Israeli Whist

Israeli Whist is a trick taking standard deck playing card game. In Israel, the game is simply called Whist but differs from classical Whist in significant ways. There are no partnerships, trump is determined by a Bridge-like auction rather than last card dealt, and each player makes an Oh Hell!-like forecast of number of tricks to take. Each hand of Israeli Whist includes an auction round to determine trump, a bidding round to specify number of tricks to take, and finally a card play round to determine who made their bid. Players who missed their bid, score -10 points for each trick over or under their bid. Players who made their bid exactly, score 10 points plus a bonus of the number of tricks taken squared. See variants for non-exponential scoring systems to reduce the likelihood of a runaway leader. One appeal of Israeli Whist is that the ability to judge a hand's strength is more important than relying on luck to get a good hand. For example, consistently making your bid outweighs consistently winning the auction to name trump. Although the standard game is for exactly four players, see the variant section for ways to accommodate 3-7 players.