hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if possible, else trump if possible. The trick is won by the player who played the highest trump or the highest card of the suit led. The winner of a trick leads to the next trick. Bidding and contracts Beginning with the eldest hand, players bid for the privilege of declaring the contract and trump suit and playing as the soloist. Each bid consists of a number from 6 to 10 that indicates the minimum number of tricks to be won by the declarer and a trump suit. The ranking is first by number of tricks and then by suit as follows: spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts, and no trumps (in ascending order). A special bid, misère, ranks between 8 tricks with no trumps and 9 tricks with spades. The bidding can last several rounds until all players but one pass. At the beginning of each round, the eldest hand can make a bid that only needs to be as high as the highest bid so far. Otherwise each bid must be higher than the previous one. A player who has passed may not bid again later, and a player who wants to bid misère must not make any other bids before or after. If no player bids at all, a special all-pass game is played (Russian: raspasovka). Misère and all-pass games are special in that the object is to avoid tricks rather than win them. Both are described in their own sections below. The highest bidder becomes the declarer. The declarer shows the two cards in the talon to the defenders before adding them to his or her hand and discarding any two cards face down. Unless the declarer's bid was misère, the declarer then declares any contract that ranks at least as high as the highest bid. In trick-play, the declarer must win at least the number of tricks indicated in the contract. If successful, the declarer wins the value of the contract in pool points (×10). If not successful (a situation called remise), the declarer loses the value of the contract multiplied by the number of undertricks (tricks missing) in dump points (×10), and also pays the same amount to each defender in whist points (×1). Whisting An unusual feature of Preferans is that the defenders have their own secondary objectives in addition to the objective of preventing