Help is organized in the following sections.
Bid Whist is a four player partnership game played with a deck of 54 playing cards. The play is broken down into hands. Hands are played until the game is over. You form a team with the player across from you and accumulate points from each hand played. The game ends when a team reaches plus or minus 7 points and the team with the highest score wins.
Each hand consists of five stages: dealing, bidding, kitty exchange, playing, and scoring.
At the start of the game the dealer is chosen randomly. From then on, the deal rotates clockwise until the game ends. The cards are dealt face down to the four players and the kitty, giving each player 12 cards, and the kitty 6 cards.
The bidding begins with the player to the left of the dealer. The bidding rotates clockwise until the dealer is given the opportunity to make the final bid. A player may choose to bid or pass. A bid must be higher than any previous bid (the bid ranking is defined below). If all players have passed, the dealer, who makes the final bid, may not pass.
A bid consists of a level from 1 to 7 and an indication of whether: the the high cards will beat low cards and there will be a trump suit; the low cards will beat high cards and there will be a trump suit; or that there will be no trump suit. The level determines the number of tricks the bidder's team will take during play.
To determine the ranking of the bids the level is checked if the level is higher than the previous bid then the bid is higher. If the level is the same then a notrump bid is higher than a high/low bid. The ranking of bids in increasing order is given here.
After all players have bid, the player with the highest bid wins the bidding. This player is called the declarer.
Here is an example bidding sequence: 3 High, 3 Notrump, 4 Low, Pass. The first bid, 3 High, indicates that the player's team will take 9 tricks, that there will be a trump suit, and that high cards will beat low cards. The next bid, 3 Notrump, beats 3 High and indicates that the player's team will take 9 tricks and that there will be no trump suit. And the final non-pass bid, 4 Low, indicates that the player's team will take 10 tricks, that there will be a trump suit, and that low cards will beat high cards. The 4 Low bidder wins the bidding and is the declarer for this hand.
After the declarer is determined, the declarer next determines the trump suit (if the bid was high or low), or the winning card direction (if the bid was notrump). To determine the trump suit, the declarer will choose a suit: clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades. If the winning bid was notrump, the declarer will choose a winning card direction: high or low.
At the end of the bidding, the contract is now determined. Here are some example contracts.
After the contract is determined the declarer takes the 6 cards from the kitty into his hand and discards 6 cards back to the kitty.
The play consists of 13 tricks. The first trick is special. It is the kitty cards and it is given to the declarer's team at the start of the play.
The remaining 12 tricks consist of 4 cards, 1 card from each player. For each trick, there is a leader, a suit led, and a winner. The leader is the player who played the first card. The suit led is the suit of the card played by the leader (if a joker is led during play of a notrump contract, the suit led is determined by the first card played that is not a joker). The winner of the trick is determined by the best card played of the suit led, however, if a trump was played on the trick, then the winner is the best trump card played.
The best card in a given suit is determined by the contract being played. If the contract is high, the king beats the two but if the contract is low the two beats the king. Also, jokers will not take a trick in notrump contracts. Here are the card rankings in increasing order based on the type of contract.
The declarer makes the first lead and may lead any card from his hand. Play continues clockwise to the left with each player playing a card in turn. Players must play the suit led if they have it otherwise, they may play any card from their hand (except in notrump contracts, jokers must be discarded first).
After each player has played a card on the trick, the winning player takes the trick and places it aside until the scoring stage. This player is the leader of the next trick. The play stage continues until players have no cards left in their hands.
After the hand has been played out, the number of tricks taken by the declarer's team is checked against the contract bid. The declarer's team needs to take at least (6 + the level of the contract) tricks to make the bid. If the team makes the bid, they receive (number of tricks taken - 6) points. Overtricks count as one point each. If the team fails to make the bid they receive minus the level bid points. Also, as a bonus, notrump scores are double (both positive and negative results).
A few examples will make this clearer. Suppose the declarer's contract is 4 High Hearts. If they take 10 tricks, they will make their contract and will receive 10 - 6 = 4 points. If they take 11 tricks, they will make their contract plus an overtrick and will receive 11 - 6 = 5 points. If they take 8 tricks, they will fail to make their contract (were set), and will receive -4 points.
Suppose the declarer's contract is 3 High Notrump. If they take 9 tricks, they will make the contract and would normally receive 9 - 6 = 3 points. Notrump contracts are worth double so they receive 6 points. If they take 8 tricks, they will fail to make their contract (will be set), and would normally receive -3 points. Notrump contracts are doubled so they will receive -6 points.
After the scores for this hand are determined the hand scores are added to the total game scores. The game ends when one team reaches plus or minus 7 points.
There are many helpful web sites discussing Bid Whist. Here are a few we like.
52 Bid Whist is much like the Bid Whist rules above with a few exceptions. This section will focus mostly on the differences.
52 Bid Whist is played with a 52 card deck, no jokers, and a kitty of 4 cards. Players are dealt 12 cards each and 4 cards are placed in the kitty.
The bidding consists of one round. Beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and continuing clockwise, each player may pass or bid a number from 1 to 7. Each player must bid higher than any previous bid. The exception is the dealer. The dealer may bid equal to the current bid to win the bidding. Also, if the first 3 players have passed, the dealer may not pass. The player who bid the highest wins the bidding and becomes the declarer.
The winning bid indicates the number of tricks in excess of 6 that the declarer must take during play to make the bid. For example, a bid of 3 indicates that the bidder expects to take 3 + 6 = 9 tricks.
Next, the declarer chooses the trump suit or notrump and the ranking of the cards. The ranking of the is chosen from (in increasing order):
The play is much the same as for Bid Whist above. The exception is that the kitty trick is not given to the declarer. Instead, the player who captures the initial trick receives the kitty trick. The initial trick is worth two tricks.
After the hand is finished, the tricks each team took are counted. If the declarer made the contract, the declaring team receives the bid points. If the declarer failed to make the contract the defenders receive the bid points. There are no negative points. The game ends when a team reaches 21 points.
NeuralPlay Bid Whist offers many features to help you learn and improve your play. These features may be enabled, disabled, and/or adjusted in settings. The features include the following.
NeuralPlay computer players offer 6 levels of play. Play at level 1 is reasonably easy and good for beginners. Play at level 3 should be fun for most players. Play at level 6 will be the most challenging.
The AI bots employ different AI methods depending on the level. Levels 1 and 2 use simple methods to provide an introduction to beginners. We will not describe them in detail here.
Level 3 uses a rule-based AI. The AI consists of rules such as: "In 3rd seat, do not trump partner's high card" and "In 4th seat, play just high enough to take it when an opponent is winning", etc. We find the rules work quite well and can provide good play.
Levels 4+ use Monte Carlo Simulation to determine the best play. Basically, the AI will deal out the unknown cards randomly. The AI will then try each legal play and play the deal to the end to get a result. This is repeated for many deals of the unknown cards. The average result for each legal play is computed and the legal play with the best average result is chosen.
Levels 4+ differ in how many times the unknown cards are dealt out. In general, the more deals the more accurate the simulation. This results in better quality plays. The trade-off is that more deals take more time, play may be slower on level 6 than level 4 depending on the device.
Since levels 4+ do not use rules, you may observe either surprisingly good plays or odd mistakes that may seem not to follow any logical rules. Overall, our tests show that the levels are better than the rule-based level 3. We also find the randomness makes the computer feel a bit more human-like and fun.
If you prefer a more consistent, logical, and predictable partner AI and/or opponent AI, then level 3 may be best.
We are continuing to research improvements and new computer AI algorithms. We continue to update the bots as we develop improved algorithms.
See Settings -> Hand Sorting. You can change the rank order, suit order, and choose to alternate red and black suits.
Go to the Main Screen and choose Menu -> Reset.
These terms are used in bridge games. You are always South and your partner is always North. The terms You and South are used interchangeably.
Claim means you will take the remaining tricks. When your hand is clearly high, you may claim the remaining tricks to speed up play. If the claim is successful (the AI will check), you will receive the remaining tricks and the hand will end.
Please contact us at support@neuralplay.com.