Hermits Whist

a solitaire trick-taking game

Hermits Whist is a solitaire trick-taking game in which you try to win tricks against a dummy hand. The trump is randomly determined by flipping over a wild, but with every trick you have the option of randomly determining a new trump. Each pass through the deck is two hands; you play a second hand (called the aft hand) without reshuffling the cards.

Setup
Set all six 7 cards aside in a row. These cards will be used for scoring.

Separate the wilds from the basic deck. Shuffle them together in their own pile and flip up the top card. This determines the initial trump suit.

Shuffle the rest of the deck together. Deal eight cards each into two face-down piles. One of these is your hand of cards. The other is the dummy.

Game play
Flip up the top card from the dummy hand. You must play a card that shares a suit with the dummy's card, if you have one; otherwise, play any card from your hand.

Before playing your card you have the option of twiddling trump. Flip over the next card in the wild stack. That suit is now trump, instead of the suit of the previous wild. The new trump determines whether or not you win this trick and remains in effect until you twiddle the trump on a later trick. If you twiddle the trump when there are no cards left in the wild stack, then there is no trump for the remainder of the hand; with no trump, the highest card that shares a suit with the dummy's lead wins. You can flip through the wild deck as many times as you like before playing your card until you get to the end of the wild deck. The wild deck never reset for the rest of the game.

You win the trick if you played a trump and the dummy didn't, if you played a higher trump than the dummy, or if no trump was played but you followed suit with a higher card. Otherwise, you lose the trick.

Note that a card counts as a trump even when you play it for its other suit.

Regardless of who wins the trick, start the next trick by flipping over the top card from the dummy hand. Continue until you have resolved eight tricks and depleted both hands.

If you won exactly as many tricks as the pip number of one of the face up seven cards then you flip over that seven card and move on. If you won either more or fewer tricks, you have lost.

Set aside the tricks from this hand and, without reshuffling, deal the aft hand.

The aft hand

Leave the wild pile as it is. Using the remainder of the deck, deal again: Eight cards to yourself and eight to the dummy. (There will be four cards leftover. Set them aside without looking at them.)

Bidding and game play for the aft hand are the same as for the fore.

After completing the aft hand, reshuffle the main deck but leave the wilds as they are. Continue with another fore hand.

Succeeding at four fore hands and four aft hands requires making all six possible bids. If you can do that, you win the game. If you ever fail to make even one bid along the way, however, you lose.

Credits

Designed by Adam Telford

The game is inspired by P.D. Magnus.