The objects of Solo Whist are—to make eight tricks out of the thirteen in conjunction with a partner;
to make five or nine tricks out of your own hand against the other three players in combination; or to play your own hand so as to avoid taking a trick, however strenuously your three adversaries may endeavour to force you to do so.
The cards are dealt round to the four players, three cards at a time, until there are only four remaining. Then these are dealt singly, the last card being turned up as the trump, and being the property of the dealer. The eldest hand, i.e. the player on the dealer's left, has the first call. He can propose, i.e. ask for a partner with the object of making with that partner eight of the thirteen tricks; he can call a solo, which is a declaration to make five of the thirteen tricks without having a partner; he can declare misère, i.e. to lose all the thirteen tricks—in this phase of the game all the four suits are equal, the trump suit being annulled; or he can call abondance, when, making whatever suit he likes trumps, and declaring the suit before the first card is led, he endeavours to make nine tricks out of the thirteen. The call of abondance is, however, superseded by any other player declaring to make abondance in trumps, i.e. with the trump suit as it stands.
Further than this, he may call an open misère, or misère ouverte, thereby undertaking not only to lose all the thirteen tricks, but to expose his own cards on the table as soon as the first trick is played to and turned. Or—the supreme call of all—he may announce his intention of taking the whole thirteen tricks by saying, "Abondance declarée." In this case as in the simple abondance, he names his own trump suit, and in the case of this declaration, and this only, he leads, wherever he may chance to sit, the
original lead to the first trick in all other cases coming from the eldest hand.
There are thus six things the eldest hand may do after he has examined his cards, and in showing what the eldest hand can do we have explained what the various calls are. Recapitulating them in due order of value, they are—proposition and acceptance when two players (wherever they sit), undertake to make eight of the thirteen tricks against the other two in partnership; a solo, where the caller to win must take five tricks at least, the suit originally turned up being trumps; the misère, the abondance, and the two exceptional calls, which have already been sufficiently described. The eldest hand may not, however, have cards that would justify his attempting either of the things specified. In that case he says, "I pass;" and here it may be observed that, in the case of the eldest hand, and to the eldest hand only who has passed, there is extended the privilege of accepting a proposition made by the second, third, or fourth players, such proposition, of course, not having been previously accepted or superseded by a higher call.
The second hand, whose turn it now is to declare, may accept a proposal if one has been made, may propose if the eldest hand has passed, or may make any better call than the eldest hand has made. Of course, an inferior call is nugatory, i.e. a player cannot call a solo if a previous hand has called a misère. The higher call always supersedes the lower one, but a player, having once called, can, if he is over-called, increase his call up to the highest limit—the abondance declarée.
The third hand can accept a proposition if one
has been made and has not been accepted or superseded, can propose if no proposition or higher call has been made, or can make any call superior to those previously declared.
The fourth player—the dealer—may accept a proposition coming from any quarter under the previously announced stipulations; or he may propose, in which case only the eldest hand can accept; or he may make an independent call, provided it is better than any preceding call.