The Table Rules
For a century this game lived by word of mouth — every house its own courtroom, every elder its own judge. This page is our table's written record: complete, exact, and the same rules the app enforces automatically. If you learn these, you can sit down anywhere and only have to ask one question: "House rules?"
1 · The table
- Four players, two partnerships. Your partner sits directly across from you. Partners win together and get set together.
- A standard 52-card deck. No jokers at this table.
- Thirteen cards each, dealt clockwise. The whole deck goes out — there is no kitty. The bid winner earns the right to name the game, not a pile of extra cards.
- The deal rotates clockwise to the next player after every hand.
2 · The bidding
- The player left of the dealer speaks first, and the bidding goes once around, clockwise. On your turn you either bid or pass.
- A bid is a number and a direction — "3 Uptown," "2 Downtown," "4 No Trump." You do not reveal your intended trump suit while bidding.
- Every bid must beat the standing bid. A higher number always wins. At the same number, No Trump outranks Uptown and Downtown. Uptown and Downtown are equals — neither can overcall the other without going up a number.
- When the last player has spoken, the high bid holds. The winner then announces the trump suit (or, in No Trump, names the direction — uptown or downtown ranking).
- If all four players pass, the hand is thrown in and redealt. Nobody plays for free.
| Bid | Books your team must take (of 13) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 9 |
| 4 | 10 |
| 5 | 11 |
| 6 | 12 |
| 7 | 13 — the Boston |
Six books is the break-even half of the table; your bid promises what you'll take beyond it.
3 · The directions
Uptown — high cards win. Ranking, best to worst:
A · K · Q · J · 10 · 9 · 8 · 7 · 6 · 5 · 4 · 3 · 2
Downtown — low cards win, but the Ace keeps its crown. Ranking, best to worst:
A · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · J · Q · K
No Trump — no boss suit exists. The bid winner names uptown or downtown ranking, and every point scored in the hand — by either team — is doubled. The ace is the highest card in both directions, which is why aces rule a No Trump hand: nothing outranks them and nothing can trump them.
4 · The play
- The bid winner leads the first card.
- The follow-suit law: if you hold a card of the suit that was led, you must play that suit. Only when you're out of it may you play anything else — including trump.
- Who takes the book: if any trump was played, the highest trump wins. Otherwise the highest card of the lead suit wins, ranked by the game's direction. A brilliant card in a suit nobody led is just a donation.
- The book's winner leads the next one, through all thirteen books.
- Reneging is impossible here. At a physical table, playing off-suit while holding the lead suit is a renege, and every house punishes it differently. In the app the law enforces itself — an illegal card simply cannot be played. The elders would call that progress. Some of them, anyway.
5 · The scoring
| Outcome | Points | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Make your bid (Uptown/Downtown) | + every book over six | Bid 2, take 9 books → +3 |
| Make your bid (No Trump) | + every book over six, doubled | Bid 3, take 10 books → +8 |
| Get set (Uptown/Downtown) | − the number you bid | Bid 4, take 9 books → −4 |
| Get set (No Trump) | − the number you bid, doubled | Bid 3, take 8 books → −6 |
| Defend and take 7+ books | + every book over six (doubled in No Trump) | Defenders take 8 → +2 (or +4 in NT) |
| Defend and take 6 or fewer | No points | Holding them close earns respect, not points |
Two things to burn in: a made bid scores your actual books over six, not just the bid — overachievement pays. And a set gives no partial credit — nine books on a 4-bid loses the full four. The bid is a promise, and the scoreboard keeps receipts.
6 · How the game ends
- First team to +5 points wins.
- Fall to −5 and you lose immediately — the hole counts the same as the summit.
- Two sets is an automatic loss. Fail two bids in one game — whatever the score — and it's over. One bad promise is a setback; two is the whole story.
7 · What other houses play (and we don't)
A century of kitchen tables produced a century of variants. None of these are wrong — they're just not this table. Know them so you can sit down anywhere.
- The kitty. Some tables deal 12 cards each and give the bid winner a 4-card kitty to pick up and discard from. Our table deals all 52 — pure declaration, no lottery.
- Jokers. Big Joker and Little Joker as the top trumps (a 54-card game). A future house-variant option here — done right or not at all.
- Minimum bids. Houses that won't hear anything under a 3 or 4. Our engine offers 1–7; the table's opinions are enforced socially.
- Bid-value scoring. Some houses score exactly the bid number on a make, instead of books over six.
- Bidders-only scoring. Some houses give the defending team nothing, ever. At ours, defense can put points on the board.
- No two-set rule. Some houses let you fail bids all night and just eat the minus points. Ours ends it at two.
- Rise and fly. At house parties and tournaments: lose the game, surrender the seats. Not a rule of the cards — a rule of the room.
Rules learned. Now come learn the game — the part no rulebook can hold.
This page is a living document, kept in lockstep with the game engine. Spot an error, or want your house's variant considered? info@bidwhistforever.com