Whist — the Classic English Card Game
The grandfather of Bridge right in your browser: play Whist with a computer partner, take more than 6 tricks per hand and be the first team to 5 points.
You and your partner (across) vs. 2 computer opponents. Trump is the dealer’s last card, and the first team to 5 points wins!
How to play Whist
There are 4 players in two teams: your partner is the player across from you. Everyone gets 13 cards, and the last card, which goes to the dealer, is shown to everyone: its suit is trump for the hand. The dealer keeps that card and plays it like any other.
The player to the dealer’s left leads the first trick. You must follow the suit that was led; if you can’t, you can play a trump or throw away any card. The highest trump wins the trick or, if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led (Ace is high). Whoever wins the trick leads the next one.
After all 13 tricks, the team that took more than 6 scores 1 point for each extra trick: 7 tricks are worth 1 point, 8 are worth 2 and so on. The deal passes to the left each hand, and the first team to reach 5 points wins.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between short whist and long whist?
Long whist, the older version, is played to 10 points. Short whist, which is what you play here, goes to 5 and became the standard. Lots of people also play a “rubber”: the team that wins 2 games out of 3 takes the match.
What are honors in Whist?
At some tables, a team holding the Ace, King, Queen and Jack of trump scores 4 extra points, and a team holding 3 of them scores 2, but honors can’t be used to score the last point of a game. Here honors are left out and only tricks count, like most Whist played today.
Is Whist like Bridge?
Bridge grew out of Whist: both are partnership trick-taking games with 13 cards each. The difference is that Bridge has an auction to choose trump and the contract, while in Whist trump is left to chance, decided by the last card dealt.