Solo Whist

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Setup
3. The contracts
4. Bidding
5. Playing a deal
6. Paying
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Solo Whist is a trick-taking game for four players, a descendant of Whist with bidding. A trick is one card from each player; the best card wins all four. Everyone plays for themselves, but in each deal the players bid for a contract – a promise to win (or lose) a certain number of tricks. The highest bidder then plays either with one partner (prop and cop, two against two) or alone against the other three. If they succeed, the opponents pay them; if they fail, they pay the opponents.

• Players: exactly 4.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and chips or counters (or paper and pencil) for paying.

Setup

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

1. Dealer: choose a first dealer, for example by drawing cards. After each deal, the turn to deal passes to the left.
2. Deal: after shuffling and cutting (the player on the right lifts off part of the deck and puts it underneath), the dealer deals clockwise, starting on the left, in packets of three until only four cards remain. These are dealt one at a time. Everyone gets 13 cards.
3. Trump card: the last card, which is the dealer's, is turned face up. Its suit is the proposed trump suit – the suit that beats all others – for the contracts that use it. The card belongs to the dealer; if it wasn't played to the first trick, the dealer takes it into their hand after that trick.

The contracts

From lowest to highest:

• Prop and cop: one player proposes (bids prop), another accepts (bids cop). The two play as partners for this deal, wherever they sit.
• No trumps: in misère, open misère and abundance declared there is no trump suit – the highest card of the suit led wins.
• Abundance: the bidder doesn't say which suit will be trumps until everyone else has passed; they announce it just before the first lead.
• Open misère: after the first trick, the bidder lays their whole hand face up on the table and plays from it.

Bidding

1. Starting with the player to the dealer's left, each player in turn either bids a contract or passes. Each bid must be higher than the one before.
2. The bidding goes round the table as many times as needed. Once you have passed, you can't bid again – with one exception: if the player to the dealer's left passed and the only other bid in the first round was a prop, that player may still cop it.
3. Bidding ends when everyone else has passed on the highest bid. A prop that nobody accepts: the proposer may raise it to solo or higher; otherwise the cards are thrown in.
4. If everyone passes, the cards are thrown in and the next dealer deals.

The highest bid is played. The bidder (and in prop and cop, their partner) play against the others.

Playing a deal

1. The player to the dealer's left leads (plays the first card to) the first trick – except in abundance declared, where the bidder leads.
2. The others play one card each, clockwise. You must follow suit: play a card of the suit led if you have one. If you can't, you may play any card – a trump to win the trick, or any other card.
3. Who wins the trick: the highest trump in it; if there is none, the highest card of the suit led.
4. The winner of a trick leads to the next one.

Paying

In prop and cop, if the two partners win at least 8 tricks, each of them receives 1 chip from one of the opponents (a different one for each partner); if they fail, each pays 1 to one of the opponents.

In all other contracts, the bidder receives the contract's value from each of the three opponents if they succeed, and pays each of them that much if they fail.

Example: Hearts are turned up. North bids solo, everyone else passes. North wins 6 tricks – success. East, South and West each pay North 1 chip (3 in all). Next deal, West bids misère and wins a trick – West pays 2 chips to each of the others, 6 chips in all.

Winning the game

There is no fixed end – play as long as you like, or an agreed number of deals (a multiple of four, so everyone deals equally often). Whoever has won the most chips wins.

Tips for beginners

• For a solo, you need a few sure tricks and some trumps – five tricks alone is harder than it sounds.
• Misère needs low cards in every suit; a single high card with nothing low in its suit can ruin it.
• Against a lone bidder, the three opponents work together: lead the bidder's weak suits, and don't overtake each other's winning cards.
• Only bid prop with a decent hand – your partner will count on you.

Variants

• One round only: each player may bid only once.
• No prop and cop: some leave out prop and cop; if nobody bids solo or higher, the cards are thrown in.
• Overtricks and undertricks: in prop and cop and in solo, each trick more or fewer than needed adds 1 chip to what is paid; in abundance, each extra trick adds 2 chips, each missing trick 1.
• Misère higher: some experienced players rank the misère contracts higher – open misère even as the highest bid of all – and change the values to match.
• Goulash: after a thrown-in deal the cards are dealt in packets of five, three and five, giving more uneven hands.