Boston honors

"Honor" means "honor card". If a player declares four honors, this means he has four court cards, i.e. ace, king, the queen and jack of the same suit.

Five, six, eight and more subsequent cards of the same suit (starting from ace) give the same number of tricks. That is why it is safe to play either 6 or 8.

Two higher honors along with ace and tree lower cards make 5 tricks.

The ace, king and jack (or the ace, queen and jack) with five lower cards nearly always make six tricks.

The ace and the queen with the ace and king in whist make two tricks.

The king with one or two lower cards makes a trick.

It should be kept in mind that there are exceptions in the rules, especially if the honor suit is not a trump.

Honors (aces, kings, queens and jacks) are important if they are with trumps, otherwise it is rather dangerous to rely on them.

Honors are important if you play with widows. If you lack the higher honor of the suit, you should buy it. In case a player has enough cards to buy his opponents all trumps without loosing his own trumps, he`d better buy cards of the higher suit in order to make it stronger.