The player who took the most tricks gets to select trumps in the next hand. Some rulesets disallow leading trumps before the trump suit has been 'broken' by a trump being played to the lead of another suit (though of course leading trumps is always permissible if a player holds nothing else).Īt the end of each hand any player who took no tricks is eliminated from the game. The winner of the trick leads to the next trick. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, unless a trump is played, in which case the highest trump wins. A player with no cards of the suit led may play any card, either discarding or trumping. The other players, in clockwise order, each play a card to the trick and must follow suit by playing a card of the suit led if they have one. The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick any card may be led. (In subsequent rounds, the winner of the previous round selects the trump suit). The game may be played by two to seven players.įor the first deal the dealer deals seven cards to each player and one card is turned up to indicate that its suit is the trump suit for the first round.

The cards in each suit rank from highest to lowest: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. The ultimate object of Knockout Whist is to be the last player still 'standing' at the end of the game, with the object in each round being to win a majority of tricks. It is a basic trick-taking game and is a good way to teach the concept of 'tricks' to children. It is often simply called Whist by players who are unfamiliar with the game properly called Whist. Knock-out Whist is a member of the Whist family known by a variety of names including Trumps in Britain, Reduction Whist, Diminishing Whist (from the way one less card is dealt each hand) and Rat.

How to play knockout whist