Classic Whist

About Classic Whist

Whist is a simple partnership card game, and a great place to start if you are new to trick-taking games! Develop your strategic thinking and teamwork while you unwind with this fun and fast-paced game.

Classic Whist is the ideal game for learning trick-taking and Whist games of all types. Choose between easy mode while you grow your skills, and hard mode when you want to be challenged!

To win, you must work with your AI partner to outwit your opponents and be the first partnership to reach the win target, either five, seven or nine points.

Customise the game you want, setting your preferred win target, setting the AI to easy or hard and choose to play with or without ‘Honours’. As in all our games, you can customise your colour themes and decks too, keeping the playing landscape interesting and exciting.

Quickfire Rules

The aim of the game is to be the first partnership to reach the win target. As with all Whist games, it follows standard trick-taking rules. A card is beaten either by a higher card of the same suit, or any Trump card. Once a card is played, other players must play a card from the same suit. If they do not hold any cards from this suit, they may choose to Trump, or Throw Away by playing any non-trump card.

One point is awarded for every trick a partnership takes above six tricks.

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Available on App and Play Stores

Classic Whist Terms

Trick: Each player plays a card in turn, and the best card wins that trick.

Trump: Cards in the trump suit are elevated higher than all other cards. Trump cards can only be played when a player cannot follow suit or a Trump card is led.

Honours: If a team is dealt either three or four Honour cards in the same suit they are awarded bonus points. Honour cards are Ace, King, Queen and Jack.

How Your Partner Plays

Playing with a partner you can't communicate with can be frustrating, but here are some tips on how you can get along:

  • With the opening lead, your partner will play a singleton or low in their strongest suit to tell you which suit they want you to bring back
  • They will watch your opening lead and try to bring that suit back for you if they can
  • If they spot that you are void in a suit they will run that suit to give you the opportunity to trump

How To Play

Whist is a classic four-player partnership game using one standard deck of 52 cards.

The aim of the game is to be the first partnership to reach the win target, which you can set to five, seven or nine points.

At the end of each round, points are scored by the number of tricks each partnership has collected. One point is awarded for every trick a partnership takes above six tricks. For example, taking eight tricks to your opponents' five would win you two points for the round.

Deal

The dealer is initially chosen at random, and then moves clockwise round the table for subsequent rounds.

13 cards are dealt to each player.

The last card to be dealt is shown face up and sets the Trump suit for the round of play. This card is then dealt as the last card to the dealer.

Play

Whoever is left of the dealer leads a card to start. Each player must play one card in a clockwise order, following suit where they can.

The winner of each trick is the player who plays the highest card matching the suit of the first player to play, unless a Trump is played, in which case the highest Trump card will win the trick.

If you cannot follow suit you can play any card from your hand.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, the tricks each partnership collects are totalled.

One point is awarded for every trick a partnership takes above six tricks. For example, taking eight tricks to your opponents' five would win you two points for the round.

If you are playing a game with the Honour bonus turned on, honours are claimed after the trick points are calculated. If a team is dealt all four honours (A, K, Q and J) in the Trump suit for the round, they are awarded four bonus points. If a team is dealt three of the four honours, they are awarded two bonus points. If the honours are shared evenly between the two teams then no bonus points are awarded.

You cannot win a game with honour bonus alone. If your team is two points away from victory and you were dealt all four honours, you will only receive one bonus point. The final point required for victory must come from trick points.

Settings

Choose from the following settings (defaults shown in italics):

Sound: off, on.

Speed: normal, fast.

Hand display: one row, stacked (choose whether large hands are arranged in one or two rows).

Card sort order: ascending, descending.

Single click play: On, off.

AI level: easy, hard.

Win target: 5, 7 or 9.

Honours: off, on.

Cards: Classic, coppercod or modern.

Deck: Choose from 18 different deck designs for coppercod, 16 for modern.

Mobile Cards: Off or on. Only available on phones.

Theme: Green, merlot, dark red, light blue, black, purple, teal, pink, orange or blue

Interface

Home screen:

From the home screen you can access the following options:

  • Start new game or continue game.
  • Settings (cog icon, bottom left).
  • Statistics (trophy icon, top left): View all time stats and view and reset session stats.
  • Sound (speaker icon, top right): Tap to toggle between sound on and off.
  • Information (question mark icon, bottom right).
During a game

Your cards are displayed face up at the bottom of the screen, your partner's are face down at the top of the screen, and your opponents’ cards are face down at the left and right. Your cards are ordered first by suit, then low to high from left to right. Your partners and opponents’ cards are ordered at random.

During play, each player’s score for the round is shown in front of their hand. A green or red light is displayed next to your score to display green when it is your turn to act, or red when it is not.

When it is your turn to act, tap on a card from your hand that you want to select, and then tap it again to play the card (or tap it just once if the 'single click play' setting is turned on). Alternatively, you can drag the card into position. You can change which cards are selected before playing by tapping on other cards.

At the end of the hand the scores each player partnership receives are displayed, as well as the total score for each partnership for the game.

Thank you for playing Whist!