Whist
BGG rank
BGG #6,605
BGG rating
6.4

Whist

1663Powered by BGG

Rules assistance for Whist

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 60 min
  • 12+
  • Complexity 2.0/5

Rules assistant for Whist

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Whist is a board game released in 1663 for 2–4 players, 60 minutes per game, and ages 12 and up. Its main mechanics are Team-Based Game and Trick-taking.

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About the game

Whist is a trick taking standard deck playing card game that was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries and is often mentioned in literature from that time period. The most basic version of the game features fixed partnerships with no bidding. The game uses a single deck, and follows the basic mechanics of most trick taking games: the starting player leads a suit, and then the other players are forced to follow unless they have none of that suit left, in which case they are allowed to either toss a useless card of another suit, or to play a trump. The object of Whist is to acquire tricks in excess of 6, each 1 of which scores 1 point. In this basic form the game usually goes to 5, though 7 and 9 point variations were also common. The trumps in standard Whist were determined by facing the last card to be dealt. In addition, like most card games, there are a large variety of variants. A common one involves pre-determing the trump suit, and running them in order from hand to hand. (For instance: Hearts first, then Diamonds, Spades, and finally Clubs, and then start over again) Another, less popular and luck oriented variant involves giving a 4 point bonus to a partnership if it held the 'Honours' run of A - K - Q - J in the suit that was trump for that hand or 2 points if it had 3 of the 4. As this is based on the cards as dealt it is a very luck based option, and as such has fallen out of common use though it was once considered a standard way to play the game. Other variants include bidding (quite common, and turn the game into something closely resembling Spades) and two player adaptations.

Editions

  • Whist and SoloenWaddingtons1975
  • Game of Nations or Quaker WhistenMcLoughlin Brothers1898
  • WhistenGrimaud1853
  • WhistenBrimtoy
  • Progressive WhistenDennis's
  • Whist and Duplicate WhistenThe United States Playing Card Company
  • Whist Rommé Bridge CanastadeASS Altenburger Spielkarten1950
  • WhistdeDondorf1935
  • Jubiläums-WhistdePiatnik1926
  • Jockey-Klub-WhistdePiatnik1900
  • Finissima WhistitPiatnik

Categories

Publishers

  • ASS Altenburger Spielkarten
  • Waddingtons
  • Piatnik
  • (Public Domain)
  • Brimtoy
  • Grimaud
  • McLoughlin Brothers
  • The United States Playing Card Company

Questions and answers

Whist supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.