Tips minnesotawhist

Invite

Often the first card played is considered the "invite card". It is a way to try and signal to your partner which suit you are strong in. When playing high, the invite is typically the lowest card in the player's best suit. The partner of the invite would then typically respond by playing their highest card in that suit.

Bidding

When trying to decide if you want to bid high or low, it can be useful to assign values to the ace and face cards. A=4, K=3, Q=2, J=1. Add up your ace and face cards and if it is more than 13, playing high may be an option. You should also consider if you are really strong in a suit and also have high cards in other suits that will get you an opening to play the strong suit. You can often run the table with enough cards of a single suit. Likewise, if you are short on a suit, playing low could be an option as you can likely burn any high cards you have after running out of that suit.