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

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. 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.