipedia entry on Schafkopf because I wanted to teach some friends of mine here in the US how to play and found a lot of errors in your description of the game. I think this entry needs a major overhaul. I've lived for thirty years in Munich, Bavaria and grew up playing the game.

Biggest grief I have with the article is the blind.

As opposed to Skat there is no blind in Schafkopf. In a regular 4 player game each player is dealt 8 cards. Each player looks at all his cards. The first player after the dealer announces wheter he wishes to play by saying either "spielen" (play) or "weiter" (next). Then the player behind him can announce wheter he wishes to play or not. If one of the players has already stated he wants to play, the next player behind him can only play if he has a better game. The order is "Sauspiel" (calling an ace), "Wenz" (a solo with only Unter or jacks, Ober or Queens are not trumps), "Solo" (solo with all the trumps). There is a little Variation as in what games are allowed and what not. For example in some places you can play only "farblosen Wenz" (a "Wenz" with no suit being named trump)whereas in others you can name it with a suit. This is regional different and players make sure which rules and games are in place before they begin to play.

Another thing, the default suit for trumps is hearts not diamonds.

Also the game is played by default for money not points. Before the game starts a "Tarif" is agred upon. Usually this is expressed as three numbers.

Example: 5/10/20 "Fuenferl,zehnerl,zwanzig" meaning 5 cents for trumps or other extraconditions as Schneider,Schneiderschwarz 10 cents for a "sauspiel" and 20 cents for a solo

If the "Tarif" consists of only two numbers, the smaller figure is used for "Sauspiel" and extra conditions. The winner has to demand his payment. The loosers pay him whatever he asks. However if he asked to little he only gets what he asked. If he asked to much the loosing side can ask him double the money back. In some places it is only the difference of what he asked to much that gets paid back double. Trumps are only counted as extra condition if you have (or didn't have) them in an uninterrupted order from the top down and have (or don't have) at least 3. In some places 2 are enough to count.

Example: The Game was a called Ace of Diamonds (Schellensau). The players won with 96 points and had the three highest trumps. 10 cents (game) +5 cents (Schneider) +15 cents (3 * 5 cents for each trump) =30 cents

If the player demanded 25 cents he got 5 cents less than he could have had. If he demands 35 cents he has to pay back either 70 cents or 10 cents, depending on the rule being used. So if you're not sure wheter you or your partner had the trump in the beginning you're usually better off asking for less. Beginners have sometimes troubles remembering their cards. Among experienced players this usually doesn't occur.

If the player(s) loose with 60 points it triggers a round of special games, like for example "Ramsch" (leaster) or "Bock" (first player after the dealer gets the two highest trumps and he must play a solo). These rounds are usually more expensive than regular play but the game used is different from place to place.

If you're not playing but you a sure you can win you can declare a "Stoss" (push) as long as you still got 8 cards. So if you're the last to throw there might be already three cards on the table.It adds a x2 multiplier to the value of the game and you're considered the player now, meaning you need 61 points to win. The opposing player(s) can declare "zurueck" (back) as long as he has 7 cards on his hand making him/them the player(s) again and raising the multiplier to 3.

Cards are dealt in sets of four. If no one wants to play the money for a called ace game with no other conditions is thrown into the "Pot". If the players win the next game they divide the money among themselves, if they loose they have to double the money that is allready in the "Pot". It can only be taken out of the "Pot" with a called ace game, but you still have to double the "Pot" if you loose a solo. In some places people play a game of leaster if noone wants to play instead of a pot. This is usually practiced by players who hate "Maurer" (people who are afraid to play if they don't have all the good trumps)as it encourages more risky games. Since leasters pay out like solos it usually works.

And finally as a little sidenote. The game is not named after the head of a sheep. Even though todays german language might suggest that. It is a little known fact (even in Germany) that the name derives from an much older form of german. The term "Schaffen" ment a barrel and "kopfen" ment playing cards. In the 17.th century "Landsknechte" (basicaly mercenaries) used to play cards on overturned barrels. So the name means "playing cards on a barrel". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drachentoeter~enwiki (talk • contribs) 04:12, 17 April 2005 (UTC)

Blitz's and Cracks

I've expanded this area to discuss more variations in doubling, but I'm not sure I explained it the best. Would someone check it out? shijeru 07:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Major Revision

I just completed a major overhaul of the page, trying to make it sound more formal and to make things clearer and more concise. I rearranged things, organized the page more, and added some new areas.

I apologize for throwing out a lot of the previous work, but I felt that a lot of the examples were unnecessary and made the page less clear and straightforward.

The flow was also in need of work, and now things are all in one place.

If people disagree with the changes I made, I would like to hear your thoughts.--OneTwentySix 07:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Graphic

Um, what's up with the random (and somewhat unsightly) graphic at the top. If it has contextual value to the article, is should be down within the body next to the relelvant text. Not just floating up top without any real explanation. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 21:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

American Version

The article should clearly mention that the described form of the game is not the German "Schafkopf" but an American version of it. This isn't exactly mentioned in the text and sounds like the described form of game was the original Schafkopf. 91.8.213.76 (talk) 16:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Jerry

Etymology

Although Schafkopf literally means "sheepshead", the term is actually derived from Middle High German and referred to playing cards on an overturned barrel (from kopfen, meaning playing cards, and Schaff, meaning a barrel). This is highly controversial. As far as I know there is only one person the Mediävisten Hellmut Rosenfeld who put up this theory. Peter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.5.242.193 (talk) 22:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I count at least five Sheepshead stubs that probably don't need to exist on their own: Blind (Sheepshead), Schneider (Sheepshead), Leasters (Sheepshead), Long (Sheepshead), Walk (Sheepshead). Did I miss any? Can anyone compelling argue that these articles need to stand alone? —Rossumcapek (talk) 18:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is very long, and so proper practice is to break out sections for more detailed coverage. There is no reason to merge Leaster and Long and plenty of reason not to. Blind Scneider and walk could be merged. On the other hand, merging Schafkopf is completely wrong. It's a different game. It's like merging the Model T article with the Taurus article. 2005 (talk) 20:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The current page is under 30K. Per WP:SIZE, anything under 30K doesn't merit splitting for length alone. Since none of the other articles contain more than 1K each, I really don't see the point in keeping these separate. If Schafkopf a completely different game, then it needs to be expanded as such. Currently, it's only assertion of notability is that Sheepshead was derived from it. That doesn't merit its own article.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 19:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

Instead of merging per the above discussion, I just redirected them to the main article. There didn't seem to be any encyclopedic content in any of them to actually require merger.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:23, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Schafkopf

Why does Schafkopf redirect to Sheepshead? Upon reading the rules for both games Schafkopf is not Sheepshead.72.137.187.109 (talk) 20:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Sheepshead and Schafkopf are two different games. While Sheepshead seems to be the americanized version of German/Bavarian Schafkopf and both still share many similarities there differ on some major points, e.g. number of players (yes, that's significant!). There should be an English wiki page which explains the Bavarian Schafkopf (fully or briefly) and mentions the Sheepshead game in the introduction. I would volunteer for writing this page, which could be a translation of the German wiki page. Martin Scharrer (talk) 21:26, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Three Kings on Christmas

The following was posted on Dec 4th 2008 "- In some areas a rule rule variant is used that allows one to revel (sic) 3 Kings from their hand, before cards are played or a ace is called, to receive payment from the other players. This is often used only around Christmas as homage to the three kings of the bible that brought gifts to Jesus after his birth." It was quickly removed and the reason cited was that there are no Google hits. While this is true, there will be no Google hits on a lot of optional or house rules in a game as obscure as Sheepshead. Having no hits on Google alone should not be reason enough to remove it.

That being said, I have played with a "Christmas" rule (we usually play it from the first time snow flies in fall until Epiphany, and I'm not sure if we need to list every Tom, Dick, and Harry optional or house rule on the main page. Obviously the paragraph as written would need some copy edit for clarity and spelling and capitalization of published books, but the point is, does anyone else have an opinion on this as an addition? Kermit814 (talk) 15:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If there are literally zero Google hits for something, no sources, the text should be removed immediately. Refer to WP:V and WP:OR. If something can't be verified, it can't be in an article. In the case of Sheepshead that's a particularly good thing since there can be literally dozens of variations played in some home games. This is an encyclopedia though, not a game guide. We aren't here to go into every variation anybody ever thought up. 2005 (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the rules on verifying sources. In a card game that doesn't have standards set down by professional gamblers in Vegas, it's going to be hard to find reputable sources at all. I'm not arguing for adding every house rule ever known. On the contrary, I'm looking for some opinions on where we draw the line. There are no Google hits on the Diamonds vs. Clubs variant or the Spitz trump reorganization variants either. Should we let in every rule and variant (maybe in a section dealing with poorly documented house rules)? Or do we start stripping this article down to the point where it has nothing in it that doesn't appear in www.sheepshead.org? Kermit814 (talk) 15:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If the others don't have sources they should be removed. If something can be referenced from sheepshead.org or something similar, then it can stay, but stuff with zero Google hits for sure can't stay. One sentence like "there are many other variations" is all that is needed to cover all this non-sourced stuff. 2005 (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Sheepshead → Sheepshead (card game) (non-admin closure) Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC) 01:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I made a mistake in determining consensus. The correct move should be Sheepshead → Sheepshead (game). Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Yunshui 雲‍水 11:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

---

• Sheepshead → Sheepshead (game)
• Sheepshead (disambiguation) → Sheepshead

– Not a primary topic per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: not the likeliest topic sought.

Page views from stats.grok.se:

Sheepshead has been viewed 3831 times in 201212.

Sheepshead (disambiguation) has been viewed 235 times in 201212.

Sheepshead (fish) has been viewed 10883 times in 201212.

California sheephead has been viewed 1102 times in 201212.

Freshwater drum has been viewed 3211 times in 201212.

Sheep's Head has been viewed 727 times in 201212.

Sheepshead, California has been viewed 44 times in 201212.

There's a case for making Sheepshead (fish) primary (more likely than all the other topics combined), but it's close enough that I didn't deem it fitting. ENeville (talk) 05:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support per nom's rationale. Dicklyon (talk) 20:44, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Why this WP:RM once your rationale defines it all ?

Specify what kind of game Sheepshead is (card game) to avoid any future conflict with another type of "game". Krenakarore ^TK 13:37, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support disambiguation -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 07:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment – I've since noticed that sheepshead (fish) is insufficiently disambiguated (as multple fish are so named) and proposed an alternate parenthetical, though moving it to the primary topic location would obviate that debate. ENeville (talk) 02:02, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support move to disambiguation, and the game to Sheepshead (card game). 2005 (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support exactly as proposed. Sheepshead (game) should be preferred to Sheepshead (card game) per WP:NCDAB and WP:PRECISE. See also this list of common dab terms, where you'll find (game) but not (card game). --BDD (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Minutes per hand

The article lists playing time as 8 minutes per hand. That seems awfully long to me. Three minutes per hand is probably closer to the actual speed of the game. The rules for one tournament (currently listed at http://germanfest.com/sheepshead/) state that "Fifteen hands will be played and must be completed in 45 minutes."

I'm not sure if the Germanfest website is considered a reliable source on the average length of Sheepshead games, but presumably they want people to be able to finish their games in the allotted time. The current figure of 8 minutes doesn't seem to rely on anything at all. Ztrem (talk) 06:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"Doubling stakes" subsection should be deleted

Much of the information here is already in the "Play variations" section in the "Cracking" and "Blitzing or blitzers" subsections. Since these are indeed just variations, they shouldn't really be outside of that section.

What information is not duplicated appears to be unsourced. The edit history indicates that the information was added based on the version of the game the editor played in college, and a quick Google search didn't find anything referencing terms like "up the stairs" in the context of Sheepshead (except this article and sites scraping it.)

Any objections to my deleting it? Ztrem (talk) 04:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Julius Meinen as inventor

Julius Meinen is currently credited as the inventor of Sheepshead. This is not credited, and worse, it's almost certainly wrong. There is a Meinen family associated with some links online from Sheepshead (e.g., here and here). The first link says that Sheepshead was developed in the 1700s. Julius Meinen died in 1987. Some links say that Julius Meinen helped popularize the game. That might be true. For now, I am removing references to him on the main page. -- GoldCoastPrior (talk) 17:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC)