Solo whist
Encyclopedia
Solo Whist, sometimes known as simply Solo, is a trick-taking
card game
whose direct ancestor is the 17th century Spanish game Hombre
, based on the English Whist
. Its major distinctive feature is that one player
often plays against the other three. However, players form temporary alliances with two players playing against the other two if "Prop and Cop" is the current bid. It requires four players using a standard 52 card deck with no jokers
. Aces are high and the deal, bidding and play are clockwise.
in the first half of the 19th century and in England
somewhere about the year 1852 by a family of Dutch
Jews
. It was practically unknown outside Jewish circles until the end of 1860s. From 1870 and 1872 it began to be played in the London
sporting clubs in an attempt to supplant the card games formerly in vogue.
Solo Whist derives from an early variety of Boston Whist
through a Flemish
form of the game called "Ghent Whist" and became popular in Britain as a relaxation from the rigors of partnership Whist in the 1890s, just as Bridge was appearing on the scene. In the event, it remains an essentially informal game of home and pub, and is played for the interest of small stakes rather than for the more arcane pleasures of ingenious coups and complex scores.
Solo whist may have failed to attract the attention that it deserved because it did not develop a scoring system of comparable refinement, and were it not for the phenomenal expansion of Bridge, Solo might have developed further and occupied the social position now claimed by Contract
. The game is now mainly played in Britain, Australia
and New Zealand
, and also especially popular within the Jewish community.
by the player to dealer's right. They can be dealt in ones but it is common practice to deal the cards in groups of three and then a single card for the last round (3,3,3,3,1). The last card is turned face up to indicate the trump suit for that game. The exposed card is part of the dealer's hand and he can pick it up once everyone has noted it. The turn to deal passes to the left after each hand.
In some variations the cards are not shuffled after every game, this creates the possibility of a hand having several cards of the same suit making Solo and Abundance hands much more likely.
Obs: A bid of Misère claims to be able to lose all 13 tricks, its value is equivalent to attempting to win 12 tricks. The suit order and no trumps have the same status order as in Bridge
.
Trick-taking game
A trick-taking game is a card game or tile-based game in which play centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as Whist, Contract Bridge, Napoleon, Rowboat, and...
card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
whose direct ancestor is the 17th century Spanish game Hombre
Ombre
Ombre, English corruption of the Spanish word Hombre, arising from the muting of the H in Spanish, is a fast-moving seventeenth-century trick-taking card game with an illustrious history which began in Spain around the end of the 16th Century as a four person game...
, based on the English Whist
Whist
Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries. It derives from the 16th century game of Trump or Ruff, via Ruff and Honours...
. Its major distinctive feature is that one player
Player (game)
A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
often plays against the other three. However, players form temporary alliances with two players playing against the other two if "Prop and Cop" is the current bid. It requires four players using a standard 52 card deck with no jokers
Joker (playing card)
Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...
. Aces are high and the deal, bidding and play are clockwise.
History
Solo Whist was first played in the Low CountriesLow Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
in the first half of the 19th century and in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
somewhere about the year 1852 by a family of Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
. It was practically unknown outside Jewish circles until the end of 1860s. From 1870 and 1872 it began to be played in the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
sporting clubs in an attempt to supplant the card games formerly in vogue.
Solo Whist derives from an early variety of Boston Whist
Boston (card game)
Boston is an 18th century trick-taking card game played throughout the Western world apart from Britain, forming an evolutionary link between Hombre and Solo Whist...
through a Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
form of the game called "Ghent Whist" and became popular in Britain as a relaxation from the rigors of partnership Whist in the 1890s, just as Bridge was appearing on the scene. In the event, it remains an essentially informal game of home and pub, and is played for the interest of small stakes rather than for the more arcane pleasures of ingenious coups and complex scores.
Solo whist may have failed to attract the attention that it deserved because it did not develop a scoring system of comparable refinement, and were it not for the phenomenal expansion of Bridge, Solo might have developed further and occupied the social position now claimed by Contract
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
. The game is now mainly played in Britain, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, and also especially popular within the Jewish community.
Dealing
The cards are shuffled by the dealer and cutCut (cards)
After a deck of cards is shuffled by the dealer, it is often given to a player other than the one who performed the shuffle for a procedure called a cut.- Procedure :...
by the player to dealer's right. They can be dealt in ones but it is common practice to deal the cards in groups of three and then a single card for the last round (3,3,3,3,1). The last card is turned face up to indicate the trump suit for that game. The exposed card is part of the dealer's hand and he can pick it up once everyone has noted it. The turn to deal passes to the left after each hand.
In some variations the cards are not shuffled after every game, this creates the possibility of a hand having several cards of the same suit making Solo and Abundance hands much more likely.
Bidding
Beginning with the player to dealer's left, each competitor may make one of the bids in the table below or pass. If someone bids, then subsequent players can either pass or bid higher. The bidding continues around the table as many times as necessary until the contract is settled. If everyone passes or there is a Prop without a Cop then the hands are thrown in and dealt again.| Call | Description | Proposer Points | Further notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop and Cop | Two players attempt to win eight tricks together. The first player calling Prop and the remaining players invited to call Cop | +/- 1 | Both proposer and accepter score. |
| Solo | One player attempts to make five tricks alone | +/- 3 (wins or loses one unit from other players) | |
| Misère | One player thinks they will win no tricks | +/- 6 (wins or loses two units from other players) | There is no trump |
| Abundance | One player thinks they can win nine tricks | +/- 9 (wins or loses three units from other players) | Proposer picks the trump |
| Royal Abundance | One player thinks they can win nine tricks in the current trump | +/- 9 (wins or loses three units from other players) | |
| Misère Ouverte | One player thinks they will win no tricks with their hand placed face up on the table after the first trick is complete | +/- 12 (wins or loses four units from other players) | There is no trump |
| Abundance Declared | One player thinks they can win all 13 tricks | +/- 18 (wins or loses six units from other players) | Proposer leads first. There is no trump |
Play
The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick, except in the case of an Abundance Declared in which case the bidder leads. Any card may be led and the other three players must follow suit where possible. A player with no card of the led suit may play a trump. If any trumps are played, then the trick is won by the highest trump card. If there are no trumps, it is won by the highest card in the suit that was led. The winner of the trick gets to lead to the next, so that once a player has succeeded or failed in their bid, scores are adjusted. The deal then passes to the left and the next hand begins.Morris Fagelson Variation
A common version of Solo played among the Jewish community in Essex and East London show the following differences:- A Prop and Cop pairing need to win seven tricks. Players only get one bid, except the person to the dealer's left who is able to bid twice, although, if someone Props without a Cop, they still have the option to upgrade to a Solo no matter where they sit. The Proposer picks the trump in an Abundance Declared hand.
Straight Solo
- In this variation, Prop and Cop is eliminated and only individual hands are allowed.
High-scoring Solo
- To increase the proportion of hands with uneven distributions, some play that the cards are shuffled only at the start of a session and after a bid of abundance or higher, while others play that the cards are never reshuffled after the opening deal. The cards are simply gathered together by the new dealer and the player to the dealer's right cuts. One variant allows for a -1 penalty for any player who reflexively shuffles the cards.
Different Trumps
- Instead of turning the dealer's last NO card for trump, some cut a card from a second pack. Others go through the trump suits in cyclic order: hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, hearts, etc. Some even add 'no trumps' into that cycle.
Grand Slam Solo
- Uses rules for the Straight Solo and High-scoring Solo above, as well as the cyclical trump order described in "Different Trumps" above. Additionally, the "Abundance Declared" is replaced with two bids: A Petit Slam and a Grand Slam. The Petit Slam requires the bidder to make 12 tricks, and is scored above a Royal Abundance but below a Misère Ouverte. The Grand Slam, like an Abundance Declared, requires the bidder to make all 13 tricks, and ranks above all other bids. Both the Petit and Grand Slam bids allow the declarer to chose the trump suit.
Overtricks
- To spice up the game further, some play with a payment for overtricks in Prop and Cop, Solo and Abundance. In that case it is usual to set the basic score for a solo as four, five or six units, increasing the other scores in proportion. Each overtrick or undertrick in a Prop and Cop or Solo is worth an extra unit. In Abundance, overtricks gain an extra two units each, but undertricks cost only one unit each. There is no score for over or undertricks in Misère, Misère Ouverte or Abundance Declared.
Irish Solo
- There are two phases of the game, the bidding and the play. During bidding players try and win the bid by claiming to be able to win more tricks than the previous player claimed. There are no things such as those mentioned above like "Prop & Cop" etc, nor are there various points, it is just straight bidding similar to BridgeContract bridgeContract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
. For example, a player who calls "six spades" will try to win six tricks with spades as trumps, but be outbid if another player calls "seven hearts." The one who wins the bidding round is the one who goes "solo" in the play phase. The solo player is playing against the other three players. The goal is to win what he said he could win, the goal of the other three is to stop him.
- If there is betting each trick is given a certain value and the pot is given by the number of tricks that were bid.
- If the solo player gets the bid he/she wins the pot, if the other three stop him/her from achieving it they split the pot between them.
- If there is a player short then, before bidding, that hand is laid open on the table and whoever wins the bidding places it opposite their seat and plays from it after the player following them has played a card.
Obs: A bid of Misère claims to be able to lose all 13 tricks, its value is equivalent to attempting to win 12 tricks. The suit order and no trumps have the same status order as in Bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
.
Trivia
- The words "Misère", "Ouverte", "Grand", and "Petit" are frenchFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and mean misery, open, large, and small, respectively.
Literature
In Robert W Service's poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", Dan McGrew is playing Solo in the back of the bar. His bid is "Spread Misère".See also
- Skat
- OmbreOmbreOmbre, English corruption of the Spanish word Hombre, arising from the muting of the H in Spanish, is a fast-moving seventeenth-century trick-taking card game with an illustrious history which began in Spain around the end of the 16th Century as a four person game...
- BostonBoston (card game)Boston is an 18th century trick-taking card game played throughout the Western world apart from Britain, forming an evolutionary link between Hombre and Solo Whist...
- EuchreEuchreEuchre or eucre, is a trick-taking card game most commonly played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing cards. It is the game responsible for introducing the joker into modern packs; this was invented around 1860 to act as a top trump or best bower...
- Bridge