Points are awarded only for making the bid exactly, and are deducted for missing the bid, either over or under (see scoring below). The object is for each player to bid the number of tricks he thinks he can take from each hand, then to take exactly that many no more and no fewer. A game should take approximately 45 minutes. Each successive hand is played with one card fewer, down to a hand of just one card each, then one card more per hand back up to the starting level.Įxample: With 7 players, the hands are: 7 cards, then 6,5,4,3,2,1, then 2,3,4,5,6,7, for a total of 13 hands to the game. (because of the limit of 52 cards available). The first hand is played with 7 to 10 cards dealt to each player, depending on the number of players:

The cards in each suit rank (from high to low) A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. The game is best when played with 4 to 6.Ī standard 52 card deck is used. Players and Cardsįrom 3 to 7 people can play.

In India the game is called (in Gujurati) Kachuful, which is a mnemonic for the order of cycling through the trump suits: Kari (spades), Chukat (diamonds), Falli (clubs), Lal (hearts) and in Pakistan it is 765. Other names include Bust (in Australia and New Zealand), Boerenbridge (in the Netherlands) and German Bridge (in Hong Kong). In Britain it is often known as Contract Whist or as Nomination Whist, a name which also sometimes refers to different games.

Traditionally the size of the players' hands increases or decreases by one in each deal, and this has given rise to the names Elevator ( l'Ascenseur in France), Up and Down the River (in Australia and New Zealand) and 10 op en neer in the Netherlands. Its original name Oh Hell! evidently offended some people and has been bowdlerised in many books to Oh Pshaw! or Oh Well!, while others have preferred more robust alternatives such as Oh Shit! Some call it Blob or Blackout, perhaps because of the practice of recording a player's bid on the scoresheet and then obliterating it with a black blob if the player failed to take the predicted number of tricks. This game, in which players try to predict the exact number of tricks they will win, first appeared in London and New York in the 1930's and has since become popular in many parts of the world.

Software, Online Games, Score Sheets and Scoring Applications.

This page was originally based on a contribution from Carter Hoerr, rulekeeper for the OH HELL! Club of America.

Oh hell card game up the river