Oh Hell Rules — How to Play and Keep Score
Oh Hell asks for exactness rather than greed. Before each hand every player predicts precisely how many tricks they will win, and only a prediction that comes off is worth anything. Because the hand size changes every round, a bid that is trivial with one card is agonising with ten. The bidding template fits directly: each round stores a bid and a result for every player.
Overview
Oh Hell asks for exactness rather than greed. Before each hand every player predicts precisely how many tricks they will win, and only a prediction that comes off is worth anything. Because the hand size changes every round, a bid that is trivial with one card is agonising with ten. The bidding template fits directly: each round stores a bid and a result for every player.
Setup
Use a standard 52-card deck. Deal the round's hand size to every player, then turn the next card face up to set the trump suit for that round. Starting to the dealer's left, each player announces a bid from zero up to the hand size. The dealer bids last and, under the hook rule, may not name the number that would make the bids add up to the tricks available. Play then proceeds as normal trick-taking: follow suit if you can, trump or discard if you cannot, highest trump or highest card of the led suit takes the trick.
Scoring
Record the bid and the tricks taken for each player, then score:
- Exact match. The bonus, plus whatever the shape setting adds. With the defaults, bidding three and taking three scores 10 + 3 = 13. Bidding zero and taking zero scores 10, plus the zero bonus if one is set.
- Any other result. Whatever the miss setting says. The default is a flat zero regardless of how far off you were. Under "one per trick off", bidding four and taking two costs two points. Under "one per trick taken", bidding four and taking two scores two.
Two consistency checks are worth enforcing before a round is saved: the tricks taken must add up to the hand size exactly, and no bid may exceed the hand size.
Ending the game
The game finishes at the end of the last round in the deal pattern. With the default down-and-up pattern starting at ten cards, that is ten rounds down to one plus nine rounds back up, so nineteen rounds. The highest total wins. Ties share the win.
Common variations
Some groups start every game at seven cards regardless of the number of players so the length stays predictable. Others give five rather than ten for a successful zero bid on the grounds that it is the easiest contract to keep. A popular twist is to bid simultaneously, everyone revealing a number of fingers at once, which removes the advantage of bidding last.
Scoring at a glance
| Who wins | Highest score |
|---|---|
| Score sheet | A bid and a result per player per round; the score is derived |
| Typical round score | -10 – 20 |
| Negative scores | Possible |
| Worth knowing | Two entries per player per round, a bid and the tricks taken. The tricks taken across the table must add up to the hand size exactly. |
Oh Hell — score sheet
Worked example
Settings: handSizePattern: downAndUp, maxHandSize: 5, exactBidBonus: 10,
bonusShape: perTrick, missPenalty: zero, zeroBidBonus: 0, dealerHook: true.
Players: Anna, Ben, Cara, Dan. Hand sizes run 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, then back up.
A player who makes their bid exactly scores 10 + tricks taken. A player who misses
scores 0.
| Round | Hand size | Anna bid/took | Ben bid/took | Cara bid/took | Dan bid/took |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 2 / 2 | 1 / 2 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 0 |
| 2 | 4 | 1 / 0 | 2 / 2 | 0 / 1 | 1 / 1 |
| 3 | 3 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 0 | 2 / 2 | 0 / 0 |
| 4 | 2 | 0 / 1 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 0 | 1 / 0 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 / 1 | 0 / 0 | 0 / 0 | 0 / 0 |
Round scores:
| Round | Anna | Ben | Cara | Dan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 10 |
| 2 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 11 |
| 3 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 10 |
| 4 | 0 | 11 | 10 | 0 |
| 5 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
Running totals:
| After | Anna | Ben | Cara | Dan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 10 |
| 2 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 21 |
| 3 | 23 | 22 | 23 | 31 |
| 4 | 23 | 33 | 33 | 31 |
| 5 | 34 | 43 | 43 | 41 |
Expected standings after round 5: Ben 43 and Cara 43 tie at rank 1, Dan 41 at
rank 3, Anna 34 at rank 4. finished: false if the down-and-up pattern continues
back to 5; finished: true if roundCount was set to 5.
What this catches:
A successful bid of zero still scores. Dan in round 1 and Ben in round 3 bid 0,
took 0, and score 10 + 0 = 10. Treating a zero bid as "nothing to score" is a common
error and quietly costs a careful player the game.
Missing by one in either direction scores the same: nothing. Anna bids 1 and takes
0 in round 2; Cara bids 0 and takes 1. Both score 0 under missPenalty: zero. Under
perTrickDiff they would instead score a negative proportional to the gap — same
entries, different standings.
Tricks taken must sum to the hand size. Every row above adds up: round 1 sums to
5, round 4 sums to 2. Bids deliberately do not have to sum to the hand size — that
is the whole tension of the game, and with dealerHook: true the dealer is forbidden
from making them balance. Validating bids the way tricks are validated would reject
legal play.
Ties are real and must be reported, not broken arbitrarily. Ben and Cara both finish on 43 and share rank 1.
House rules and settings
Every table plays Oh Hell a little differently. These are the 9 rules groups argue about. Each one is a setting in the app — and changing it recalculates a match that is already in progress, which is the thing no other score keeper does.
Deal pattern: what are the options in Oh Hell?
How the number of cards dealt changes from round to round. Most groups start with a full hand, shrink it by one card each deal until everyone gets a single card, then climb back up.
Default: Down to one, then back up. Five options:
In the app: “Deal pattern”.
Largest hand: what is the default in Oh Hell?
The biggest number of cards anyone is dealt. The app caps this at whatever the deck allows for the number of players, so seven players can never receive more than seven cards each.
Default: 10. Adjustable from 1 to 13 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Largest hand”.
Number of rounds: what is the default in Oh Hell?
Leave at zero to let the deal pattern decide how many rounds the game runs for. Set a number to play a fixed length instead.
Default: 0. Adjustable from 0 to 30 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Number of rounds”.
Bonus for an exact bid: what is the default in Oh Hell?
The flat reward for taking precisely the number of tricks you promised, neither more nor fewer.
Default: 10. Adjustable from 0 to 25 in steps of 1.
In the app: “Bonus for an exact bid”.
Points on top of the bonus: what are the options in Oh Hell?
What is added to the bonus when a bid comes off. The squared option makes ambitious bids far more valuable than safe ones.
Default: Plus one per trick bid. Three options:
In the app: “Points on top of the bonus”.
When you miss your bid: what are the options in Oh Hell?
How a round is scored when the number of tricks you took does not match the number you promised.
Default: Score nothing. Five options:
In the app: “When you miss your bid”.
Extra for a successful zero: what is the default in Oh Hell?
Additional points on top of the normal reward for promising to win no tricks and managing it. Leave at zero to treat a bid of nothing like any other bid.
Default: 0. Adjustable from 0 to 25 in steps of 5.
In the app: “Extra for a successful zero”.
Dealer cannot make the bids balance: on or off in Oh Hell?
Stops the last player to bid from choosing a number that would make all the bids add up to exactly the tricks available, which guarantees at least one player fails every round.
Default: on.
In the app: “Dealer cannot make the bids balance”.
Trump in the one-card round: what are the options in Oh Hell?
In the round where everybody holds a single card there is no skill left, so some groups remove the trump suit to reduce the luck.
Default: Normal trump suit. Two options:
In the app: “Trump in the one-card round”.
Variants of Oh Hell
Blackout
A missed bid is crossed out on the sheet and scores nothing at all, which is the version most people learn first.
Squared scoring
A made bid scores ten plus the bid multiplied by itself, and a missed bid loses the difference multiplied by itself.
No trump on the full deal
When the deal uses every card there is no card left to turn for trump, so that round is played without one.
Oh Hell is also known as
Blackout, Nomination Whist, Up and Down the River, Oh Pshaw, Bust. These are the same game — the rules and the score sheet above apply to all of them.
Keep score offline
The sheet above works in your browser. Cardzo for iPhone remembers your players, survives a closed tab, and works in a field with no signal.
Coming to the App Store.