How to play Classic Whist

Say how many tricks you are going to take, then take exactly that many, not one more and not one fewer. Every hand pays for being right and charges for being wrong, and a match is a fixed run of hands from one card each up to eight and back down again.

Three to six players, dealt from a pack cut down to fit: the top two ranks per player of every suit, so a four-player table plays from the seven upwards.

The hand sizes are fixed in advance: one card each for as many hands as there are players, then two, three, four, five, six, seven, then eight cards each for as many hands as there are players, then back down to two, and the one-card hands again to finish. A four-player match is twenty-four hands, and there is no target score.

A card is turned from what is left over to fix the atu, and it takes no further part. In the eight-card hands the whole pack is dealt out, so there is nothing left to turn and they are played with no trump.

Starting to the dealer's left and ending with the dealer, each player says how many tricks they will take, from none up to the size of the hand. Bids are public the moment they are made.

The dealer is the one seat that is not free. The bids may not add up to the number of tricks there are to take, so the dealer may not name the one value that would make them add up.

That single rule is what makes this a game: the table can never claim exactly what is on offer, so somebody has to miss every hand. It costs the dealer real points, which is why the deal moves one seat on every hand.

1. The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. After that, whoever took the last trick leads.

2. Follow the led suit if you hold it.

3. If you are void in it, you must play a trump if you hold one.

4. Holding neither, play anything.

Those are the only two obligations. You are never made to play higher than the card that is winning, and never made to overtrump. Ducking is most of the skill here, because the moment you have the tricks you promised you have to stop taking them.

The highest trump takes the trick; if nobody trumped, the highest card of the led suit does.

Take exactly what you said and you score 5 plus the tricks you took: a bid of three made is 8, and a bid of none made is a clean 5 for taking nothing at all.

Miss it in either direction and you lose the difference. Bid four and take two and it is −2; bid one and take three and it is −2 as well. Overshooting costs exactly what falling short does, which is why a player who is already home spends the rest of the hand throwing tricks away.

Five hands running. Five contracts made one after another is worth 10 points on top of them; five missed in a row costs 10. Making one resets the missed run, and missing one resets the made run.

The one-card hands sit outside it. They are luck rather than judgement, so they neither build a run nor break one.

The match is over when the schedule is. There is no target score and no early finish: every hand from the first one-card deal to the last is played, and the highest total wins.

Every seat deals the same number of the hardest hands, which is what the schedule's shape is for.

Open the scores at the top of the table whenever you like.

When it is your turn to bid, the numbers you may say appear under your hand. The one the dealer is forbidden is simply not offered.

In play, tap a card and then the button under your hand, or drag it into the middle of the table. Cards you may not play do not respond, so following suit and the obligation to trump are never something you have to hold in your head.

Everybody's bid and everybody's tricks so far sit beside their name for the whole hand. Knowing who still needs two is most of what you are playing against.

A practice match runs entirely on your device against bots, with no connection needed. A bot sees only what any opponent could see: your hand stays hidden, so it cannot cheat.

Online, a bot steps in for a player who has gone quiet, so the table keeps moving.