Solo whist
trick-taking game
Solo whist is the English form of Wiezen (Belgian or Ghent Whist), a simple game of the Boston family played in the Low Countries. It is a trick-taking card game for four players in which players can bid to make eight tricks in trumps with any partner, or a solo contract playing against the other three players. Thus it combines both partnership and cut-throat play. Scoring is with small stakes won or paid out on each hand.
History
Wiezen or Belgian Whist, a simple form of Boston, has been played in the Low Countries since the early 19th Century. The game was introduced to London in 1852 by a family of Dutch Jews. It quickly became popular in London's Jewish Community and was known as Solo Whist. In the early 1870s Solo Whist was played as a low stakes gambling game in London's sporting clubs as a replacement for more complex and slower games like Whist.
Solo Whist continued to be played as a social gambling game in homes and pubs during the 20th Century in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, however, its popularity declined as Contract Bridge's rose.
Dealing
The cards are shuffled by the dealer and cut by the player to dealer's right.
“Solo whist” enters the record as trick-taking game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Solo, whist and trick-taking can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Solo whist” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.