Schafkopf
The Schafkopf group is a family of German trick-taking card games played by three or more players with a pack of 32 or 24 cards. The most typical variants are for four players in varying partnerships and have the four Jacks and sometimes some or all Queens as the highest trumps. Games based on Schafkopf include Skat and Doppelkopf. Variants of Schafkopf are still played in Germany (Bavaria, Palatinate), the United States (as Sheepshead, especially in Wisconsin), and on the Faroe Islands (as Sjavs).
Cards
| Rank | A | 10 | K | Q[1] | J[1] | 9 | 8Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name cannot be a simple integer. Use a descriptive title |
7Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name cannot be a simple integer. Use a descriptive title
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | 11 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| high cards | court cards | low cards | ||||||
Many Schafkopf games are played with the 32 cards of a piquet pack consisting of Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, 9, 8, 7 in each of the four French suits clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds. In some cases a shorter pack of 24 cards is used, dropping the 8s and 7s. Some games are also, or even exclusively, played with an equivalent German-style pack. In German-style cards there are two kinds of knaves that are distinguished by the position of the suit mark: "Upper" knaves (Ober) correspond to Queens, and "Lower" knaves (Unter) correspond to Jacks. The German suits correspond to French suits as follows: acorns = clubs, leaves = spades, hearts = hearts, bells = diamonds. For simplicity, this article will describe the games in terms of French-style cards throughout – even Bavarian Schafkopf, which is exclusively played with German-style cards.
Depending on the game variant and sometimes the contract, a certain number of Queens or Jacks form the highest trumps and are considered full members of the trump suit. Thus, if hearts are trumps and all Jacks are among the highest trumps, the Jack of clubs is a member of the hearts suit rather than the clubs suit.