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).

Common principles

Point-values of cards

Rank	A	10	K	Q	J	9	8	7
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 well known French suits. 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.

The cards carry values as shown in the table, for a total of 120 card points. It can be observed that the 12 low cards have no point value at all, while 84 of the game's 120 card points are concentrated in the 8 high cards. Only the 12 court cards have point values close to the average.

Card ranks in trump suit

Jacks highest trumps
				J♣	J♠	J♥	J♦	10	K	Q		9	8	7
Queens highest trumps
Q♣	Q♠	Q♥	Q♦					10	K		J	9	8	7
Jacks and Queens highest trumps
Q♣	Q♠	Q♥	Q♦	J♣	J♠	J♥	J♦	10	K			9	8	7
Jacks and black Queens highest trumps
Q♣	Q♠			J♣	J♠	J♥	J♦	10	K	Q		9	8	7

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.

All games are played clockwise. The players typically form two parties, based on an auction and/or the ownership of certain cards. The party of the player who won the auction is known as "the players", the opposing players are known as "the opponents". To win, the players normally need to collect more than half of the card points in tricks, i.e. at least 61 points. The opponents win if they collect 60 points or more. If the opponents win less than 30 points, the players win schneider. If the players win all tricks, they win schwarz.

German Schafkopf

An early four-player Schafkopf game that is no longer popular is known as German Schafkopf. It is played by four players in fixed partnerships. In this game all Jacks, but not the Queens, are the highest trumps. Once all cards have been distributed, the player who holds the Jack of clubs gets to choose the trump suit and forms a partnership with the player sitting opposite.

Like most Schafkopf games, this one has numerous variants. In one variant each player announces how many trumps they would have if they could choose trumps – provided the number is at least five. The player who announces the greatest number chooses the trump suit. If the players lose, the game is counted twice. In another variant the Jacks and black Queens are the highest trumps.