Mauer, Bumping & Forced Picks

Sit down at a Wisconsin Sheepshead table and you’ll hear three terms thrown around as if everyone knows them. They’re all about the picking phase — the moment when each player decides whether to take the blind. None of them are obvious from the rulebook. Here’s what each means.

Mauer (or mauering)

To mauer is to pass on a hand strong enough to pick — usually because you’d rather someone else take the risk, or because you’re trying to force a leaster for tactical reasons. The German word Mauer means “wall” — you’re acting like a brick wall, refusing to pick when everyone expected you to.

Classic mauer signals:

You hold 3+ queens, several jacks, or a hand with 6+ trump but no obvious partner-suit hold card — and you pass anyway.
You’re trying to drive the bid to the dealer (forcing a pick from a position where the picker is exposed to long defenders).
You think you can win the leaster outright.

Mauering is controversial. In casual games it’s tolerated. In serious games people grumble about it because it injects randomness into the picker selection and rewards conservative play. Some house rules ban it entirely (“if you can pick you must pick”), though this is uncommon.

Bumping

To bump someone is to pick the blind out from under the next player. Picking happens in order from the left of the dealer; once someone picks, everyone after them has no opportunity. Bumping is what happens to the players who got “jumped over” in pick order.

The term has a connotation of strategic spite: “I bumped him” means “I picked specifically so he wouldn’t get to.” This matters because:

If you have a borderline pickable hand AND you suspect the next player has a monster hand, you might pick just to deny them.
Conversely, if you have a marginal hand and pass, you may be knowingly “bumping” risk to the next player.
The dealer is the last to be asked. They’re always at risk of being bumped. Strong dealer hands sometimes go to waste because someone else picked first.

See also: When to Pick for the math of marginal picks.

Forced picks (“Stick the Dealer”)

A forced pick happens when everyone passes and the house rule says the dealer must pick (rather than a leaster being played). This rule is sometimes called “Stick the Dealer” — the dealer is “stuck” with the blind whether they want it or not.

Strategic effects of forced-pick rules:

Dealer plays defensive. Dealers tend to play conservatively on their own hand because a forced pick with bad cards is a near-guaranteed loss.
Marginal picks get picked. Players in earlier positions are more willing to pick borderline hands because the alternative is sticking the dealer (who may be them later, in rotation).
Leasters disappear. With forced-pick on, the only way to play a leaster is if the house rule is suspended or replaced. Most Wisconsin clubs don’t use forced-pick for this reason.
Mauering gets worse. If you know the dealer will be stuck, mauering with a moderate hand becomes more tempting — let the dealer eat the blind with their unknown cards.

PlaySheepshead.org supports forced picks as the no-pick rule option “Forced Pick.” The dealer’s avatar gets an orange “Forced to Pick!” announcement so the table knows the cycle resolved by sticking the dealer rather than going to a leaster.

How these three interact

In a typical Friday-night game with leaster as the no-pick rule:

Three players pass with moderate hands ( they’re mauering, hoping for a leaster).
The fourth picks because they’d rather pick a marginal hand than commit to a leaster ( they’re bumping the dealer).
The dealer is relieved — they were holding garbage and didn’t want a forced pick if it had come to that.

In a forced-pick game:

Four players pass (some honest, some mauering).
The dealer is forced to pick with whatever they have.
The mauerers benefit because they’re now defenders with decent hands against a picker who probably has a weak hand.

Key takeaways

Mauer = passing on a hand you could pick, for tactical reasons. Mildly controversial in serious games.
Bumping = picking before another player gets their chance. Strategic when you want to deny a strong-looking opponent the picker advantage.
Forced pick (Stick the Dealer) = the house rule where the dealer must pick if everyone else passed. Changes the entire picking dynamic.
All three terms are about manipulating who ends up as picker, not the rules of the cards themselves.