What is whist? Well first of all it’s largely forgotten, even in its native Britain. It is an English card game that is similar to bridge, but the whist rules are a bit simpler. Like it’s bigger and now far more popular brother Bridge, it is usually designed for four players, but there are variants for other numbers of players, from two to seven. It is played with a deck of 52 cards (French hand), without jokers. Although the whist card game offers a surprising number of tactical possibilities, it is much easier to learn than bridge.
Of course you can play whist for money at non GamStop casinos. At the end of the 19th century it was very popular in Great Britain and was valued in the highest circles, including at royal courts. The English writer George Eliot (actually Mary Anne Evans) saw the whist game, which she didn’t really like that much, as a symbol of life: It’s always important to play your cards well and wait for the outcome. JustUK Club has all the options for using cards for gambling and the best non GamStop casinos.
The Preparations
In the whist game, teams are formed: two teams of two players compete against each other. First, you agree on a card dealer. Then the cards determine the teams you draw randomly. The ace counts as the lowest rank, although later in the game it is the strongest card, second strongest is the king, and so on down to two.
The two players with the highest card values drawn from a team and sit opposite each other at the card table, the other two players who drew the lower cards do the same. Usually, the player to the left of the dealer who cuts to his right shuffles. The dealer then deals the entire deck face down and one card at a time to each player, starting with those on their left. So each player gets 13 cards. The last card dealt by the dealer to himself reveals it and places it clearly visible in the middle of the table. This card determines the trump suit, which beats all other suits. The dealer is free to take the revealed card back into his hand.
The Whist Rules
The aim of the whist card game is to take as many tricks as possible. It doesn’t matter which player on a team scores them, they are added up. At the beginning, the left neighbor of the dealer plays first. It then goes around clockwise. There is an obligation to serve card suits that have been played. If you cannot do this, discard any card. Of course you can also trump with a trump card; This will all look very familiar to skate players. Whoever has taken a trick, comes into play and puts the next card on the table after he has discarded his trick face down. A player may look at this trick again on request before it is played again.
The Billing
Now it will be completely different from skat: When all cards have been played, the teams count the number of tricks they have taken, and they only add up the count, not the card values. The team with the most tricks is credited with a point for each trick from the sixth upwards. So the maximum number of points per round is seven. This rarely happens among experienced players, on average you get around two points per round. When a total of five points is reached, the whist game ends. For example, there is the “Long Whist” variant, which can only be decided with ten points. The Americans do it like they always do: copy something from the British, but do it a little differently. If you want to win a whist game in the USA, you need seven points. The American poet and horror master Edgar Allan Poe valued whist as an intellectual contest.
The Variants
So much for the basic whist rules. There are many variants of this game. From these, Bridge ultimately emerged. It is possible, for example, not to determine the trump suit at random, but to decide beforehand to play it through in a specific order. If it was the turn of clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds, you can play a fifth round without a trump suit at all. There are also many different options for the final bill. Bonus points for fulfilling certain conditions then spice up the game. For example, you can count who got the most aces, kings, queens and jacks of the trump suit and get extra rewards for that.
As with any card game in which two partners play against another team, the highest bid in whist is always the same, regardless of the variant: no hints to the other player about your own hand, no unambiguous or ambiguous remarks. And, of course, counting the cards played is essential to assess the chances of further tricks and to try to gauge the quality of your partner’s hand.
Whist was overtaken by bridge, it is still played today, especially in the Saxon cultural area, but has almost no meaning internationally. There are almost no online versions to be found. After almost 300 years of success, the whist card game has to be content with a niche existence.
