rules

There are a lot of Whist card games, but there is one ultra simple variation that they originate from. These are the rules to this basic version.

General

Whist is a trick taking game played with a standard 52 card deck and is meant for 4 players. Players play in fixed partnerships, so two teams of two. It can be played with honors or without them, if you don’t want to play with them, just ignore that part in the scoring.

The Deal

The player to the left of the dealer shuffles, the player to the right of the dealer cuts the deck and the dealer deals out the cards. Each player gets 13 cards, dealt one by one. The last card(the one that belongs to the dealer) is turned over. The suit of that card is the trump suit for that hand. When it’s the dealers turn to act, in the first trick, he can take the face up card back into his hand.

Gameplay

The game starts with the player to the dealers left leading the first trick. All tricks are played clockwise. Players must then follow suit(play a card of the lead suit), if they can not, they can play any card. The winner of the trick then leads the next one.

The highest trump played wins the trick, if no trumps ware played, then the highest card of the lead suit wins the trick. Card strength goes, strongest to weakest, from Ace to Deuce.

The hand finishes when all players are out of cards.

Scoring

After each hand the winning team counts their score. When one of the teams gets 5 points or more for all hands played, that team wins the game.
Scoring is simple. Each trick the winning team won in excess of 6 is worth 1 point. So if the team won with 8 tricks, they score 2 points.

Teams also score for honors. Honors are A,K,Q and J of the trump suit. If a team took all 4 honors, they score an extra 4 points. If a team took 3 honors, they score an extra 2 points. Honors are counted after tricks, so, if both teams exceed 5 game points in the same hand, the one that won with tricks also wins the game.

Enjoy playing Whist card game!