Trick | cards (2024)

The object of play is to win tricks. A trick consists of four cards, one played from the hand of each player in rotation. The first card played to a trick is the lead.

Most Western card games are trick games, in which each player in turn plays a card to the table, and whoever plays the best card wins them all. These cards constitute a trick, which the winner places facedown in a pile before playing the first card to the next trick.…

…each heart taken in a trick and 13 for taking the queen of spades in a trick; thus, there are 26 penalty points in each deal.

…this before playing to a trick (in some variants before declaring any sequences). This privilege does not apply if the maker named a different suit trump.

…to the winner of each trick. The pool is formed by antes before each deal and may be increased by payments for loo (failure to win a trick) and fines for irregularities.

…high, the bids are two tricks, three tricks, misère (lose every trick), four tricks, nap (five tricks), wellington (five tricks for doubled stakes), and blücher (five tricks for redoubled stakes). Wellington may only follow a bid of nap and blücher a bid of wellington.

…for undertaking to win more tricks than either opponent individually. The lowest bid, entrada, offers to do this after making any number of discards and drawing replacements from the stock. Vuelta is the same, except that the declarer must accept as trump the suit of the first card turned from…

When taken in tricks, the cards are valued as follows, in the simplified point-count system, which is now almost universal: aces, 10s, and kings are worth one point each, and queens, jacks, and 9s are worthless. The table lists scorable melds (card combinations) in the simplified scoring system.

Elder leads to the first trick, and the winner of each trick leads to the next. Second to a trick must follow suit if possible or otherwise may play any card. The trick is taken by the higher card of the suit led. There are no trumps. A trick scores…

…take a minimum number of tricks, which thus imparts a novel twist to the nature of partnership play required from the two defenders.

…and the winner of each trick leads to the next. Suits need not be followed. The trick is taken by the higher card of the suit led or by the higher trump if any are played. A player holding the 9 of trump, whether dealt or drawn, may exchange it…

…how many certain or possible tricks he thinks he can win individually but cannot specify any cards or suit patterns held. A note is made of their eventual bid, and the dealer’s side then bids in the same way.

…written scores are kept, each trick counts 5 points, and the target is 25.

Dummy whist is another three-handed variant, ancestral to bridge. Three hands and a dummy hand are dealt, the latter faceup on the opposite side of the table from the person whose turn it is to play it. Each player takes the dummy for the duration…