SHEEPSHEAD CLUB

Sheepshead cheat sheet

Every card ranked from strongest to weakest, and what each one is worth. Keep it open on your phone or print it for the table.

Prints on one page. Keeping score on paper? Print a score sheet, or use the score tracker on your phone.

Trump, strongest to weakest: 14 cards

The four queens

1Q♣2Q♠3Q♥4Q♦

The four jacks

5J♣6J♠7J♥8J♦

Then every diamond

9A♦1010♦11K♦129♦138♦147♦

Any trump beats any card that is not trump. Queens and jacks go clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds.

Fail suits: clubs, spades, hearts

A♥10♥K♥9♥8♥7♥

Hearts shown; clubs and spades rank the same way. Six cards each, because their queens and jacks are trump.

Watch out for

  • The jack of clubs is trump, not a club. So is every queen and jack.
  • Diamonds are all trump. There is no diamond fail suit.
  • The ten outranks the king, in trump and in every fail suit.

Card values

Ace11
Ten10
King4
Queen3
Jack2
Nine, eight, seven0
Whole deck120

The picker’s side needs 61 to win; the defenders win with 60.

New to the game?

This sheet is a reminder, not a lesson. How to play sheepshead walks through it one idea at a time with practice drills, and you can play a hand with a coach in about three minutes, no account needed.

Scoring, partners and house rules

How a hand is scored, how the partner is chosen, and what happens when nobody picks are on the rules page. Tables play it many ways; the variants page covers them, and the glossary has every word.

Play free at sheepsheadclub.com Point a phone camera at the square. No app, no account, no ads.