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.

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

13 cards are dealt to each player.

If playing with last-card trumps, 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.

Whoever is left of the dealer leads a card to start. Each player must play one card in 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 card 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.

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.

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

Sound — off, on.

Speed — Normal, fast.

Orientation — Portrait, landscape left, landscape right or landscape free.

Hand display — one row, stacked. Choose whether large hands are arranged in one or two rows.

Card sort order — ascending, descending.

Single click play — Off, on.

Allow card drag — Off, on.

Auto play — Last trick, when only one card or off. Automatically plays your cards on the last trick, or whenever you have only one legal move.

Claim tricks — On, off. Allows you to claim the remaining tricks when all of your remaining cards are guaranteed winners.

Show starting hands — From Review, never or always. Shows the starting hands of all players at the end of each round.

AI level — Easy, medium or hard.

Win target — 5, 7 or 9.

Trumps — on, off.

Trump Type — last card, alternate.

Honours — off, on.

Cards — Classic or coppercod.

Deck — Choose from 22 different deck designs.

Mobile cards — Off or on. Mobile cards are thinner with larger numbers.

Theme — Blue, green, merlot, dark red, light blue, black, purple, teal, pink, orange, dark blue, dark green or charcoal.

Four color suits — On or off. Uses four colors for card suits for improved readability.

Home screen

From the home screen you can access the following options:

• Start new game or continue game.
• Settings (gear 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).

Your cards are displayed face up at the bottom of the screen, your partner's cards 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 partner's 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 partnership receives are displayed, as well as the total score for each partnership for the game.

Thank you for playing Whist!