Knockout Whist

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Cards and tricks
3. Setup
4. Playing a hand
5. After each hand
6. The dog's life
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Knockout Whist is a simple trick-taking game and a great way to learn how tricks work. A game has up to seven hands: everyone gets 7 cards in the first hand, 6 in the second, and so on down to a single card. In every hand you must win at least one trick – anyone who wins none is knocked out. The winner is whoever takes the one trick in the last hand, or the last player left in.

• Players: 2–7.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Nothing to write down.

Cards and tricks

The cards in each suit rank from high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2.

A trick is one round of play: each player puts down one card, and one of them wins all the cards.

• The first player to play a card leads – they may play any card.
• Everyone else, clockwise, must follow suit: play a card of the same suit as the card led, if they have one. If you don't have that suit, you may play any card.
• One suit is trumps. Trumps beat all other suits.
• The trick is won by the highest trump played. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.
• Put the trick face down in front of you, so everyone can count it. The winner leads to the next trick.

Example: Hearts are trumps. Anna leads the K♠. Ben plays the 3♠, Carla has no spades and plays the 2♥, Dan plays the A♠. Carla wins – her little heart is a trump, and that beats every spade.

Setup

1. Choose a dealer. The dealer shuffles and deals 7 cards to each player, one at a time, clockwise.
2. The dealer turns the next card of the deck face up. Its suit is trumps for this hand. Put the rest of the deck aside.

Playing a hand

The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick. Play all the tricks until everyone's cards are used up.

After each hand

1. Knockout: anyone who won no tricks is knocked out and plays no more (but see the dog's life below).
2. Trumps for the next hand: whoever won the most tricks chooses trumps. They do this after looking at their new cards. If two or more players tied for most tricks, they each cut the deck, and the highest card chooses.
3. Next deal: the next player to the left deals, with one card fewer each: 6, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and finally 1.

Fair leads: leading first is an advantage. If the player to the dealer's left is knocked out, they deal the next hand before they leave, so their left-hand neighbour still gets their turn to lead.

The dog's life

Most rule books add one exception to the knockout. Some groups play without it – agree before you start.

• The first player in the game who wins no tricks is not knocked out yet but gets a dog's life.
• In the next hand they get only one card. They may play it to any trick they like: when it's their turn, they either play the card or knock on the table to keep it for later. (They may knock even if it's their turn to lead – then the next player leads.)
• If the card wins a trick, the player to their left leads to the next trick, and the dog is back in the game with a full hand next time.
• If it doesn't win, they are knocked out.
• There is only one dog's life per game – unless several players win no tricks in the same hand and nobody has had one yet: then each of them gets one.

Winning the game

• Whoever wins the single trick in the seventh hand wins the game.
• If everyone but one player is knocked out earlier, the last one left wins.

Tips for beginners

• Choosing trumps: pick your longest suit. If two suits are equally long, pick the one with lower cards – your high cards in the other suit may win tricks anyway.
• With few cards in hand, one trick is enough to survive. Don't waste your best trump on a trick someone else is already winning.
• Watch which trumps have been played – a 7 can be the highest trump left.

Variants

Optional – agree before you start.

• No dog's life: anyone who wins no trick is out at once.
• Safe first hand: nobody is knocked out in the first hand; from the second hand on, no trick means out.
• Winner deals: from the second hand on, the player who chose trumps also deals and leads to the first trick.
• Card exchange: after trumps are chosen, each player may throw away 1 to 3 cards at once and get the same number of new ones from the deck.
• More choices: the player who chooses trumps may also choose "no trumps".
• Rainbow: in the four-card hand, a player dealt one card of each suit wins the game at once.