Bid Whist Scorekeeper and Rules

A partnership trick-taking game for 4 players, a favorite at family reunions and cookouts. Played with a standard deck plus two jokers, a big joker and a little joker.

Setup

• Partners sit across from each other. Deal 12 cards to each player and 6 face down to the middle as the kitty.

Bidding

• Starting left of the dealer, each player gets one chance to bid or pass. A bid is a number from 3 to 7 plus uptown (high cards win), downtown (low cards win) or no trump.
• The number is how many books your team will take over six. A bid of 4 means taking at least 10 of the 13 books.
• Each bid must beat the last. At the same number, no trump beats uptown and downtown. If everyone passes, the dealer has to bid.

The kitty

The winning bidder names trump (or, in no trump, whether it plays uptown or downtown), picks up the kitty and discards six cards face down. Those discards count as the bidding team's first book.

Card ranking

• Uptown: big joker, little joker, then ace high down to 2 in trump. Other suits run ace high down to 2.
• Downtown: big joker, little joker, then ace, 2, 3 up to king in trump. Ace is the best card in every suit.
• No trump: jokers can't win a book and are played only when you can't follow suit.

Play

The bidder leads first. Follow suit if you can. If you can't, you can trump or throw off. The highest trump wins the book, or the best card of the suit led.

Scoring

Some tables give the bid to the other team instead of taking it away from the bidders. Pick your version in the game settings.

Winning

The first team to 7 wins, and a team that falls to −7 loses. Some groups play to 21.

Entering scores

Pick the team that won the bid, the bid, uptown, downtown or no trump, and how many books the bidding team took, counting the kitty.