Whist: the rules of the classic British card game

The rules of whist are short: four players, two pairs, thirteen cards each and a single mission: win more tricks than those opposite. The difficult thing is not learning them, it is playing well with your partner without being able to say anything to him.

There have been many popular card games: some have not survived and others have undergone changes and mutations. Not everyone has reached the tables of the Ireland casinos online, today dominated by the online blackjack casino, but beyond the professional world of gambling, people continue to enjoy cards. Among us we have a few very popular ones, like the mus, the tute or the broom. Each country has its favorites and they are good example of popular creativity to enjoy the game in the most varied ways .

Whist was very popular in the past and continues to have its followers, although it has lost much of its popularity due, in part, to bridge, which has been taking over its ground. In fact, of the variant known as bridge whist reached the current contract bridge . Now we explain the rules of whist and the rationale behind them.

How to play whist: the rules

It's very simple. It is played with a French deck of 52 cards between 4 players forming two pairs , with the members of each pair facing each other. Making any comments about the cards or hand in play is strictly prohibited. You also cannot make any reference to the good or bad luck of your trick. The objective is to win more tricks than the opposing pair.

They say that games began to be played on scientific principles among British gentlemen who frequented the popular Coffee Houses , the social gathering centers of the late seventeenth century and much of the eighteenth century. In 1742 EdMond Hoyle published the text A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist , which soon became the standard book on the rules of whist .

The deck

The most normal thing is to use a standard deck of 52 cards, without jokers. The ace, A, represents the highest value card, followed by the king, K, and so on up to 2. As we have just seen, The value of the cards is in direct relation to the position they occupy in each suit , that is, it is not counted as many, as in the case of the broom. The hand deals 13 cards to each player. Before the player who deals is left with the last card, he turns it over to mark the suit that serves as trump for the rest of the game.

Game mechanics

The last card that serves to mark the trump suit or trump It remains flipped on the table until the end of the first turn, when the last player recovers the card. From here on, no comments can be made about the cards or tricks, and the value of the trump cannot be remembered, although its suit or color can. In each hand the strongest card takes the trick, until all 13 cards are gone. The winner of each trick is the first to play the next one, and the card he opens with marks the lead suit of that trick. . The trump suit, on the other hand, does not change throughout the hand: it is the one that was fixed when dealing.

Serving is obligatory. This means that You have to play cards of the suit that is requested by the player who opens the hand , whenever possible. If you do not have a card of the same suit you can play any one, also known as ruff, or the one of the trump suit established at the beginning of the game, although it is not mandatory. If there are several cards of the trump suit, the one with the highest value will win.

• Exit : the player to the left of the dealer opens the trick
• Serve : it is mandatory to play the lead suit as long as you have it
• Failed : if you don't have that suit you can discard or cut with a trump
• Asset : the highest trump is taken and, if there are no trumps, the highest card of the leading suit
• Next trick : opens it whoever won the previous one

The points

Once the game is over, the points are counted. There are two types: those for tricks and those for honors. The important thing is to win the trick, not with what cards it is done. . A winning trick with an ace is worth the same as one that has triumphed with a 2. The first 6 tricks won by a pair are known as obligation, for each trick won to majors an additional point is awarded known as trick . Since there are 13 tricks at play, it is obvious that only one pair will be able to achieve tricks.

The 4 highest cards, that is, the king, queen, jack and ace of the trump suit represent the honors . These are set at the end of each hand. The team must have played these four cards in hand. Many players rule out playing with honors because it means giving more value to chance than to strategy. You cannot win the game with honors alone, since tricks must always be achieved.

It is important that participants play as a team and not against each other. For this it is essential to know your partner's cards. Although signs and gestures are prohibited, whist has developed a series of codes in this regard that have later been adapted and perfected by bridge. For example, leading a king and then playing a low card can be an indication that you are in possession of the queen of the same suit, useful to signal the presence of a dubleton or 2 nearby value cards of the same suit. These codes are known to both couples and are open to interpretation.

From whist to bridge: what changed

Bridge didn't come out of nowhere: it's whist with an extra layer of strategy on top. The variant bridge whist introduced the idea of ​​the trump suit being decided before playing, rather than leaving it to chance from the last card dealt, and from there the contract bridge that is played today.

That change explains almost everything. In whist you deal, turn over a card and start; In bridge there is a prior auction in which each couple announces how many tricks they agree to win and with what suit. The game is no longer just about playing the cards well and is also about calculating how far you can commit. It is more demanding, and that is why bridge ended up having a federated scene, with tournaments and rankings, comparable to that of best online poker, while whist remained in home and club games. Neither of them has reached the catalogs of Ireland online casinos: there the card tables are blackjack, video poker and the games with real dealer of the live casinos.

Whist variants

The game has developed variants over the years, some out of necessity, such as when a fourth player is missing, and others out of taste. These are the best known.

• Almost all variants touch on a single rule: the triumph, the distribution or the number of players
• With dummy and knock-out whist are the usual exits when there are not four of you
• Oh, Hell adds trick prediction, the idea that bridge later inherited
• In almost all of them, honors can be dispensed with so that the strategy has more weight.

You will not find whist in a Ireland online casino, but if your thing is the table and cards, the catalog of online casino games It has something to entertain you with.

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