Whist
Play classic partnership Whist free online. Follow suit, use the trump suit set by the dealer’s last card, and win tricks beyond the six-trick book to score. First team to 7 points wins. No download or sign-up.
Overview
Whist is a four-player partnership trick-taking game. You and Jim play against Sam and Tina, with partners sitting opposite each other. The first partnership to 7 points wins the match.
All 52 cards are dealt, 13 to each player, so every hand has thirteen tricks. There is no bidding — trump is decided by the deal itself.
Trump
The dealer's last dealt card sets the trump suit for that hand. Nobody chooses it and nobody bids for it, so each hand simply arrives with a trump suit already fixed.
The dealer position moves one seat after every hand, so the seat that fixes trump and the seat that leads both rotate through the table across a match.
Playing a hand
The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick.
- You must follow the led suit if you hold it.
- If you cannot follow, you may play any card, including trump.
- The highest trump wins the trick; with no trump played, the highest card of the led suit wins.
- The winner of a trick leads the next.
Tricks are counted by partnership, not by player, so a trick your partner wins is worth exactly as much as one you win yourself.
The book
The first six tricks a partnership takes are called the book and score nothing. Every trick above six scores 1 point. Taking eight tricks scores 2; taking all thirteen scores 7 and wins the match outright.
Because there are thirteen tricks and six are absorbed by each side's book, one partnership always scores at least 1 point every hand — thirteen cannot split evenly, so no hand ever ends scoreless. A match therefore takes at most seven hands and often fewer.
Scoring summary
- 7 tricks — 1 point
- 8 tricks — 2 points
- 9 tricks — 3 points
- 10 tricks — 4 points
- 11 tricks — 5 points
- 12 tricks — 6 points
- 13 tricks — 7 points, winning the match
Controls
Tap a card to play it on your turn; the game enforces following suit, so only legal cards respond. The trump suit, both partnership trick counts and the running match score are displayed during play, and a summary after each hand shows the tricks taken and points awarded.