Whist

What you need & setup

1. Form two partnerships; partners sit across from each other.
2. Shuffle a standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
3. Deal all 52 cards clockwise, one at a time, so each player holds 13.
4. Turn the dealer's final card face up on the table — its suit is trump for this hand.
5. Once the first trick begins, the dealer picks that card up into their hand, and the player to the dealer's left leads.

Turn sequence

1. The player to the dealer's left leads any card to the first trick.
2. Clockwise, each player must follow suit if they can — if clubs are led and you hold the 7♣, you must play a club.
3. If you cannot follow suit, play any card: a trump if you want to win the trick, or a throwaway if not.
4. The trick goes to the highest trump played, or the highest card of the led suit if nobody trumped.
5. The trick winner leads the next trick.
6. After all 13 tricks, the side with more tricks scores; then the deal passes to the left.

Following Suit

Whist's one iron rule: play a card of the led suit whenever you hold one. If hearts are led and you have the 10♥, it (or another heart) must be played.

Failing to follow suit when you could have is called a revoke, and traditional rules punish it harshly — usually by transferring tricks or points to the other side.

When you truly have none of the led suit, you are free to trump the trick or discard from another suit.

Trump

The last card dealt is turned face up, and its suit is trump for the whole hand. Every hand can have a different trump suit, purely by luck of the deal.

Any trump beats any card of the other three suits. If spades are trump, the 2♠ beats the A♥ in a heart trick — provided the spade player couldn't follow suit.

The turned trump card belongs to the dealer, who adds it to their hand when it is their first turn to play.

Winning a Trick

If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. Aces are high, so the A♦ wins any all-diamond trick.

If one or more trumps were played (by players void in the led suit), the highest trump wins instead.

The winner of each trick collects it for their team and leads the next. Keep your team's tricks in a neat countable pile.

Scoring

The first six tricks a team wins are called the book and score nothing. Every trick beyond six scores 1 point — win 8 tricks and you score 2.

Only one team can score each hand, since 7 or more tricks means the other side won 6 or fewer.

Play typically continues until one team reaches 5 points (the classic English target) or 7 in some traditions; agree on a target before you start.

Partnership Play

You and your partner win tricks jointly, so avoid wasting two high cards on the same trick — if your partner's ace is winning, throw your lowest card.

Classic conventions grew up around leads: leading your fourth-best card from your longest suit is the traditional opening, quietly telling partner where your length lies.

There is no talking about your cards; your plays are your only signals.

Scoring & how the game ends

• Each trick over six (the book): 1 point.
• In traditional English scoring, the game is won at 5 points; other traditions use 7 or 9.
• Some traditional rules also score honours (holding top trumps), though many modern players skip this.
• A revoke traditionally costs the offending side tricks or points.

Winning: Be the first partnership to reach the agreed points target (classically 5) by winning tricks beyond your first six each hand.

Common variations

These are genuine regional and house-rule differences — none of them is “the one true way” to play. Agree with your table before starting.

• Knockout whist

  A casual elimination version: hands shrink each round, players who take no tricks are knocked out, and the last survivor wins.

  Common: Popular as a family and pub game in Britain.

• Solo whist

  An individual (non-partnership) variant where players bid to win a set number of tricks alone or to lose every trick (misère).

  Common: Played mainly in Britain.

• Bid whist

  A partnership variant with an auction to name trump, kitty cards, and the option to play with card rank reversed (low wins).

  Common: A long-standing favorite in African American communities in the US.

• No-trump hands

  Some groups play occasional or optional hands with no trump suit at all, where the highest card of the led suit always wins.

A little history

Whist is generally traced to England, where it developed from earlier games such as Ruff and Honours and became the dominant card game of polite society for well over a century.

Most accounts credit Whist as the direct ancestor of Bridge, which eventually displaced it.