Talk:Sheepshead (card game)

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)

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)

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 &zwj; 水  11:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

– Not a primary topic per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: not the likeliest topic sought.
 * Sheepshead → Sheepshead (game)
 * Sheepshead (disambiguation) → Sheepshead

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)