short whist vs cards

short whist and cards both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
short whist	Yes	No	No	No
cards	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, cards is a hypernym of short whist; that is, cards is a word with a broader meaning than short whist:

short whist: a card game for four players who form two partnerships; a pack of 52 cards is dealt and each side scores one point for each trick it takes in excess of six
cards: a game played with playing cards

Other hypernyms of short whist include card game.

short whist (noun)	cards (noun)
a card game for four players who form two partnerships; a pack of 52 cards is dealt and each side scores one point for each trick it takes in excess of six	a game played with playing cards