Whist is a classic English trick-takingcard game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries.[1][2] Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play.[3]
Drawing by Marguerite Martyn for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of a session of the Women's Whist Club Congress, April 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri
In 1674, The Complete Gamester described the game Ruff and Honours as the most popular descendant of Triumph played in England during the 17th century. Whist is described as a simpler, more staid, version of Ruff and Honours with the twos removed instead of having a stock. In the 18th century, Whist, played with a 52 card pack, superseded Ruff and Honours.[4][5] The game takes its name from the 17th-century word whist (or wist) meaning quiet, silent, attentive, which is the root of the modern wistful.[6]
Whist was first played on scientific principles by gentlemen in the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row, London, around 1728, according to Daines Barrington.[7]Edmond Hoyle, suspected to be a member of this group, began to tutor wealthy young gentlemen in the game and published A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist in 1742. It became the standard text and rules for the game for the next hundred years.
In 1862, Henry Jones, writing under the pseudonym "Cavendish", published The Principles of Whist Stated and Explained, and Its Practice Illustrated on an Original System, by Means of Hands Played Completely Through, which became the standard text.[7] In his book, Jones outlined a comprehensive history of Whist, and suggested that its ancestors could include a game called Trionf, mentioned by a sixteenth century Italian poet named Berni, and a game called Trump (or Triumph), mentioned in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.[8]
Many subsequent editions and enlargements of Jones's book were published using the simpler title Cavendish on Whist. Whist by now was governed by elaborate and rigid rules covering the laws of the game, etiquette and play which took time to study and master.
In the early 1890s, Whist was quickly replaced by the new game of Bridge in clubs. Whist was still played as a social game, in club individual duplicate cardplay competitions, and later at charitable social events called whist drives.[9] There are many modern variants of whist still played for fun, though whist can still be played online following the same rules as 300 years ago.
Rules
A standard 52-card pack is used and the game is played Clockwise. By the time of Whist, the Ace had been promoted to top honour, so the cards are ranked: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. Whist is played by four players who draw cards to decide partnerships and the Dealer. The two lowest cards play together, and choose their seats facing each other. Highest card is Dealer and 2nd highest is their partner.
Shuffling and dealing
Dealer chooses a pack, which their side will deal throughout, and passes it to the player on their left to be shuffled. Dealer then picks up the pack, and may give it a last shuffle, before passing to the player on their right to cut. Dealer then completes the cut and deals 13 cards to each player one at a time, dealing their last card face up to set trumps.
Play
The play at Whist is the simplest form of Triumph and has been used by many other games. Eldest Hand, the player on Dealer's left, leads to the first trick. Dealer picks up the trump card when it is their turn to play. Players must follow suit if they can, and if they can't follow suit may discard or play a trump. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, unless trumps are played to the trick, when the highest trump wins.
Before the next trick starts, a player may ask to review the cards from the last trick. The winner of the trick leads to the next trick.
Scoring
19th-century whist scoring counter, depicting the departure of Cumberland Jack from Britain.
A point is scored for each odd trick (trick in excess of six) won by a pair.
Short Whist in Britain was played with a game five odd tricks and the first pair to win two games won the Rubber. Honours were optional with a pair holding three of the top four Honours getting one trick bonus, and all four top honours a two trick bonus. In America game was seven odd tricks. Long Whist was also played where game was 9 or 10 odd tricks, usually played with Honours.
Modern Short Whist is commonly played with three Honours worth two points and all four Honours worth four points. A pair with four points is unable to win game by Honours and needs to make an odd trick.
When playing for stakes a game is one point. Game where opponents score 1 or 2 tricks is a double game and game where opponents don't score any tricks is a triple game. There is a two-point bonus for winning the Rubber.
Whist can be scored with a pen and paper, or with whist markers.[11]
Basic tactics
For the opening lead, it is best to lead your strongest suit, which is usually the longest. A singleton may also be a good lead, aiming at trumping in that suit, as one's partner should normally return the suit led.
1st hand: It is usual to lead the king from a sequence of honours that includes it, including AK (the lead of an ace therefore denies the king).
2nd hand usually plays low, especially with a single honour. However, it is often correct to split honours (play the lower of two touching honours) and to cover a J or 10 when holding Qx and cover a Q when holding the ace.
3rd hand usually plays high, though play the lowest of touching honours. The finesse can be a useful technique, especially in trumps where honours cannot be trumped if they are not cashed.
Discards are usually low cards of an unwanted suit. However, when the opponents are drawing trumps a suit preference signal is given by throwing a low card of one's strongest suit.
One card at a time is given to each player by the dealer starting with the player on the dealer's left and proceeding clockwise until the deck is fully distributed.
Dealer
The player who deals the cards for a hand.
Deck
The pack of cards used for playing comprising 52 cards in four suits.
Dummy
In some variations, a hand is turned face up and is played from by the player seated opposite. This allows the game to be played by three players.
Finesse
The play of a lower honour even though holding a higher one, hoping that the intermediate honour is held by a player who has already played to the trick. To give an example
you hold the ace and queen of hearts. Your right-hand antagonist leads a heart, from which you infer that he holds the king of the same suit and wishes to draw the ace, in order to make his king. You however play the queen, and win the trick; still retaining your ace, ready to win again when he plays his king.[12][7]
Game
Reaching a total score agreed beforehand to be the score played up to.
Grand Slam
The winning, by one team, of all thirteen tricks in a hand.
Hand
Thirteen tricks. (52 cards in the deck divided by four players equals thirteen cards per player.)
Honours
In some variations, extra points are assigned after a game to a team if they were dealt the ace, king, queen, and jack (knave) of the trump suit.[13]
Lead
The first card played in a trick.
Lurch
Rare or obsolete. To prevent one's adversary from scoring a treble [OED] or in the phrase 'save one's lurch' to just escape losing the game [Hoyle, Britannica 1911].[7]
The winning, by one team, of twelve tricks in a hand.
Tenace
A suit holding containing the highest and third-highest of the suit or (the "minor tenace") second- and fourth-highest.
Trick
Four cards played one each by the players.
Trump
The suit chosen by the last-dealt card that will beat all other suits regardless of rank. If two or more trump cards are played in a single trick, the highest-ranking trump wins it.
Variants
As Whist is the simplest form of Triumph played with full 52 card pack and developed formal rules, it formed the basis of many subsequent trick-taking games. McLeod classifies this family into a number of sub-groups: the auction whist, Boston, classic whist and exact bidding groups, and games played by numbers of players other than four. The following is a selection within each sub-group.
Auction whist group
The auction whist group is a family of games with the characteristics of whist – an auction for the right to choose trumps won by the highest contract or largest number of tricks – and fixed partnerships.[14]
Bid whist – a partnership game with bidding, popular among African Americans in the United States.[15]
Dutch whist, similar to diminishing contract whist, where up to seven players compete to win the most points by betting at the start of each round how many tricks they will win. In Dutch whist, players start with one card in round one and go up to seven cards, then play a midsection of rounds with No Trumps (5 points per tick won), Misery (lose 5 points per trick 'won'), Blind (betting on number of tricks before cards are seen). Following the mid-section, seven further rounds are played, starting with seven cards and reducing to one. Trumps each round are pre-designated, following the pattern hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades. Scoring is based on 10 points for a correct bet, 1 point for every trick won (whether wanted or not).[16]
Solo whist – played in Britain; a game where individuals can bid to win five, nine or thirteen tricks or to lose every trick.
Classic whist group
Double sar (also played in south Asia), a variation of court piece in which tricks are only captured when the same player wins two tricks in succession. The player then captures all the unclaimed tricks up to that point.[17]
Minnesota whist – in which there are no trumps, and hands can be played to win tricks or to lose tricks; see also the very similar game of Norwegian whist.
Quadrette – French variant with a shortened pack in which partners communicate about their cards, and one directs the play of the other. Good for teaching learners and children.
Swedish whist – four-hand Swedish game with two contracts: red (positive) and black (negative).
Exact bidding group
Blob – British variant of oh hell in which players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will take and will be 'blobbed in' if wrong. Can be played with four or five players. Six cards each, total number of tricks bid for in each hand cannot add up to six. Person to left of dealer nominates trumps or no trumps and then becomes dealer for next hand.
Oh hell, oh pshaw, or nomination whist – game for three to seven players in which the number of cards dealt is usually increased or decreased by one in each successive deal.
Israeli whist – game related to oh hell, in which one tries to bid the exact number of tricks one will take.[18]
Romanian whist – game in which players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will take; similar to oh hell.[19]
German whist – British two-player adaptation of whist without bidding.[20]
Knock-out whist, trumps (UK) or diminishing whist – game in which a player who wins no tricks is eliminated.
Three-handed whist – Also called widow whist, a three-player variant in which a dummy hand is dealt, which players have the option to exchange for their own hand.
Danish whist or call-ace whist. Combines several whist variants, including Solo Whist and the game Esmakker ("ace partner") in which the bidder chooses his partner by calling an ace, who becomes a blind partner, and only revealed by playing the partner ace. Is also often played with 2 or 3 jokers as automatic suit-breaking trump cards. McLeod records two types: one with fixed partnerships and one in which the partner is called by an Ace.[22]
Ladder whist – A student game that is effectively the opposite of knock-out whist. Players start as 'dogs' with just one card each and win the game by achieving a hand of 7 cards.[23]
Progressive whist or compass whist – a competition format in which two players from each table move to the next table after a fixed number of games which are played to a fixed format, e.g. with the designated trump suit changing each time.[24]
Whist drive
A whist drive is a social event at which progressive games of whist are played across a number of tables which are numbered or ordered into a sequence.
In it, the winning (or sometimes losing, dependent on the local custom) pair of a hand "progress" around the room, i.e. one person moves up the table sequence and one person moves down. On arriving at the new table, the next hand is played.
By convention the pair who sits has shuffled and deals after the arriving pair has cut the pack.
A progressive whist drive is normally 24 hands, with each hand being a different trump. Trumps normally follow the sequence: hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades.
Sometimes a break for refreshments is taken after 12 hands.[9]
Three of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories feature whist. In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Ronald Adair plays whist at one of his clubs shortly before he is murdered. In "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", Brenda Tregennis plays whist with her brothers George, Mortimer and Owen shortly before she is murdered. In "The Red-Headed League", the banker Mr. Merryweather complains that he is missing his regular rubber of whist in order to help Holmes catch a bank robber.
Barbey d'Aurevilly, in a story from Les diaboliques, "The Underside of the Cards of a Game of Whist", traces the secret affair between a lady and an expert whist player, leading to an horrific act.
Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it,...
His only pastime was reading the papers and playing whist. He frequently won at this quiet game, so very appropriate to his nature
Whist figures prominently in much of Balzac's Comedie Humane, including his great novel, Modeste Mignon.
Whist figures extensively in C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series. Hornblower is featured as living off his winnings from playing whist while a half-pay lieutenant, and famously playing whist with subordinate officers before a battle.
The same is true in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell and was used mainly to portray gambling much the same way poker is today.
In the opening chapter of Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the characters contrast the solemnity of the funeral ceremony with the desire to escape and play whist.
In Middlemarch by George Eliot, the game is referenced numerous times as an aristocratic pursuit played frequently at the Vincy residence. In particular, the clergyman Mr. Farebrother supplements his income by playing for money, a pursuit looked down upon by many of his parishioners.
In his autobiography, Groucho and Me, Groucho Marx talks about playing whist with an ex-girlfriend during a chapter on her husband's insomnia.
In The Fiery Cross, Diana Gabaldon describes a high-stakes whist game between Jamie Fraser, "who was indeed an excellent card player. He also knew most of the possible ways of cheating at cards. However, whist was difficult, if not impossible to cheat at", and Phylip Wylie, who had angered Fraser by making advances to his wife.
In Life of Henry Clay, Carl Schurz notes that "his fondness for card-playing, which, although in his early years he had given up games of chance, still led him to squander but too much time upon whist."
In DC Comics' Starman series it is revealed that The Shade is a whist player, and enjoyed playing with Brian Savage (it was also noted that The Shade would regularly win at whist, while Savage would regularly win at poker).
In The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, members of the Falconeri family and the priest play the game, much to the joy of a Piedmontese guest, reassured of their civilized ways.
In his autobiography, Harold Bauer: His Book, pianist Harold Bauer laments his inability to play well under pressure. "I suffered similarly whenever I played chess or whist, which excited me so terribly that I always had nightmares from the thought of how I might have played."
At the sound of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague remembrance of his daily whist party at his club. It was the most comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his skill without the assistance of any subordinate. He entered his club to play from five to seven, before going home to dinner, forgetting for those two hours whatever was distasteful in his life, as though the game were a beneficent drug for allaying the pangs of moral discontent.
In Mary Boykin Chesnut's Civil War Diary, whist was the most frequently played card game in her social circle while she lived in Richmond, Virginia.
In Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, the game is mentioned as a way Ajarry was sold to another slaveowner.
In R. L. Stine's Ghost Beach in the Goosebumps book series, the game is played by the protagonists.
The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled "whist"—a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of "game" has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied
In Dickens' David Copperfield, whist is mentioned three times: in Chapter 18 ("A Retrospect") as the pastime of Mr. Chestle, the future husband of Miss Larkins; in Chapter 37 ("A Little Cold Water"), Mr. Mills is said to frequent a whist club; and in Chapter 41 ("Dora's Aunts"), as the game played by Mr. Pidger (more precisely in the form of short whist).
In In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust describes a game of whist played by a group of dinner guests, one of whom is ridiculed for not knowing the rules.
In The Doll by Bolesław Prus, whist is mentioned in several scenes; Stanisław Wokulski and Tomasz Łęcki play for money.
In All American Chump (1936) math whiz Elmer (Stuart Erwin) mentions he plays whist, and is so good that nobody in his hometown will play with him because he always wins.
In The Young Victoria, when Lord Melbourne tries to provide advice to Prince Albert, the Prince tells him, "Lord Melbourne, forgive me but you seem to have confused me with a member of your club. I am not your drinking companion nor your whist partner. I am the husband of your sovereign. And as such, I will make my own decisions, and I neither seek nor invite your advice. Good evening."
In 2018's The Favourite, Abigail Hill is mentioned to have become impoverished after her father lost their fortune at whist, along with various other references throughout.
In series 5 of the television show Peaky Blinders, Tommy Shelby recalls a story of his time in France during the Great War while threatening a member of parliament who refuses to pay him in full for a hired killing. "I spent a long time waiting for the cavalry, me. One time, me and my comrades waited three days. When the cavalry finally came, an officer on the back of a fine white horse joked that he'd been delayed playing a game of whist. So, I took out my Webley revolver and I shot him in the head, stole his horse, reported him for cowardice. All for a game of chance."
↑ "History of Whist" in Roya, Will (2021). Card Night: Classic Games, Classic Decks, and the History Behind Them. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. p.167. ISBN9780762473519.
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