How to score Oh Hell!
Guess exactly how many hands you’ll win — no more, no less. Winning too many is just as bad as winning too few.
The goal
Before each deal, say exactly how many little battles (“tricks”) you think you’ll win. Then win exactly that many.
On your turn
Everyone plays one card. Highest card of the suit led wins — unless somebody plays a trump, and then the highest trump wins.
Points
Hit your number exactly and you score. Miss it — over OR under — and you lose points.
Winning
The hand grows and shrinks each deal. When the last hand is played, the highest score wins.
How the scoring works, hand by hand
Oh Hell! is scored at the end of each hand. Play the hand out, then enter everyone’s bid and what they actually won.
There’s nothing to tap during play — just come back when the hand is finished.
What you need
A regular deck of cards and three to seven players.
Everyone plays for themselves — no partners.
The big idea
This is the opposite of most card games: winning MORE than you promised is just as bad as winning fewer.
If you said two, you want two. Not three. Three is a disaster.
That’s why it’s called Oh Hell! — you spend half the game trying to lose tricks on purpose.
The hand keeps changing
The first deal is one card each. The next is two. Then three, and so on up to the biggest hand.
Then it comes back down again, all the way to one card.
A one-card hand sounds easy until you realise everyone can see how it’s going to go.
Bidding
Going round the table, everyone says how many tricks they’ll win. You can say zero.
Most tables say the bids may not add up to the number of cards dealt — so the last person to bid has to pick a number that means somebody will miss.
That’s the whole game in one rule: not everyone can be happy.
How points work
Hit your number exactly and you score — usually 10 points for each trick you promised.
Miss it and you lose 10 for every trick you were out by, whether that’s over or under.
There are a few different scoring systems, and you pick one in the rules. They all reward the same thing: being exactly right.
How the game ends
You play one hand for each size, up and back down. With a seven-card top hand, that’s thirteen deals.
The highest total wins. If two people tie, most tables play one more single-card deal to settle it.
How you’ll score in the app
After each hand, tap “New round” and enter everyone’s bid and how many tricks they actually won.
The app tells you how many cards this hand is, whether the tricks add up, and whether the bids are legal.
Words you will hear at the table
If it is your first time
- Remember you can bid zero. On a bad hand it’s often the safest thing to do.
- Watch the total. If the bids add up to less than the cards dealt, somebody is going to be forced to take a trick they don’t want.
- A one-card hand is pure nerve — everyone is guessing, including you.
Printable score sheet
Blank, for the nights the phone stays in a pocket. Print this page and only the sheet comes out.
| Hand | Player 1 | Player 2 | Player 3 | Player 4 | ||||||||
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| Bid | Won | Score | Bid | Won | Score | Bid | Won | Score | Bid | Won | Score | |
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Or let the app do the adding
Game Night Tally Pad keeps score for Oh Hell! and five other games, with your house rules, on iPhone and iPad. Any hand can be fixed afterwards. In App Store review since 20 October 2026.
Rules vary from table to table. This is the common version, and the one the app scores by default; your house rules win.