How to Play Whist

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Whist is a trick-taking card game for four players sitting in two fixed partnerships. Using a standard 52-card deck, each player receives 13 cards and the partners work together across the table to win as many of the 13 tricks as possible. It is quiet, disciplined and rewards careful attention to every card played.

People love Whist because the rules are simple enough to learn in minutes yet the interplay between partners creates real depth. It needs no board, no tokens and no special equipment, which makes it a natural choice for kitchens, clubs, holiday cottages and village halls alike.

A little history

Whist is documented in England from at least the early eighteenth century, and references appear in print from around the 1720s. Edmond Hoyle published a widely read treatise on the game in 1742, which helped standardise its rules and cement its popularity across British society for well over a century. Its earlier origins are unclear, though it is traditionally thought to have developed from the older English game of Ruff and Honours. By the mid-nineteenth century it had spread throughout Europe and North America, and it remained the pre-eminent card game in British households until Bridge largely displaced it in the early twentieth century.

Setting up

1. Seat four players at a square or rectangular table. Partners sit directly opposite each other.
2. Decide partnerships by agreement, or by drawing cards: the two highest-ranked draws form one pair, the two lowest the other.
3. Choose a first dealer by any agreed method, such as cutting for highest card. The deal passes clockwise each hand.
4. The dealer shuffles thoroughly and offers the deck to the player on their right to cut.
5. Deal all 52 cards clockwise, one at a time face down, starting with the player to the dealer's left. Each player receives exactly 13 cards.
6. The dealer turns the final card face up before picking it up. The suit of that card is trumps for the hand.

How to play

1. The player to the dealer's left leads any card face up to the centre of the table to start the first trick.
2. Play proceeds clockwise. Each player must follow suit if they can. A player who cannot follow suit may play any card, including a trump.
3. A trick is won by the highest trump played to it. If no trump is played, the trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. Cards rank Ace (high) down to Two (low).
4. The player who wins a trick leads to the next trick. This continues until all 13 tricks have been played.
5. Partners keep their won tricks together in a single face-down pile in front of either partner. Count tricks by partnership, not by individual.
6. Once all 13 tricks are played, count each partnership's tricks and score the hand according to the scoring rules below.
7. The deal passes to the left. Play continues for an agreed number of hands or until one side reaches the target score.

Winning and scoring

Each partnership counts its tricks. The first seven tricks taken by a side score nothing; only tricks above six count toward the score. A partnership scores one point per trick won in excess of six. So winning seven tricks scores one point, eight tricks scores two points, and so on up to a maximum of seven points for taking all thirteen tricks.

A game is typically the first partnership to reach five points, though seven or nine points can be agreed before play begins. A rubber is the best of three games, and the partnership winning the rubber scores a bonus of two points if the opponents have won one game, or three points if the opponents have won none. Match scores may be kept as a running total across rubbers.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns a revoke, which is when a player fails to follow suit despite holding a card of the suit led. A revoke is established once the offending player or their partner has played to the following trick. The standard penalty is three tricks transferred from the revoking side to their opponents, or, if the revoking side won fewer than three tricks in the hand, as many tricks as they took. The hand is not replayed. If a revoke is discovered before it is established, the offending player must substitute a legal card; the card wrongly played becomes a penalty card and may be called by the opponents on any subsequent trick.

Leading out of turn carries no penalty under traditional rules unless the opponents choose to enforce one. The standard remedy is that the opponents may accept the lead as played, require the correct player to lead, or require the offending player's partner to lead the suit of the wrongly led card. Cards exposed by accident during the deal are not penalised; if the final face-up trump card is accidentally seen by a player other than the dealer before trumps are officially declared, it is simply noted and play continues.

How to win more often

• Lead from your longest suit early to establish tricks and to signal your hand to your partner.
• The traditional opening lead of the fourth-highest card of your best suit gives your partner useful information about your holding without committing your top cards prematurely.
• Count trumps actively throughout the hand. Once you know trumps are exhausted in the other hands, you can run a long side suit safely.
• Trust your partner's leads: if they lead low, assume they hold an honour in that suit and avoid overtaking unnecessarily.
• Avoid trumping your partner's winning tricks. If they play a high card and no trump has been played, let it win unless you have a very strong reason to overtake.

Variations

Long Whist

The original scoring target of nine points rather than five, making each rubber considerably longer. Long Whist was the dominant form through much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before Short Whist became standard. The scoring of tricks above six is identical; only the winning target differs.

German Whist

A two-player adaptation that removes the partnership element entirely. The deck is split into a face-down stock and a face-up card beside it that shows the current trump. Players take tricks; the winner draws the face-up card and the loser draws the top stock card, then a new card is turned. Once the stock is exhausted, the remaining 13 cards are played out and tricks are counted in the usual way.

Bid Whist

Players bid for the right to name trumps, with the highest bidder declaring the trump suit and committing their partnership to winning at least the number of tricks bid. Bids that are not met result in the bidding side losing points equal to their bid, while making the bid scores the points won above six. This variant adds a bidding phase before each hand and suits players who want more active negotiation at the table.

Solo Whist

A four-player variant in which players bid to play alone against the other three, or in shifting temporary partnerships, rather than in fixed pairs. Common bids include Proposal and Acceptance, where two players partner up after agreeing across the table, and Solo, where one player takes on the rest. Misere bids, in which a player aims to win no tricks, are also standard. Solo Whist is treated by many players as a distinct game in its own right.

Whist: frequently asked questions