Oh Hell is a trick-taking game with one sharp rule: you must win the exact number of tricks you bid. One over or one under and you score zero for the whole deal. The hand size changes every round, from a single card up to seven and back down. Four players, thirteen deals, highest score wins. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: read your hand, bid the tricks you can win, and hit that number on the nose.
| Bid | Tricks won | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 | 12 |
| 0 | 0 | 10 |
| 3 | 2 | 0 |
Three AI difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) from the menu. The dealer's forbidden bid — the one that would make every player able to make their bid — is enforced, so someone always has to miss. The hand size climbs from 1 to 7 and back down across thirteen deals. Install it as an app from your browser menu to play offline.
Oh Hell appeared in the 1930s and was described in print by 1940. It goes by many polite aliases — Oh Well, Nomination Whist, Blackout, and Up and Down the River among them. Its exact-bid scoring has made it a lasting favourite for players who find plain Whist too gentle.
The whole game turns on precision. You score 10 points plus your bid only when you win exactly the number of tricks you called. Taking one too many or one too few wipes the deal to zero. This makes deliberately losing a trick as skilful as winning one.
Yes, and it is often the best bid. A hand full of low cards that can duck every trick scores 10 points for a successful zero bid. The challenge is that opponents may try to force a trick onto you, so ducking cleanly takes some care.
The dealer bids last, and cannot make a bid that would let every player exactly meet their call. Because the total bids can never equal the hand size, at least one player is always guaranteed to miss. This "hook" keeps every deal competitive.
Oh Hell is built as a series of deals with a rising and falling hand size, here from 1 card up to 7 and back to 1. Small hands are all about the trump; large hands reward careful counting. The variety is what keeps the game fresh across its thirteen deals.