Whist rules

The ancestor of bridge, and still one of the best evenings a deck can give you. Four players in two partnerships, no bidding at all, and everything depends on how you play the cards.

Getting ready

A 52-card deck, all of it dealt out, thirteen cards each. Aces are high. Partners sit opposite each other.

Trumps

The dealer deals their own last card face up. Its suit is trump for the hand, and the dealer takes the card into their hand before play begins.

The play

The player to the dealer's left leads. You must follow suit if you can; if you cannot, you may play any card including a trump. The trick goes to the highest trump in it, or if none was played, to the highest card of the suit led. The winner of each trick leads the next.

Thirteen tricks are played, and the deal passes to the left.

Scoring

Six tricks are the book and score nothing. Every trick above six scores one point. So taking nine tricks scores three.

Game is five points, or seven, agreed beforehand.

An example

Your side takes seven tricks and the other side six. You score one point, they score nothing, and the hand that felt close was worth almost nothing — which is why whist is a game of long evenings rather than big hands.

Honours

Some tables also score honours — holding the ace, king, queen and jack of trumps between partners is worth four points, and three of them two points. Many players leave this out, because it rewards the deal rather than the play.

Signalling with the cards you play is legal and expected. Leading the fourth-highest card of your longest suit, and playing high then low to show a doubleton, are the two conventions worth knowing on your first evening.

Playing well

Lead from length, not from strength: a five-card suit will make tricks once the other three players have run out of it, and an unsupported ace makes exactly one. Count the trumps as they fall — knowing that none are left outside your own hand is worth more than any single card in it.

Second player low, third player high is the oldest advice in the game and still the best.

Whist: an example game

One game of Whist followed from the deal to the finish, move by move, with the reason for each choice.

The deal

Four players: you and Bo against Ada and Cleo, sitting in the order you, Ada, Bo, Cleo. Cleo deals and turns her last card, the 6♥, so hearts are trump. The player to the dealer's left leads, and that is you.

You hold A♠ K♠ 9♠ 6♠ 3♠, Q♥ 7♥ 4♥, 8♦ 5♦ and K♣ J♣ 2♣. Five spades: your longest suit, with the two top cards.

Leading from length

You lead K♠, and everybody follows. You lead A♠, and Ada and Bo follow, but Cleo has no spades left and trumps it with the 3♥. Cleo takes the trick.

That is one thing learned: Cleo has no spades, and any spade you lead will be trumped while she still has hearts.

Second hand low, third hand high

Cleo leads 4♣. You play second, so you play low: 2♣, keeping your K♣. Ada, third, plays high with the Q♣ — and Bo, last, takes it with the A♣.

Had you played your king, your side would have spent the K♣ and the A♣ on the same trick. Now your king is still good for a later one.

Drawing trumps

Bo has six hearts, with the ace and king, and leads them. On the first round everybody follows; on the second Ada shows out; on the third Cleo does. From here every trump left is in your partnership.

Now nobody can trump your spades. Ada still holds the Q♠ and takes one spade trick with it, but the other two are yours.

The count

At the end of the thirteen tricks your side has nine and Ada and Cleo four. Six are the book, so the hand pays three points.

Your side held the ace, king and queen of trumps. At a table that scores honours, that would have been two more.

What the hand shows

Your small spades only became winners once the trumps were gone; before that, Cleo trumped your ace.

Three points to nothing, in a game to five. The deal passes to you, and you turn the next trump.