Whist Rule Variations and House Rules
Whist has been played for so long, in so many parlors, that nearly every family has its own way of keeping score. The heart of the game never changes: 13 cards each, a trump suit, follow suit, and a point for every trick past six. Here are the common differences, and which ones you can turn on in our free Whist game under Settings → House rules.
Game Length: Short, American and Long Whist
The old English game, long whist, was played to 10 points. In the early 1800s players started cutting it to 5 points, and short whist soon became the usual English game. In America the common target settled at 7 points, which is a nice middle ground: long enough that one lucky hand rarely decides it, short enough for an evening of several games.
In our game: choose 5, 7 (standard) or 10 points. The change starts with your next game.
Honours
In English whist the ace, king, queen and jack of trump are the honours. After the tricks are scored, a side that was dealt all four of them between the two partners scores 4 points, and a side dealt three of them scores 2. The partners don't have to win any tricks with them; just holding them counts.
Because honours are luck rather than skill, American players dropped them, and many English clubs grumbled about them too. Where they are used, two limits are common: tricks are scored before honours, so honours can't count once the tricks have won the game; and a side one point short of game ("at the point") can't use honours to get over the line. In long whist the same rule is often stated as "honours don't count at nine."
In our game: honours are off by default. Turn on Score honours and the game counts them for you after each hand, with both limits above, and explains in the results why they did or didn't count. There are no honours in a no-trump hand.
Trump Rotation and No-Trump Hands
Instead of turning up the dealer's last card, some groups decide trump in a fixed order. A popular one is hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and then a hand played with no trump at all, before starting over with hearts. Everyone knows trump before the cards are even dealt, which takes away the surprise of the turned-up card but adds the no-trump hand, where long suits and aces matter most and nobody can ruff.
In our game: turn on Trump rotation. No card is turned up, the trump bar shows which hand of the five you are on, and the fifth hand says "No trump" in big letters.
Rubbers
Traditional whist is scored in rubbers: the best two games out of three. The side that wins the rubber gets a bonus, often 2 points, and the final tally is used for settling up. Our game plays one game at a time; if you like rubbers, keep a tally of games on paper and play on.
Revoke Penalties
A revoke, failing to follow suit when you could, was taken very seriously. The usual penalty was three tricks taken from the revoking side and given to the other side, or three points added to the other side's score. Some rules also said the revoking side could not win the game that hand. In our game revokes can't happen, since only legal cards can be played.
Who Deals and Who Leads
Partnerships and the first dealer were often settled by cutting the deck; the two lowest cards played together and the lowest card dealt. Afterward the deal always passes to the left. In our game East deals the first hand, so you lead the first trick, and the deal moves left after every hand.
Related Games
- Bid whist and Minnesota whist add bidding, so trump and the number of tricks depend on the players, not the deck.
- German whist is a two-player game where you draw from a stock as you play.
- Oh Hell deals a different number of cards each hand and asks every player to predict exactly how many tricks they will take.
- Spades keeps spades as permanent trump and adds bidding by partnerships.
Ready for the standard game? Read the full Whist rules or our Whist strategy guide.