Whist Objective
The goal of Whist is for your team to reach 7 points before your opponents by taking as many tricks as possible
each round, with each trick after six tricks are won counting as 1 point.
Whist Setup
Whist uses a standard 52-card deck and is set up as follows:
- Teams: Four players pair off into two teams and sit opposite each other.
- Dealing: Each player is dealt 13 cards to start each round, leaving no leftover cards.
- Card rank: Aces are high.
-
Trump suit: Trump changes each round, beginning with hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs, and every fifth
round has no trump.
Whist Rules
-
The trump suit changes each round. No one can choose the trump suit. Instead, the first round begins
with hearts as trump, then spades, diamonds, and clubs. Every fifth round has no trump suit. Subsequent
rounds continue in the same pattern.
-
Each player puts one card into the middle, which creates a trick. The person to the dealer’s left
leads the first card of the first trick. After the first trick, whoever wins the trick leads the next one.
-
Players follow the suit that led, if possible. Players must follow suit for each trick, but if they
don’t have a card in the suit that led, they can play any other card, including trump.
-
The highest card of the suit that led or the highest trump card wins the trick. If no trump was
played, the highest card of the lead suit wins the trick, but if trump was played, the highest trump played
wins the trick.
-
Play as many rounds as needed until one team wins by reaching 7 points. Each round is 13 tricks, and
teams combine their tricks for scoring. So if you won 3 tricks and your partner won 4, then you won 7 tricks
total.
-
Each team scores points for each trick they’ve won beyond 6. Your team doesn’t get points for tricks
unless you’ve won at least 6. After 6, you get a point for each subsequent trick you win. That means that if
your team won 9 tricks, you score 3 points.
Whist Strategies
-
Avoid taking tricks from your partner. If your partner played a K♥, don’t play the A♥ if you have
other, lower ranking hearts to play. Although you may want the lead, taking a trick from your partner wastes
a card you may need later to gain another trick.
-
Prepare to be trumped on the third round for a suit. While not guaranteed, the odds are pretty slim
that everyone can follow the lead for a single suit after it has been played two times already. After three
leads of one suit, someone is likely to run out and trump you. So adjust your lead by playing cards from
another suit.
-
Keep track of the cards that have been played. The only way to know whether someone has a higher
ranking card than you do is to watch what is played and take note. You don’t want to be caught off guard
when playing your Q♠ only to have someone play the K♠ and win the trick from you.
-
Count trump cards. While players lay down trump, keep track so you can calculate how many are left.
Because each suit is 13 cards, add how many trump cards have been played to the number of the trump cards
left in your hand and subtract it all from 13. For example, If you have 3 trump cards, and other players
have already played 4, you know 6 are left in the players’ hands.
-
Be aggressive in the no-trump round. Having no trump can make what looks like a good hand pretty
lousy. For example, if an opponent controls the lead with lots of cards in two different suits, you could
end up being forced to dump your valuable cards and never win a trick. But you can do the same thing to your
opponents. So be aggressive and get the lead early.
-
Help your partner. Whist is a team game. So help your partner win tricks by watching what they play.
For example, notice when they don’t follow suit. When you need to get rid of the lead, you can hand it over
to your partner by leading the suit they don’t have. That offers them the opportunity to trump it and win
the trick.
If you enjoy trick-taking games, check out Spades as well as
Hearts, and play them all for free on Solitaire Bliss!
