Oh Hell!
Oh Hell! is a trick-taking game for three to seven players. Each hand you predict exactly how many tricks you will take. Make the number and you score; miss it, in either direction, and the hand is worth nothing.
Players
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3 to 7 players. Four is the usual table.
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One standard 52-card deck. Aces are high. Suits are otherwise equal, except the trump suit.
The ramp
Hands shrink by one card each round until a single card remains, then grow by one card until the table is full again.
The longest hand is floor(52 / players):
At four players the opening hand and the final hand are both 13 cards. Those two deals use the whole deck.
Deal and trump
Seat 1 deals the first hand. The deal passes to the left at the start of every later hand.
Cards are dealt one at a time, face down to the players, until every seat has that hand's count. When any card remains, the top card of the stock is turned face up. Its suit is trump for the hand, and it stays in the middle of the table, out of play.
When the deal uses every card — four players at 13 — nothing is turned. That hand has no trump. Highest card of the led suit wins each trick.
Bidding
The player to the dealer's left bids first. Bidding continues clockwise, and the dealer bids last. Each bid is a whole number from 0 through the number of cards in the hand: how many tricks you will take.
The dealer may not name the one number that would make the bids add up to the number of tricks in the hand. If the other bids already sum to more than the hand, or to less than zero would require, every number from 0 through the hand is open. This is the hook, also called screwing the dealer.
Until everyone has bid, each player sees only their own number. The bids are then read out, and they stay face up for the hand.
Play
The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. Any card may lead. The other players follow suit if they can. A player with none of the led suit may play anything, including trump.
A trick is won by the highest trump in it. If it contains no trump, the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner of a trick leads the next one.
Scoring
When the hand's last trick is taken, each player is scored on their bid:
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Make it exactly: 10 points, plus 1 point for each trick bid.
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Miss it, by taking more or by taking fewer: 0 for the hand.
Nothing is subtracted. A bid of 0 that takes no tricks scores 10. A bid of 0 that takes a trick scores 0.
End
After the last hand of the ramp (the full hand on the way back up), the player with the highest total wins. A tie on that total is shared: every seat on the highest score wins together.
Setup
Shuffle the deck. Deal the opening hand as above, turn a trump when a card remains, and begin the bidding to the dealer's left.