Whist - List of Variations

List of Variations

Nowadays there are many other games called whist - the name has become attached to a wide variety of games based on classic whist, but often with some kind of bidding added, for example:

• Bid whist (a partnership game with bidding, played in the USA, and made popular by the US Military)
• Blob (a game 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 4 or 5 players. 6 cards each, total number of tricks bid for in each hand cannot add up to 6. Person to left of dealer nominates trumps or no trumps and then becomes dealer for next hand.)
• Boston (played in 19th century Europe, favored by Count Rostov in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace)
• Call-ace whist (in which the bidder chooses his partner by calling an ace; it is the national game of Denmark)
• Catch the Ten (also known as Scotch whist) (uses only half the deck. 10 is most valuable.)
• Colour whist or kleurwiezen (a Belgian game similar to solo whist, but more elaborate)
• Court piece, also known as Rang, Hokm or Troefcall (an originally South Asian game)
• Diminishing contract whist (a British variant, combining elements of solo whist, bid whist and knock-out whist, players compete individually, not in pairs, and after each hand has been dealt must name the number of tricks to take, scoring one point per trick and a bonus 10 for matching their contract. All 52 cards are dealt for the first hand, 48 for the second, 44 the next and so until a 13th round with just one trick. Trumps are pre-defined for each hand in sequence as: hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, no trumps, lose all with no trumps - where you lose 10 points per trick taken and some players invariably end up in negative points - hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds. The total number of tricks bid each round cannot match the number of tricks available, so the dealer each hand must bid with this constraint in mind - sometimes this constraint is waived for the final round if players agree in advance. The winner is the player who has accumulated the most points at the end of the final round.)
• Double Sar (also played in south Asia, a variation to 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.)
• Dummy whist (a three player variant of bid whist)
• German whist (a British two-player adaptation of whist without bidding)
• Hearts (Play of a trick follows whist rules, but the object is not to take tricks. Hearts is included in Windows as Hearts (Windows))
• Israeli whist (another game somewhat related to Oh, Hell, in which one tries to bid the exact number of tricks one will take)
• Jass (pronounced Yass) (a Swiss four-player card game, partners alternatively declare trump)
• Knock-out whist, trumps (UK) or diminishing whist (a game in which a player who wins no trick is eliminated)
• Minnesota whist (in which there are no trumps, and hands can be played to win tricks or to lose tricks - also the very similar game of Norwegian whist)
• Oh, hell (players bid on exactly how many tricks they will take; going too high or too low is penalized)
• Romanian whist (a game in which players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will take - similar to Oh, Hell)
• Russian whist is a Russian card-game, similar to both bridge and whist also referred to as Vint
• Serbian whist (a game in which players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will take, and each round players are dealt one card less.)
• Siberian Vint a redecessor and more primitive form of Vint,
• Skruuvi is a Finnish variant of Vint, which became common in Finland while it was a part of Russia
• Solo whist (played in Britain; a game where individuals can bid to win 5, 9 or 13 tricks or to lose every trick)
• Spades (A contract-type game similar to bid whist, popular in North America; the game's name comes from the fact that spades is always the trump suit).
• Tarneeb (played in the Arab world, a game in which the person who wins the bid picks the trump)
• Three-handed "widow" whist (or three-handed whist, an extra hand that is dealt just to the left of the dealer)
• Vint is a Russian card-game, similar to both bridge and whist and it is sometimes referred to as Russian whist
• Trinidadian Whist (a whist game variation with some bridge aspects played in Trinidad and Tobago; the teams are determined by whatever card the winning bidder calls for to be his partner for that round, there is no dummy and the first card played by the winning bidder is trump)