How to play Whist.
A good hand. A better partnership.

Your partner opposite.
Your opponents either side.

Use a standard 52-card pack, with no jokers. Four players form two fixed partnerships. Partners sit opposite each other and combine the tricks they win; they do not combine or show their hands.

Deal clockwise, one card at a time, until each person has 13. Turn the dealer’s final card face up to set trumps. It belongs to the dealer’s hand, rather than being an extra card or a discard pile. The trump suit stays fixed until the next deal.

The player to the dealer’s left leads first. Our first dealer is Alex, so you lead the opening trick. After a completed deal, the dealer moves one seat clockwise. The turn-up card and dealer are noted beside the table.

One person leads.
Everyone follows.

The leader may choose any card. That card’s suit is the led suit for this trick. Moving clockwise, each other player adds one card. If they hold any cards of the led suit, they must choose one of them.

If you have no card of the led suit, you may play any card. You can use a trump, but you do not have to. You can discard another suit, and you are not obliged to overtrump an opponent. Nobody draws replacement cards during a deal.

Once all four cards are down, decide who won. That player leads the next trick, and the cycle continues. Our table pauses to show the winner and explanation before you continue.

A high card helps.
A trump changes the question.

Cards rank A–K–Q–J–10–9–8–7–6–5–4–3–2, with aces high. If any trumps appear in a trick, the highest trump wins. If no trump appears, the highest card of the led suit wins.

An ace of an unrelated non-trump suit cannot win just because it is an ace. Likewise, the suit of the most recently played card does not replace the original led suit. Keep the first card and the deal’s trump suit in mind.

Count the tricks.
Then count the points.

Play all 13 tricks before scoring the deal. Add your tricks to your partner’s. The partnership with seven or more tricks earns one point for each trick above six; the other side earns none for that deal.

Carry those points into the next deal. First to at least five points wins the match, so a result can take a side beyond five. A partnership on four that earns two finishes on six and wins. New deals rotate the dealer and set a new trump suit.

Card ranks are not point values. An ace helps win a trick but earns no separate card bonus here. We use no honours bonus, bidding target or penalty for failing to predict a result.

It is your card.
It is your team’s trick.

You and Sam share every trick either of you wins. If Sam is already winning, a low legal card may be enough; you do not always need to spend your highest card. An opponent still to play could change the outcome, so treat that as a judgement rather than a rule.

Notice which suits people cannot follow and which high cards have already appeared. You may use the visible plays as information, but you cannot see a partner’s hidden hand or arrange signals with them.

The computer players and move suggestions use their own hand and the public trick. They follow the same suit restrictions as you. This is a learning opponent, with no hidden-hand access and no claim to expert tournament strategy.

Whist has a family.
This is the classic table.

These Whist card game rules cover the four-player partnership game without bidding. Other games share the name but use different aims, deals or scoring.

Rules checked against Pagat’s classic Whist guide and Bicycle’s Whist rules. Explanations and tutorial positions are original to this practice page. Reviewed 18 October 2026.