What is Oh Hell?
Oh Hell — also known as Whist, Blackout or Nomination Whist, depending on where you grew up — is a trick-taking game with bidding, for 3 to 5 players and a standard 52-card deck. Each deal, you say how many tricks you will win. Make your bid exactly and you score. Miss it, by one too many or one too few, and you lose points.
No partners, no teams: every player for themselves. A game is 15, 16 or 17 deals, for 3, 4 or 5 players.
What you need
- A standard 52-card deck. Suits have no ranking of their own, and the Ace is high.
- 3, 4 or 5 players. At the Tripot, a table opens for 4 by default, and can be set to 3 or 5.
- Pen and paper for the score, or the score sheet the Tripot’s table keeps for you.
Dealing the cards
The size of the hands changes with every deal. The first deal gives one card to each player, the second two, and so on up to 6. Then come the deals of 7 cards, the longest hand: there are as many of them as there are players. After that the hands come back down, from 6 cards to one.
- 3 players: 15 deals, 3 of them with 7 cards.
- 4 players: 16 deals, 4 of them with 7 cards.
- 5 players: 17 deals, 5 of them with 7 cards.
The first dealer is drawn at random. The deal then passes to the next player, clockwise, after every deal: since there are as many 7-card deals as players, everyone deals one of them.
The cards that are not dealt are set aside, face down: nobody knows which ones are in play. At the Tripot’s table, the counter at the top reads “Deal 1 / 16” for 4 players.
Trump
After dealing, the next card off the deck is turned face up. Its suit (hearts, diamonds, clubs or spades) becomes the trump for that deal. Any trump card beats any card of the other suits, whatever its rank.
The deals of 7 cards are played without trump: no card is turned, and only the suit led can win the trick.
The bidding
Once everyone has their hand, each player says how many tricks they expect to win, from zero to the number of cards in the deal. Bidding goes clockwise, starting with the player to the dealer’s left (the “eldest”). The dealer bids last.
One bidding rule, and it changes everything:
The sum of all bids cannot equal the number of tricks in the deal. The dealer, who bids last, must choose a number that prevents that equality.
An example: in a deal of 5 cards, if the others have bid 3 tricks in all, the dealer cannot bid 2.
This rule makes sure that at least one player misses their bid in every deal. At the Tripot’s table, the bid the dealer cannot make is struck through.
Playing the tricks
The eldest leads the first trick with any card. Then each player in turn must:
- Follow suit if they hold a card of the suit led.
- If they cannot follow suit, they may either trump with a card of the trump suit, or discard a card of another suit. Nothing obliges them to trump.
The trick is won by:
- the highest trump card played;
- if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led.
The winner leads the next trick. Play continues until everyone is out of cards.
Scoring
At the end of each deal, each player’s tricks are compared with their bid:
- Bid made:
5 + 5 × bid, that is 5 points, plus 5 per trick bid. Bid 3, take 3: +20 points. - Bid missed:
−5 × difference, that is 5 points lost for each trick over or under. Bid 3, take 5: −10 points. Bid 3, take 1: −10 points as well.
After the last deal, the highest total wins. On equal points, the player who made more bids comes first; equal on both, first place is shared.
Bidding zero
Bidding 0 tricks is allowed in every deal, except for the dealer when the dealer’s rule forbids it. Made, it scores 5 points: the smallest winning bid there is. The difficulty is not to win a trick in spite of yourself, when the one card you have left is too strong. Each trick taken then costs 5 points.
Variants by player count
Hands are the same size at every table, from 1 card to 7. What changes with the number of players is the length of the game and the share of the deck in play.
3-player Oh Hell
15 deals, 3 of them without trump. In the 7-card deals, 21 of the 52 cards are in hand: more than half the deck is set aside, and the Ace you fear may not be in play at all.
4-player Oh Hell
16 deals, 4 of them without trump. In the 7-card deals, 28 of the 52 cards are in hand. It is the table the Tripot offers by default.
5-player Oh Hell
17 deals, 5 of them without trump. In the 7-card deals, 35 of the 52 cards are in hand, and suits run out sooner. The dealer hears 4 bids before their own.
A small glossary
- Eldest
- The player to the dealer’s left. Bids first, and leads the first trick.
- Trump
- The suit whose cards beat all other suits, whatever their rank.
- To trump
- To play a trump card on a trick whose suit you do not hold, in order to win it.
- To discard
- To play a card of another suit when you cannot follow and do not want to trump.
- Dealer
- The player who deals. They bid last: they are the one who must keep the sum of the bids from equalling the number of tricks.
- Follow suit
- Play a card of the same suit as the card led. Mandatory if you hold one.
- Trick
- One card played by each player in turn. The trick has a winner, and the winner leads the next one.
- Deal
- One distribution of cards, its bids and its tricks, up to the count of points. Often called a round or a hand.
Where to next?
Once you know the rules, the real question is: how do you bid well? That is the subject of our Oh Hell strategy guide, with a scale for valuing your trumps and advice for each seat at the table.
Fancy a change of table? See also the Chinese Checkers rules, the Tripot’s other game.