🃏 The essentials

Players: three active players. In a four-player game the dealer sits out the hand (“the dealer rests”) and deals for the other three.

Deck: 32 cards — 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A in each suit. Aces are high: A · K · Q · J · 10 · 9 · 8 · 7.

The deal: every player receives 10 cards, dealt two at a time; two cards go face-down to the middle — the talon (прикуп).

The goal: win the auction and make your contract — or, when everyone passes, take as few tricks as possible. Scores live in three ledgers: the pool (пуля), the mountain (гора) and whists (висты).

📢 Bidding — торговля

Starting left of the dealer, players bid for the right to declare the contract. Every bid names a number of tricks and a trump suit, and must outrank the previous one. The ranking is by tricks first, then by suit:

So the ladder runs 6♠ → 6♣ → 6♦ → 6♥ → 6NT → 7♠ → … up to 10NT. A player who passes is out of the auction for the hand. Misère is a stand-alone bid: you may not bid anything before or after it in the same auction.

🎯 Playing a contract

The auction winner (the declarer) shows the talon to the table, takes both cards, then discards any two face-down (снос) and announces the final contract — at least as high as the winning bid.

The player to the dealer's left (eldest hand) leads to the first trick. Play follows three iron rules:

1️⃣ You must follow suit whenever you can.
2️⃣ Void in the suit led? You must play a trump if you hold one (no obligation to overtrump).
3️⃣ Only with neither the suit nor a trump may you discard freely.

The highest trump wins the trick — or the highest card of the suit led if no trump appears. The trick's winner leads next. The declarer needs at least the contracted number of tricks.

🛡 Whisting — вист

The two defenders decide whether to fight the contract. Each may declare whist (“I'll defend — and I answer for the defenders' tricks”) or pass. Against a 6- or 7-contract, the second defender may also call half-whist (полвиста) after the first passes — the hand is scored without play, both sides as if they had met their quotas.

Together the whisting side must win a minimum number of tricks:

If both defenders pass, the declarer's contract is conceded and scored as made. If exactly one defender whists, they may choose to play “in the light” (в светлую): both defenders' hands are exposed and the whister plays the passing player's cards too — carrying the whole quota alone. Whisters who make their quota earn whist points per trick; falling short sends the shortfall to their mountain.

🕳 Misère — мизер

The purest contract in the game: the declarer promises to take no tricks at all, always at no-trump. After the talon exchange and the first lead, all hands are laid open and the defenders plot together in the open, steering tricks toward the declarer.

A clean misère scores 10 into the pool — the same value as a ten-trick contract. Every trick the declarer is forced to take costs 10 to the mountain. One misjudged discard can turn a beautiful hand into a catastrophe, which is exactly why the misère is famous.

🌀 All-pass — распасы

If all three players pass, nobody declares — and the hand flips: now everyone wants the fewest tricks. Play is at no-trump. The talon opens the game: its first card leads trick one, its second card leads trick two.

Each trick taken writes 1 to your mountain; finishing with zero tricks earns 1 pool point. Consecutive all-pass hands escalate — by convention the stakes double, or grow by one point per round — so a table can't hide in raspasy forever.

🧮 Scoring — the bullet (пуля)

Every player keeps three tallies on the classic cross-ruled score sheet:

Pool (пуля) — grows when you make contracts. The game ends when every player fills their pool to the agreed target.
Mountain (гора) — your penalties. The smaller, the better.
Whists (висты) — points written against a specific opponent for tricks taken on defense.

Making a contract adds its value (6 = 2, 7 = 4, 8 = 6, 9 = 8, 10 = 10, misère = 10) to your pool. Going down (ремиз) writes the contract value per undertrick onto your mountain — and the defenders write whists against you for their tricks. At settlement the mountains are compared and the differences convert into whists; the final score is whists received minus whists conceded.

🏛 Table conventions

Three great scoring schools dominate — agree on one before the first deal:

Сочинка (Sochi) — the modern standard. Straight values, as described above.
Ленинградка (Leningrad) — mountain and whist entries are doubled during play; pools double at settlement. Sharper, swingier.
Ростов (Rostov) — gentler on whisters: their penalties are halved, and the mountain is replaced by direct whist payments.

Beloved extras: «Шесть пик — Сталинград» — a six-spades contract is war: both defenders must whist, no half-whist, no surrender. Gentleman's whist — defenders split the spoils of a failed contract equally. Гусарик — the two-player “hussar” variant for when only a duel is possible.

📖 Small glossary

Талон / прикуп — the two hidden cards · Снос — the declarer's two discards · Торговля — the auction · Вист / полвиста — defending, at full or half stake · В светлую — defending with open cards · Пуля — the pool you must fill · Гора — the penalty mountain · Ремиз — a failed contract · Распасы — the all-pass hand · Мизер — the zero-trick contract.

♠ Preferans tables with live opponents are in the works — this page is your training ground.