German (Two-Player) Whist

German whist is a variation of standard whist that can be played with two (as opposed to four) players. There’s no bidding stage in this variant, but play is slightly different from standard whist game play.

Each game is divided into two distinct rounds of play. In the first round, players compete for cards in order to build the strongest hands. In the second round, players use the hands they’ve built to try to win the most possible tricks.

In the first round, each player is dealt 13 cards from the deck. The remaining 26 cards of the deck are left as a draw pile called the talon. The top card of the talon is turned face up, and the first face up card determines trump for the entire game.

The players then engage in trick-play, with the non-dealer leading the first card of the first trick.

The two cards played in the trick are placed face down off to the side—they are now out of the game. The next card of the talon is turned face up before the next trick is played. Trick play proceeds for 13 rounds until there are no more cards left in the talon. At this time, each player will have a complete hand of 13 cards for use in the second round.

Whereas in most forms of whist (including the second round of German whist) the goal is to win as many tricks as possible, this is not the case in the first round of German whist. Instead, players may (and should) try to lose a trick in the first round if there seems like a good chance that the face-up card on the talon will be worse than the face-down card just beneath it. For instance, if trumps are hearts and the face-up card is a 3 of spades, then the face-down card is likely to be stronger than the face-up card, and you’d be better off losing the trick.

In addition, it’s a good idea to gauge the strength of the cards you use to try to win a trick to the strength of the cards you’ll be winning. For instance, if you’re trying to win a non-trump jack, which is a good but not great card, you shouldn’t use your best cards to try to win it.

In the second round, players play 13 tricks using the 13-card hands that they built in the first round, with the goal of winning as many tricks as possible. The winner of the last trick from the first round leads the first trick of the second round.

The player who wins the most tricks in the second round wins the game. Alternatively, you may play several games and score as in standard whist. In this case, the winner is the first player to reach a predetermined point total.