Oh Hell / Up and Down the River

👥 2–8 players 📍 Indoor📍 Anywhere ⚡ Calm 🧩 Moderate ⏱ 30-45 minutes 🎂 Ages 8+

Quick Pitch

Oh Hell is a clever trick-taking game where players must correctly predict exactly how many tricks they will win in each hand.

Hook

Before you play a single card, you have to announce exactly how many tricks you expect to win this hand. Not roughly — exactly. Win one more or one fewer than you bid, and you score nothing. The game gets its name from what players say when they realize they've bid wrong, and the number of cards dealt changes every hand: one card for the first hand, two for the second, and so on, then back down again. It's one of the most purely satisfying bidding games ever invented.

Equipment Needed

  • One standard 52-card deck
  • Paper and pencil for score tracking
  • Scoresheet to record bids and tricks won

Setup

  1. Shuffle and deal
  2. First hand: Deal 1 card to each player
  3. Second hand: Deal 2 cards to each player
  4. Continue increasing until the number of cards equals the number of players (or reaches limits)
  5. Then decrease back down to 1 card
  6. Choose a dealer; rotate clockwise

Trump determination: Flip top card of remaining deck as trump (or rotate by dealer each hand)

Rules

Objective

Correctly predict the exact number of tricks you will win in each hand. Scoring rewards accuracy; failure to make your exact bid results in 0 points.

Bidding

  1. After cards are dealt: Each player examines their hand
  2. Bidding order: Players bid in sequence, stating how many tricks they expect to win (0 to the number of cards dealt)
  3. Constraint: The total of all bids around the table must NOT equal the number of cards dealt (this is the "screw" rule, optional in some variants)
  4. Recording bids: Write down each player's bid

Gameplay

  1. Lead: Player to dealer's left (or designated starter) leads first trick
  2. Following suit: Players must follow suit if able; trump may be played if suit cannot be followed
  3. Trick winner: Highest card of suit led wins; highest trump if trump was played
  4. Collecting tricks: Winner collects trick and leads next
  5. Tracking: Players keep track of tricks they win individually

Scoring

Making your bid exactly:

  • Score 1 point per trick bid + 10 bonus points
  • Example: Bid 2 tricks, win 2 tricks = 2 + 10 = 12 points

Missing your bid:

  • Score 0 points
  • No matter how close you were (off by 1 or more)

Alternative scoring (some variants):

  • Score equals tricks bid + 10 (if exact)
  • OR score equals (tricks bid) × 2 (if exact) + 10 bonus
  • Off by one: Some variants give -1 point penalty; others still award 0

Hand completion: At end of hand, announce winner of hand (highest score that hand); total scores across all hands determine overall winner

Expert Player

Tips

  1. Hand evaluation: Count sure tricks carefully. With few cards, this is easier
  2. Trump counting: Remember trump position and which trumps remain
  3. Psychological play: Bids are announced publicly; experienced players deduce hand strength from bids
  4. Bid bidding: Conservative bidding with 0 or 1 is safer than overestimating
  5. The screw rule: If bids must not total cards dealt, be aware others may bid 0 to prevent you from making your bid
  6. Late-game management: Late hands have many cards; accurate counting becomes harder; bid conservatively
  7. Partner patterns: In casual settings, players often reveal their style (conservative vs. aggressive)

Variations

  • No screw variant: Bids can total the number of cards dealt
  • Aggressive variant: Whoever is furthest from their bid gets penalty points instead
  • Chinese variant: Bids can be negative (willing to take 0 tricks)
  • With jokers: Jokers can be trump cards or wild cards
  • Points per trick: Score varies per trick (high cards worth more) rather than per bid
Learn More — History & Origins

History & Origins

Oh Hell (also called Blackout, Up the River, and Up and Down the River) emerged in North America in the mid-20th century. Its exact origin is unclear, but the game's structure — hands that increase one card per round, then decrease — appears to have been invented independently by multiple groups, and it spread through card-playing communities in the 1960s and 1970s. The name reflects players' reactions when they realize they've misjudged their hand and will miss their bid.

The "screw the dealer" rule — where the total of all bids cannot equal the number of cards dealt, forcing the last bidder to bid suboptimally — is a popular variant that adds an interesting twist to the social dynamics of bidding. Different regional versions of the game have different names and minor rule variations, but the core mechanic of exact-trick bidding with changing hand sizes is consistent across all of them.

Cultural Context

Oh Hell works as well as it does because exact-trick bidding is genuinely hard in a way that approximate bidding isn't. With 7 cards, you might confidently say "I'll win about 3 tricks" — but committing to exactly 3, knowing you'll score nothing for 2 or 4, forces a different and more careful kind of hand analysis. The game rewards players who can read their hand accurately while accounting for what the other players are likely to do. That cognitive challenge, combined with the satisfying scoring system and the varying hand sizes, makes Oh Hell a perennial favorite at game nights that want more substance than Crazy Eights but less complexity than Bridge.

See Also