BID WHIST

Hey there! Let me introduce you to an exciting card game called Bid Whist. It’s a game where you form a team with another player and compete against other teams. The goal is to bet on and win tricks during the game.

So here’s how it works: You and your teammate will be playing against two other players. Each player takes turns to bid on how many tricks they think they can win. They’ll also decide if there will be a trump suit, and if so, what it will be. Finally, they’ll determine the order of ranking for that round. The player with the winning bid sets the rules for the game.

Once the bidding is done, the team that won the bid will start playing. They’ll try to win as many tricks as possible. After the first six tricks, they’ll start scoring points. For example, if a team wins 7 tricks, they’ll earn one point. However, if they don’t reach their bid, they’ll lose points. It’s a bit tricky because if a team bid 2, they have to win 8 tricks to gain points. If they only win 7 tricks, they’ll actually lose points.

So, here’s the deal. When a team manages to reach the desired score (which can be 5, 7, or 9, depending on how long you want the game to be) or their negative counterpart, that’s when the game comes to an end. And guess what? The team with the highest score wins!

Getting Ready

Let’s talk setup. To get started with Bid Whist, you need to shuffle the deck, jokers included. Then, the dealer will distribute twelve cards to each player. The remaining cards will form what we call the “kitty,” and the winner of the bid will get the first trick.

Time to Play Bid Whist

The Bidding Process

When we play Bid Whist, the game starts with the player to the left of the dealer initiating the bidding. Each player gets one chance to make a bid. The bid includes the number of tricks they believe they can win, as long as it is more than six, and how they want the round to be played. The next player has to either increase the bid by taking on a higher number of tricks or by making the game more challenging.

To indicate the style of play for a round, a player can say “NT” for no trumps, “Uptown” for traditional ranking, or “Downtown” for reverse ranking.

The traditional ranking, or “Uptown,” starts with the Red Joker, followed by the Black Joker, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2.

The reverse ranking, or “Downtown,” starts with the Red Joker, followed by the Black Joker, Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, and King.

When it comes to increasing your bid in the game, there are a couple of ways to do it. First, you can try to win more tricks. The more tricks you win, the higher your bid can go. Alternatively, you can also increase the difficulty of the game. The ranking for difficulty goes like this: NT (high), downtown, uptown. So if you have a bid of 3 uptown, someone can beat it by saying 4 uptown or 3 downtown.

If everyone passes, the dealer has to make a bid.

The person who wins the bid gets the kitty as the first trick. But they also have to make another choice. If the winning bid was NT (no trumps), they have to decide whether to play it uptown or downtown. If the winning bid was uptown or downtown, they have to choose the suit of the trump.

PLAYING

Alright, let’s get this game started! The dealer has bid, and now it’s time for the action to begin. And who does that? The player to the left of the dealer, of course! They kick off the first trick, and from there, we go clockwise.

Now, here’s the deal – each player has to try their best to follow the suit that was led. After everyone has played their card, it’s time to pick the winner. And who is the winner? The one with the highest-ranking card, of course! First, we look at the trump cards, and then we check out the highest card in the led suit.

Now, if the bid was NT (which stands for “no-trump,” by the way), things get a little bit interesting. The jokers don’t have a suit, and they don’t hold any value. But hey, if the first card played happens to be a joker, then the next card of a specific suit becomes the led suit for that round. Pretty neat, right?

The winner of each trick gets to lead the next one. And we keep going like this until all twelve tricks have been played and, of course, won. It’s a thrilling race to the finish line!

END OF GAME

Scoring

So, here’s how it works. The team that won the bid gets points after the round is finished. Now, every trick that they win after the first six will be worth one point. But, let’s say your team didn’t meet their bid. Well, in that case, the bid gets subtracted from your score. So, let’s say your score is zero, and you bid 4, but you only won, let’s say, 2 tricks. Well, your new score will be negative 4.

Now, the game will keep going until a certain number of points, or its negative counterpart, is reached. And, you guessed it, the team with the highest score at the end wins the game.

So, that’s how it goes. The team that wins the bid gets points for tricks they win. But if they don’t meet their bid, it gets subtracted from their score. And the game ends when a certain number of points is reached, and the team with the highest score wins.