1. Number of players, deck of cards, setup

Whist is played between two teams of two players with a deck of 52 cards. To form the two teams, each of the four players draws a card from the deck, and those who draw the two highest cards form a team. For this draw, the ace is the lowest card and the king the highest. Once the two teams have been formed, the four players sit around the table so that each has an opponent to his right and to his left. Partners sit facing each other.

The first dealer of the match is the player who drew the lowest card.

Since Whist is a game of English origin, the direction of rotation for dealing the cards and for play is clockwise.

The player to the dealer's left gathers the cards and shuffles them – the dealer may, if he wishes, shuffle them again one last time –, then the player seated to the dealer's right cuts the deck, taking off or leaving no fewer than four cards.

The dealer now deals 13 cards to each player, one at a time, in a clockwise direction, beginning with the player to his left. Then he turns up the last card dealt, which is his own thirteenth card.

This card, visible to everyone, is called the turn-up. The suit of the turn-up – spades, clubs, diamonds, or hearts – is that of the trump for the hand. A hand is the phase of play extending between two deals.

2. Play of the cards

Whist is a trick-taking game that follows the rules below for the play of the cards :

– within each suit, the cards follow this descending order : ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 ;
– a player must, if possible, follow suit ;
– a player is never obliged to play a higher card, even in trumps ;
– if a player is void in the suit led, he is not obliged to trump, and may play any card in his hand.

Once all four players have played their card, the trick is won by :

– whoever played the highest trump ;
– or, failing a trump, whoever played the highest card of the suit led.

Tricks are kept, stacked in front of the player who won the first trick for his team. The trick piles thus formed must be placed partly overlapping one another, staggered crosswise, to make them easier to count at any moment by all the players.

After the deal, the first to play a card is the player seated to the dealer's left – he is the eldest hand. For subsequent tricks, it is always whoever has just won the trick – he is said to have the lead.

3. Scoring: trick points, game points, rubber points

When all 13 tricks of the hand have been played, the team that won the most scores as many points as it has tricks beyond 6, and the other team scores nothing. To be able to score, it is therefore necessary to have won at least 7 tricks, which is worth 1 point ; 8 tricks are worth 2 ; and so on up to 13 tricks, which are worth the maximum of 7 points. Winning 6 tricks is called making book ; a team must therefore make book before it can claim any trick points. Hand after hand, trick points are added up by each of the two teams.

Whist is played as the best of two games, each to 10 trick points. If each of the two teams has won one game, a third 10-point game is played, called the decider, to determine the winner between the two teams. This type of match is known in France as a partie liée, and in England as a rubber. Since Whist is of English origin, the term rubber was exceptionally kept in France, albeit spelled in a more or less phonetic way as robre. Thus, one can play one or several rubbers at Whist.

Having seen the trick points that allow a game to be won, we must now look at game points and rubber points :

– a game may be worth 1 or 2 game points. It is worth 1 point if the opposing team totalled 5 or 6 trick points, and it is worth 2 if the opposing team totalled between 0 and 4 trick points ;

– a won rubber is worth 1 rubber point. This was the practice in England, but in France it depended on the group of players, and a rubber could be worth 2, 4, or 6 rubber points.

At the end of a rubber, for each team, the game points are totalled, and the rubber point is added to the total of whichever team won it. The team with the better result wins the match by a number of points equal to the difference in points scored by the two teams.

The greatest number of points achievable in a rubber is equal to 5, which happens when a team wins the first two games as doubles (two lots of 2 game points, plus 1 rubber point).

4. Scoring: honours

The four highest cards – ace, king, queen, jack – in trumps are called honours. Honours have the special feature of being able to earn points that are added to trick points and thus contribute to winning a game.

For this, three or four honours must be held in the hands of the same team after the deal :

– three honours are worth 2 points to the team holding them ;
– four honours are worth 4 points to the team holding them.

Honours are not declared before the end of the hand. The team that held three or four of them must announce it after the thirteenth trick, which is the last, in order to benefit from the 2 or 4 points involved. Honour points can no longer be claimed once the turn-up has been made for the following hand.

Honour points are only counted after trick points. Thus, if a team reaches the 10 points needed for the game with its tricks, and the other team does the same with its honour points, it is the first team that has won the game.

There is, however, an exception to the two preceding rules which applies only when a team, at the start of a hand, has totalled exactly 8 points.

In this case, and only when it is that team's turn to play its first card :

– if a player of this team holds three honours in hand, he shows them, and his team immediately scores 2 points which, added to the 8 points, give the team the game without having to play out the hand ;

– if a player of this team holds only two honours in hand, he may ask his partner whether he has the other one. This request is called calling, or asking. If the partner answers in the affirmative, the two players show their three honours and, as before, they win the game without having to play out the hand; otherwise the hand is played normally, but all players then know where the honours lie. A team is not obliged to call, but then any honour points will only count, as usual, after the trick points.

It is important to remember that calling is only possible when a team has exactly 8 points. In particular, with 9 points, it is forbidden to do so, and so honours are counted after the trick points.

5. Handling dealing irregularities

Without going into detail on every possible fault, the following points should be noted regarding the deal :

– players must not touch their cards before the turn-up has been made ;
– if a card, other than the last one, is turned face up in the pack, the deal must be redone by the same dealer ;
– if a card dealt to any player turns face up through the fault of the dealer or his partner, it is the team opposing the dealer that decides whether the deal is redone or not ;
– if a card dealt to any player turns face up through the fault of a player on the team opposing the dealer, it is the dealer who decides whether to redeal or not.

6. Method of scoring

To score trick points as well as game and rubber points, the simplest method is to use a sheet of paper and a pencil. The popularity of Whist has, however, led to the invention of various types of markers. The most common method is as follows.

6.1 Trick points

To score trick points, each team has 4 counters. One player from each team keeps score by arranging the counters in front of him, according to the method below, where :

– a counter on the middle row each counts for 1 point ;
– a counter on the row set toward the middle of the table counts for 3 points ;
– a counter on the row set toward the player counts for 5 points

There is no need to mark the 10th point, since the game is then won.

x

3

O

O

O

x

1

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

x

5

O

O

O

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

For convenience, it is preferable that in each team only one player keep the tricks – the one who wins his team's first trick of the game –, the other keeping score with the 4 counters.

6.2 Game and rubber points

Game and rubber points are marked using fish – elongated rectangular pieces of bone, plastic, or any other material – one per point. Fish awaiting allocation are not held by the players but placed in a box.

When Whist was played for money, the players would agree before the match on the value assigned to each fish, and each player of the winning team would be paid by the player seated to his left the amount corresponding to the difference in fish held by the two teams.

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Short Whist

 

        

1. Differences between Long Whist and Short Whist

Short Whist is played in the same way as Long Whist, except that each game is played to 5 trick points instead of 10. As for honours, they are worth the same number of points but are never called – there is no calling in Short Whist. In addition, a team that has 4 trick points at the start of a hand can no longer claim its honours.

A game is worth, to the winning team :

– 1 point, if the opposing team totalled at least 3 trick points ;
– 2 points, if the opposing team totalled 1 or 2 trick points ;
– 3 points, if the opposing team scored no trick points at all.

A won rubber is worth 2 points.

2. Method of scoring

Trick points are still scored with 4 counters per team, but since the game is played to 5 points, the table layout used in Long Whist is not needed.

Game and rubber points are marked with fish, as in Long Whist.

3. Advantage of Short Whist

It is essentially the average length of a rubber, which is 30 minutes, whereas it is an hour in Long Whist.

            

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References

Various English and French sources from the 18th and 19th centuries

 

Page information

Published on 1 June 2010
Proofread and formatted on 8 December 2021

Author : Philippe LALANNE

Le Salon des jeux - Académie des jeux oubliés

 

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