How to Play Nomination Whist

What is Nomination Whist?

Nomination Whist is a British trick-taking game for 3 to 7 players with an ordinary 52-card pack. Every round, after looking at your cards, you nominate how many tricks you think you will take. Then the hand is played as whist, and you score a point for every trick you take, plus a 10-point bonus if you take exactly the number you nominated.

The hands change size every round: seven cards each, then six, down to a single card, and back up to seven. Unlike Oh Hell, no card is turned up for trumps. The trump suit follows a fixed order that everyone knows in advance: hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, then no trumps, and round again.

It is played in kitchens, pubs and caravans all over the UK, often from a score sheet on the back of an envelope, and every family has its own house rules. This page gives the version played at bs.fyi, which is the most common one, and says where other tables differ.

Related games: Oh Hell (turned-up trumps) · Contract Whist (partnerships)

Nomination Whist rules at a glance

Players

3 to 7, each playing for themselves (4 or 5 is ideal)

Pack

One 52-card pack, no jokers

Card order

A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (low)

Hand sizes

7 cards in round 1, one fewer each round down to 1, then back up to 7 (13 rounds). The short game stops at 1 (7 rounds).

Trumps

Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, no trumps, in that order, then round again from hearts. No card is turned up.

Nominating

Starting left of the dealer, everyone says how many tricks they will take, from none to the number of cards in hand. The dealer goes last and, with the hook, may not make the total equal the number of tricks.

Play

The player left of the dealer leads. Follow suit if you can. The highest trump wins the trick, otherwise the highest card of the suit led.

Scoring

1 point for every trick you take, plus 10 points if you take exactly the number you nominated.

Winner

The highest total after the last round. Players who tie share the win.

How to play Nomination Whist, step by step

1. 1

   Choose a dealer

   Anyone can deal first. The deal passes one place to the left after every round.

2. 2

   Deal

   Deal the cards one at a time, starting with the player on the dealer's left, until everyone has the round's number of cards: seven in the first round. The rest of the pack is put aside and not used in that round.

3. 3

   Know the trumps

   The trump suit comes from the round number, not from the cards: hearts in round 1, clubs in round 2, diamonds in round 3, spades in round 4 and no trumps in round 5. Round 6 starts again with hearts.

4. 4

   Nominate

   Look at your cards. Starting with the player on the dealer's left and going clockwise, everyone says how many tricks they will take. Nought is a perfectly good nomination. Write every nomination on the score sheet.

5. 5

   The dealer's hook

   The dealer nominates last. With the hook rule, the dealer may not choose the number that would make all the nominations add up to the number of cards in each hand, so at least one player is bound to miss.

6. 6

   Play the tricks

   The player on the dealer's left leads any card. The others play one card each, clockwise. You must follow the suit that was led if you can; if you cannot, you may play a trump or throw away any card.

7. 7

   Win the trick

   The highest trump in the trick wins it. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. In a no-trumps round, only the suit led can win. The winner leads to the next trick.

8. 8

   Score the round

   When all the cards have been played, everyone scores a point for each trick they took, and 10 more if they took exactly the number they nominated. Then the next player deals one card fewer (or, on the way back up, one card more).

Nomination Whist scoring, with an example

The scoring is simple: one point per trick, plus a ten-point bonus for an exact nomination. Because every trick counts, a missed nomination still scores the tricks you took, but the bonus is worth far more than a trick or two, so hitting your number is what wins games.

Here is one five-card round for four players, Ann, Ben, Cat and Dan:

Ann

Nominated 2, took 2: 2 + 10 = 12 points

Ben

Nominated 0, took 0: 0 + 10 = 10 points

Cat

Nominated 1, took 2: 2 points, no bonus

Dan (dealer)

Nominated 1, took 1: 1 + 10 = 11 points. Dan could not nominate 2, because 2 + 0 + 1 + 2 would have made 5.

The trump order

Trumps rotate through the four suits and then a no-trumps round, so the order repeats every five rounds. In the full thirteen-round game the trumps are:

Rounds 1-5

7 cards ♥ hearts · 6 ♣ clubs · 5 ♦ diamonds · 4 ♠ spades · 3 no trumps

Rounds 6-10

2 cards ♥ hearts · 1 ♣ clubs · 2 ♦ diamonds · 3 ♠ spades · 4 no trumps

Rounds 11-13

5 cards ♥ hearts · 6 ♣ clubs · 7 ♦ diamonds

How many rounds?

The usual game goes seven cards down to one and back up to seven: thirteen rounds, about half an hour with four players. The short game stops after the one-card round: seven rounds.

Some families start at thirteen cards with four players (the whole pack) or at the most cards the pack allows for more players, and go down to one. That makes a much longer game. The seven-card start is the most common score sheet, and it is what bs.fyi deals.

The hook rule

The hook (also called screwing the dealer) stops the nominations from adding up to the number of tricks. If they could add up, everyone might make their number; with the hook, somebody at the table has to miss.

Most tables play it, and bs.fyi plays it by default. You can turn it off before you start a game, in which case the dealer may nominate any number.

Nomination Whist and Oh Hell

Nomination Whist and Oh Hell are the same family of game. In Oh Hell (also called Up and Down the River) the card after the deal is turned face up and its suit is trumps, and only an exact bid scores, 10 plus the bid. In Nomination Whist the trumps follow a fixed order and every trick scores a point. If you grew up with one, the other takes a round to get used to.

Nomination Whist is not the same game as Contract Whist, which is played in partnerships: the players bid for the right to name trumps, and the side that wins the auction must take the number of tricks it bid.

House rules you may meet

Every family has its own Nomination Whist. Common variations are a different trump order (spades first, or no no-trumps round), a blind round in which you nominate before looking at your cards, a penalty for missing instead of points for tricks, and a misère round in which you try to take no tricks at all. None of these are played at bs.fyi, so the score sheet is the same for everyone.

Nomination Whist strategy tips

• •Count sure tricks, not nice cards. Aces and high trumps usually win. A king wins only if the ace has gone or stays hidden, and a queen rarely wins on her own in a big hand.
• •Know the trump before you look. The trump suit is fixed for the round, so look at your trumps first. Three or four trumps will often win tricks on their own by trumping the suits you are short of.
• •In no-trumps rounds, long suits matter. With no trumps, nobody can cut your long suit once the high cards are gone, so the fifth and sixth cards of a suit can be winners.
• •Watch the total. When the nominations add up to fewer than the tricks, somebody has to take extra ones. Make sure it isn't you: get rid of high cards early.
• •Nought is a good nomination. Nominating none and taking none scores 10, almost as much as nominating two and making it, and it is often easier with a hand of low cards.
• •Missing still scores. Every trick is a point, so when you can no longer make your number, take every trick you can: it all goes on the score sheet.

Frequently asked questions