Whist!
Whist is a classic and loved card game that was widely played during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although whist is not played as widely as it used to be in the past, it's still popular especially in Britain. You can find whist tournaments that are called "whist drives" and even online versions of this game on some virtual websites.
Nowadays the game whist is associated with some variations of the original games, usually with gambling for money involved in the game's rules.
There are quite a few variants of this classic game, for example solo whist, bid whist, Romanian whist, German whist, Israeli Whist and knockout whist.
Whist Rules
In here we'll introduce you to the rules of the classic version of whist. It's the best starting point if you want to continue and play in the other variations of this game. Start with learning the rules of the original version and carry on from there.
Deck
For whist you'll need a standard card pack with 52 cards with all the regular cards: K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2.
Players
There are four players in a game of whist: two players against the other two players who are determined by cutting or drawing the cards.
Shuffling and dealing
Shuffling is usually done by the player to the dealer's left, but any the cards can be shuffled by any one of the players. The cards are cut by the player on the dealer's right before dealing.
Each player is dealt 13 cards. The final card, which belongs to the dealer, is turned face up until it's the dealer's turn to play the first trick.
Play
The game starts with the player to the dealer's left leading the first trick of the game. The other players, usually in clockwise order,
play a card to the trick and must follow suit by playing a card of the suit led. If a player doesn't have a card of the suit led, he may play any card either discarding or trumping.
The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led with only one disclaimer: if a trump is played when the highest trump wins. The winner of the trick leads to the next trick.
Scoring
After 13 tricks played; the players who won the highest number of tricks score 1 point for each odd trick which is 1 point for each trick in excess of 6. US whilst games are usually play to 7 points, while in the UK a shorter version of up to 5 points is played.