Oh Hell rules: the complete guide

Oh Hell at a glance

The whole game turns on one idea: a bid is a promise, and breaking it in either direction costs you the hand. Taking one trick too many is just as bad as taking one too few. You can play Oh Hell free on BieGames while you read.

Names you may know it by

Few card games have as many names. They describe the same game, with small differences in the deal and the scoring.

One warning: the name Nomination Whist is also used for a couple of different whist games, so if a friend invites you to play it, ask which one they mean. The game itself goes back to the 1930s, when it appeared in London and New York.

Setting up the game

Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Cards rank Ace (high), King, Queen, Jack, 10, down to 2 in every suit. Choose a first dealer any way you like — drawing for high card is common — and pass the deal one seat to the left after every hand.

Somebody keeps score on paper, with a column for each player. You’ll write down every bid before play starts, so leave room for two numbers per player per hand.

How many cards each hand

The number of cards dealt changes every hand. In the version on pagat.com, three to five players start with 10 cards each, six start with 8 and seven with 7. The next hand has one card fewer, and so on down to a single card each, then the hands grow again back up to the starting size.

Other groups go the other way: one card in the first hand, then two, up to the biggest and back down. Bicycle’s Oh Pshaw rules only go up, from 1 card to the most the deck allows: 13 hands with four players, and 10 with five. All of these work the same way once the cards are dealt.

Turning up trump

The dealer deals the cards one at a time, face down, starting with the player on their left and going clockwise. Then the dealer turns the next card of the deck face up. Its suit is trump for that hand. The turned-up card isn’t part of anyone’s hand, and the rest of the deck sits unused until the next deal.

If every card has been dealt and none is left to turn up — 13 cards each with four players, for example — the hand is played with no trump.

Bidding

Once everyone has looked at their cards, the bidding goes around the table once, starting with the player on the dealer’s left. Each player says how many tricks they will take: “none,” “one,” “three.” There’s no passing, but zero is a bid and often a good one. The scorekeeper writes each bid down.

The hook

The dealer always bids last, and under the standard rule they may not bid the number that would make all the bids add up to the number of tricks in the hand. This rule is called the hook (some players call it “screw the dealer”). Because the bids can’t add up, at least one player is certain to miss.

Worked example: the hook. Four players, five cards each. The bids so far are 1, 2 and 0, a total of 3. If the dealer bid 2, the total would be 5 — exactly the number of tricks — so 2 is the one bid the dealer can’t make. Any of 0, 1, 3, 4 or 5 is fine.

The hook only ever takes away one number, and sometimes none. If the other players have already bid more than the number of tricks, nothing the dealer bids can make the total match, so every bid is allowed.

Worked example: the one-card hand. Each player has a single card. The three bids before the dealer are 1, 0 and 0. The dealer may not bid 0, because 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 1, the number of tricks. Holding a low card, the dealer has to bid 1 and hope. If all three had bid 0, the dealer would be forced to bid 0 instead.

Some groups play without the hook, as in Bicycle’s Oh Pshaw rules, where the scorekeeper simply announces whether the bids are “over,” “under” or “even.”

Changing a bid

Under the rules on pagat.com, you may change your bid only until the next player has bid. After that it stands.

Playing the tricks

The player on the dealer’s left leads the first trick with any card, and play goes clockwise.

1. Follow suit if you can. If you hold a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
2. If you can’t follow, play anything. You may trump the trick or throw away a card of another suit.
3. The highest trump wins. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. A card of any other suit never wins.
4. The winner leads the next trick, and play goes on until all the cards in the hand are played.

There is no rule about when trump may be led: you can lead a trump at any time.

Worked example: a three-card hand. Four players. North deals and turns up the 7♥, so hearts are trump. The hands are:

• East: A♠ 9♥ 4♣
• South: K♠ Q♣ 3♦
• West: J♥ 10♠ 8♦
• North: A♣ 6♥ 2♠

East bids 1, South 1, West 1. That’s 3 already, so the hook stops North, the dealer, from bidding 0. North bids 1, counting on the A♣.

East leads the A♠. Everyone has a spade, and the Ace wins. East leads the 4♣. South plays the Q♣, but West has no clubs and trumps with the J♥; North’s A♣ comes too late. West leads the 8♦. North has no diamonds and trumps with the 6♥, East overtrumps with the 9♥, and South follows with the 3♦. East wins.

East took 2 tricks after bidding 1, South and North took none, and only West made the bid.

Scoring

Score each hand right after the last trick, and keep a running total for every player.

The simplest scoring: exact bids only

If you take exactly your bid, you score 10 points plus your bid. If you take more or fewer, you score nothing. This is the scoring in Bicycle’s rules for Oh Pshaw and the simplest system on pagat.com, and it’s the one BieGames uses by default.

Tricks plus a bonus

The other common method, and the usual one in Contract Whist, gives 1 point for every trick you take, plus a 10-point bonus for an exact bid. A missed bid still scores its tricks, so a player who is already over has a reason to keep taking tricks.

Scoring the three-card example above: West scores 11 under either method. Under exact-bid scoring everyone else scores 0; with tricks plus a bonus, East scores 2.

Other scoring rules you may meet

• Zero bids are sometimes worth a flat 5 points, or 5 plus the number of cards dealt, instead of 10.
• Penalties for missing: some tables subtract points for a missed bid instead of scoring nothing.
• A bonus for the winner: Bicycle’s Oh Pshaw rules give the player with the highest total an extra 10 points at the end.

Agree on the scoring before you deal; it changes how bold you can afford to be.

Winning the game

After the last hand, the highest total wins. If two players tie for the top score, BieGames counts it as a shared win; some groups play an extra hand to break a tie.

Rule questions people argue about

Do you have to trump if you can’t follow suit? Not under the standard rules — you may throw any card. A few groups play a must-trump rule, where a player who can’t follow must play a trump if they have one.

Can the dealer bid more tricks than there are? No. Every bid, the dealer’s included, is between zero and the number of cards dealt.

Can the hook leave the dealer with no legal bid? No. It removes at most one number, and there are always at least two bids to choose from (zero and one).

What if someone plays the wrong suit? Failing to follow suit when you could have is a renege. Groups handle it differently; agreeing on a penalty before you start saves arguments. Online, the game simply won’t let you play an illegal card.

Is the turned-up card ever played? No. It only names trump. It stays face up on the undealt stock until the hand is over.

Variations and house rules

• No hook. The dealer may bid anything, so every player can make their bid in the same hand.
• Different hand orders. Down from the biggest hand to one card and back up, up and back down, only down, or only up.
• Simultaneous bidding. Everyone holds out a fist and shows their bid with their fingers on a count of three, so nobody bids with the benefit of hearing the others.
• Blind one-card hands. In the one-card hand, each player holds their card against their forehead without looking at it, so they can see everyone’s card but their own.
• A full deal. Some groups make the biggest hand use the whole deck — 13 cards each with four players — so it is played without trump.
• Must trump. As above, a player who can’t follow suit must trump if they can.

Playing Oh Hell on BieGames

On the Oh Hell page you play against two to four computer players. The default game follows the rules above with 4 players, 10 cards as the biggest hand, hands going up from 1 card and back down, the hook, and exact-bid scoring. In Settings you can change:

• Players: 3, 4 or 5.
• Biggest hand: 5, 7 or 10 cards.
• Hand sizes: up and down, down and up, or down only.
• The dealer’s hook: on or off.
• Scoring: 10 plus the bid for an exact bid, or 1 a trick plus 10 for an exact bid.
• Computer players: Easy, Normal or Hard.

For Contract Whist, choose 7 cards, “Down and up” and the trick scoring. As on pagat.com, you can change your bid (or take back a card) until the next player acts, using Undo.

Oh Hell terms

• Trick — one round in which every player plays one card.
• Bid — the exact number of tricks a player says they will take.
• On bid — having taken exactly as many tricks as you bid so far; from here on you want to lose every trick.
• Over and under — taking more or fewer tricks than you bid; a hand is also “overbid” or “underbid” when the bids add up to more or fewer than the tricks.
• Hook — the rule that the dealer can’t make the bids add up to the number of tricks.
• Trump — the suit of the turned-up card; any trump beats any card of another suit.
• Turn-up — the card turned face up after the deal to set trump.
• Follow suit — play a card of the suit that was led.
• Void — having no cards left in a suit.
• Renege — failing to follow suit when you could have.

Quick questions about the rules

Who bids first in Oh Hell? The player on the dealer’s left. The dealer bids last.

Who leads the first trick? Also the player on the dealer’s left. After that, whoever won the last trick leads.

Can you bid zero? Yes. Making it scores 10 points under the usual scoring.

How many hands are there in a game? It depends on the hand order: 19 for 10 cards down to 1 and back up, 13 for 7–1–7, and 13 for four players going up only from 1 to 13.

Is Oh Hell the same as Spades? No. Both are trick-taking games with bids, but in Oh Hell everyone plays alone, trump changes every hand, the number of cards changes too, and only an exact bid scores. In Spades, partners bid together and spades are always trump.