Learn Whist Terminology

Video Transcript

"The glossary of terms in Whist is very kindred to that of Spades and Bridge, however, Whist being the original game certainly has terms that you will recognize in the other two games which I just mentioned. For example, we have bidding. It's called the auction. We have the term book or trick which we've used in many card games. This is four cards that constitutes what's called a trick or a book, and you keep track of these. It doesn't matter what they are it could be a book of a trump. It could be a book of an off-suit. That happens to be another term. We have the term Boston, which means the term that happens to run or take all of the tricks in a particular contract, same as a Grand Slam in Bridge, same as taking thirteen tricks in Spades, it's called a Boston, and the term Boston actually comes from the Pullman car operators from the 1880s and 1890s, who used to go through Boston and New York and Boston and Washington D.C. on the railroads. They were playing a lot of Whist and those who happened to make all the tricks or actually make all the tricks, that was called the term Boston. We have the word cut--cutting the cards. After they're shuffled, you cut the cards. The deal is the process in which all the cards are dealt out to everybody. We have the terms no trump in which you happen to decide you don't want a suite to be the dominant suite. You want to declare no trump in which high card or low card wins. This is another difference between Whist and Bridge and Spades. And the game Spades, the standard game of Spades that's played on the Internet today, it's high card wins. Spades are always trump. In the standard game of Bridge, it's high card wins. In the game of Whist, Strait Whist, you can declare high card or low card wins; it's called uptown and downtown. That happens to be another term. We have the word revoke, meaning failure to follow suit, sometimes called renigue. We have the word pass. We have the word set. We have the word trump. These are all terms that are going to fit in to this presentation. And certainly if you get the opportunity to research these on the Internet, just pull up Whist or Bid Whist or Strait Whist, and you'll be having the opportunity to check these out."