Oh Hell!
Card games · Trick-taking
Also Oh Pshaw, Nomination Whist, Contract Whist, Bids and Bumbs, Blackout
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How you play it
The UK game. Trumps in a fixed order — hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, no trumps — and a ladder that counts down from seven or ten.
Summary — 3–7 players
Oh Hell! is a trick-taking card game for three to seven, where you bid the exact number of tricks you will take and score only if you hit it. The hands shrink by a card each deal down to a single card and commonly climb back up. Nomination Whist, the British version with trumps in a fixed order, has its own tab here.
- Scored by
- Card points / trick count
- Origin
- English-speaking countries
How it plays
1 of 8
The deal shrinks every hand
Three to seven players, everyone for themselves. The first hand deals as many cards as the pack will stretch to, and every hand after it deals one fewer — down to a single card each, and commonly back up the other side again. The whole evening is that ladder.
Rules — Nomination Whist
How to play
Players and equipment
Three to seven players, each for themselves, and a standard 52-card deck. The whole game is the bid: taking tricks is easy, taking exactly the number you named is not.
The deal
The first hand deals each player as many cards as the deck allows — seven or ten — and each following hand deals one fewer, down to a single card; many tables then climb back up to where they started.
Trumps
Trumps run in a fixed order and never depend on the deck: hearts on the first hand, then diamonds, clubs, spades, and a hand of no trumps, then round again. The one-card hand simply takes whatever suit the sequence has reached.
Play
Starting left of the dealer, each player bids the exact number of tricks they will take, zero allowed. The hook rule: the dealer, bidding last, may not bring the total of bids level with the number of tricks — somebody must fail every hand.
The player to the dealer's left leads. Follow suit if you can; highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led. The winner of a trick leads the next. On the no-trumps hand nothing can be trumped, and the highest card of the suit led wins every trick.
Scoring
Scoring
- Exact bid
- 10 and up
- Ten, plus one per trick taken
- Missed bid
- Commonly nothing at all; some score the tricks anyway
- Exact zero
- 10
- Bid nothing, take nothing
Scoring schemes vary more than the game does — another common one pays a flat bonus of 10 over one point per trick for everybody, exact or not. Agree yours before the first bid, and the hook rule with it.
A worked deal
Four play the second hand of a ladder that began at seven, so six cards each and six tricks, and the sequence has reached diamonds: everybody knew the trump suit before the cards were dealt. Alice bids 2, Ben bids 1 and Cara bids 1, which makes 4. Dev is dealing and may not bid 2, so Dev bids 3, for 7 in all: at least one bid is going to fall short.
- Alice
- 10 + 2 = 12
- Bid 2, took 2
- Ben
- 10 + 1 = 11
- Bid 1, took 1
- Cara
- 10 + 1 = 11
- Bid 1, took 1
- Dev
- 0
- Bid 3, took 2
Dev's third trick never came, because Alice held the ace of diamonds over Dev's king and made her second trick with it. Under the table's scheme a missed bid scores nothing, so Dev's two tricks are worth nothing; under the other common scheme they would be worth 2. The deal passes to the left, the next hand is five cards with clubs as trumps, then four with spades, then three with no trumps, and the totals build down the ladder and back up it.
Ending
Play the full ladder of hands. Highest total wins.
Strategy
Bid what the hand will take
Count your sure tricks before you bid, and then ask which of them might be taken off you. An ace is a trick unless somebody is out of the suit and trumps it, so an ace in a long suit is safer than an ace in a short one. The high trumps are the surest tricks in the hand: nothing beats the ace of trumps, and the king is a trick unless the ace sits on your right and gets played over you. A king in a side suit is about half a trick, a queen a quarter, and a long suit of low cards will take tricks late once the others have run out of it. With seven or more cards in hand, expect the low bids to be closer to right than the high ones, because a hand of small cards takes more tricks than it looks like taking, once the suits start running out.
The hook
The dealer bids last, sees every other bid, and may not make the total come to the number of tricks. That is the rule that gives the game its name. The bids either add up to more than the tricks, in which case at least one player is going to take fewer than they said, or to fewer, in which case somebody is going to be handed a trick they did not want. As the dealer, use it: when the bids are already high, bid low and play to lose, since tricks are going to be forced on the others; when they are low, bid a little high, because tricks will be lying around unclaimed. As an early bidder, remember that the dealer will be pushed off the exact number, and that the hand after yours is where the trouble lands.
Bidding zero
A bid of nothing is often the best bid in the game. It is worth ten, the same as an exact one, and a hand of low cards with no trumps is far more likely to take none than to take exactly one. Even a hand with a king in it can bid zero if the suit is long enough for the king to be played under the ace later. A zero also frees you to throw your dangerous cards away on tricks other people are winning. The risk is the one-card hand and the two-card hand, where a single middling card may be forced to win, so bid zero on the short hands only when the card really is low.
Losing tricks on purpose
Half of Oh Hell! is not taking tricks, and that is a skill of its own. When you cannot follow suit and do not want the trick, throw the highest card of another suit you have, which gets rid of a card that might win later and costs you nothing now. When you must follow suit, play under the card that is winning, keeping your lowest for the trick that matters. Lead the suits that others are still holding high cards in, so they are forced to win, and keep your trumps if you want none, because a trump left in your hand at the end will win the last trick. A player who has made their bid early wants no more tricks and will start dumping too, so watch for it.
Counting the hand
Keep count of the tricks taken against each bid as the hand goes, because it tells you who wants tricks and who wants rid of them. A player who has made their bid with three tricks still to play will be throwing high cards away, and every trick they refuse falls to somebody else. On the short hands, the count is everything: with three cards each the whole hand turns on which suit is led first, and the player who has been watching the bids knows who will take the lead. Count the trumps too. Thirteen in the deck, fewer in play in a short hand, and once they are gone your side-suit winners are safe.
FAQs
What does the hook mean in Oh Hell?
The dealer bids last, and may not make the bids add up to exactly the number of tricks in the hand. Every other player bids freely. The rule guarantees that at least one player fails their bid on every hand, since either there are more tricks bid than exist, or fewer, and somebody is going to take a trick they did not want. It is what gives the game its name, and tables that leave it out find that hands are routinely made all round.
How many cards are dealt in each hand?
The first hand is as many as the deck allows: seven is usual with five, six or seven players, ten with three or four. Each following hand is one card fewer, down to a hand of a single card, and most tables then climb back up to where they started, one card more each hand. Some run the ladder the other way and begin on one card. The whole ladder is the game, and a game from seven down to one and back up again is thirteen hands.
How do you score a missed bid?
Under the commonest scheme, nothing at all: the ten and the tricks are both paid only for the exact number, so a player who bid three and took two scores zero for the hand. Under the other common scheme everyone scores a point a trick whatever they bid and only the bonus of ten depends on hitting the number, so the same player would score two. Nobody loses points under either. Agree the scheme before the first bid.
How many people can play Oh Hell?
Three to seven, each for themselves. Four or five is the sweet spot: the first hand is long enough to have some play in it, and the ladder is not too many hands. With three, the hands can start as long as seventeen cards, so most tables begin at ten instead. With seven, a first hand of seven cards uses forty-nine of the fifty-two.
What is the difference between Oh Hell and Nomination Whist?
The same game under two names, and the difference is how trumps are chosen. In Oh Hell! the top card of the undealt deck is turned to fix trumps for the hand, and the one-card hand may be played blind, with each player holding their card on their forehead, seeing everybody's but their own. In Nomination Whist, the British version, trumps run in a fixed order, hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades and then a hand with no trumps, round and round, so nothing is turned. Both are tabs here and the scoring is the same.
Do you have to follow suit in Oh Hell?
Yes, if you can. Only when you hold no card of the suit led may you play a trump or throw a card of another suit. A trump beats any card of the suit led, and the highest trump wins the trick; if no trump is played, the highest card of the suit led wins.
Who leads the first trick?
The player to the dealer's left, once the bidding is done. The winner of each trick leads the next. Bidding also starts on the dealer's left and goes round to the dealer, which is why the dealer is the one bound by the hook.
Is Wizard the same as Oh Hell?
Wizard is a boxed version of the same game with a special deck: four wizard cards that always win and four jesters that always lose are added to the sixty cards. The bidding, the ladder of hands and the idea of scoring only for an exact bid are the same. Wizard's scoring differs in that a missed bid loses points, ten for every trick you were out by, where Oh Hell! usually scores it as nothing.