Monday, February 8, 2010

Romanian Whist

Whist is one of the most popular card games in Romania. The game is closely associated with an English card game known as “Oh Hell.” This game is played by a minimum of three players and a maximum of six and every player has to play individually. The standard cards pack is used in the game and each player gets 8 cards to play with. The ranking of the cards are as usual and starts with ace being the highest and 2 being the lowest in value. The first player is chosen at random and then on the deal rotates clockwise after every hand. The game begins with each player getting one card and gradually the number is increased until all the eight cards are dealt with. Then it decreases again until each player has just one card at hand. In a game with three players, the game will have a total of 24 deals and the number of cards played each time is as follows 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1. The players have to bid the tricks as per the rules of the game and if the player uses the exact number of tricks he bade then he gets five points plus the number of tricks he had used. If the player doesn’t use the number of tricks he bade, or if he exceeds it he loses one point.