The one who keeps up longest wins the game.--Dublin (Mrs. Lincoln). (_b_) In _Notes and Queries_, x. 17, E. D. says this amusement was fashionable sixty years ago, and from the low dresses worn then by ladies he mentions its indecency. He gives extracts from a satire called _Cutchacutchoo, or the Jostling of the Innocents_, 2nd ed., Dublin, in which the game and position are mentioned-- Now she with tone tremendous cries Cutchacutchoo. Let each squat down upon her ham, Jump like a goat, puck like a ram.
To call a solo on plain suits alone, with only one or two trumps, is extremely dangerous; and a solo called on a single suit must have at least five or six good trumps in order to succeed. _=PLAYING.=_ When a call has been made entirely upon trump strength, it is much better to make tricks by ruffing, than by leading trumps. There is little use for a solo player to hold a tenace in trumps, hoping it will be led to him. If he has good suits, he should make sure of two rounds of trumps by leading the Ace. When the solo player is depending on the plain suits for tricks, and has one long suit, he should make what winning cards he has in the other plain suits in preference to leading trumps, for his only danger is that his long suit will be led often enough to give his adversaries discards in the other suits. If a proposal was made before the solo was called, it is better for the solo player to sit on the left of the player that proposed. The caller should never play single honours second hand, unless he has only one small card of the suit, or the honour is the Ace. With A Q x, second or third hand, the Q must be finessed if the caller has counted on both A and Q for tricks. If he can probably win without the finesse, he should play Ace.
Non-compliance with a performable penalty is the same as a revoke. _=SETTLING.=_ After the last card has been played, each player turns over his tricks, counts the number of hearts he has taken in, and announces it. Players should be careful not to gather or mix the cards until all thirteen hearts have been accounted for. Each player then pays into the pool for the number of hearts he has taken in, according to the system of settlement agreed upon before play began. The pool is then taken down by the player or players winning it, and the deal passes to the left. The game is at an end any time the players wish to stop, after a hand has been settled for; but it is usual to agree upon some definite hour. There are two ways of settling at the end of the hand, each of which has its good points. _=SWEEPSTAKE HEARTS.=_ After the hand has been played, each player announces the number of hearts he has taken in, and pays into the pool one counter for each.
And here s a clap, and here s a clap, for Mrs. ---- s daughter. --Belfast (W. H. Patterson). IV. Up the plain and down the plain, As stippy [slippery] as a glass, We will go to Mrs. ---- To find a pretty lass. [Annie] with her rosy cheeks, Catch her if you can, And if you cannot catch her I ll tell you who s the man. [Annie] made a pudding, She made it very sweet; She daren t stick a knife in Till George came home at neet [night].
If you can get the game on any bid less than 20 you are absolutely safe, provided you can reach 61 in your tricks. But the opposition of another player may irritate you, [reizen,] and provoke you to bid 24, or even 28, in the hope of turning a heart or a spade. If you go beyond 20, and turn a diamond, you must either find the fourth Matadore in the Skat, or make your adversaries schneider, in order to secure another multiplier. If you fail, you lose 24, or 28, according to your bid. The great difficulty in Skat is to judge the value of a hand, so as neither to under nor overbid it, and also to get all out of it that it is worth. A person who plays a Frage in hearts when he could easily have made it a Solo, reduces the value of his game just eighty per cent. A player with the four Wenzels, A K Q 9 8 of diamonds, and a losing card, would be foolish to play a diamond Solo with five, schneider announced, worth 72; while he had in his hand a sure Grand, with four, schneider announced, worth 140. Of course the schneider is not a certainty. The risk is that the Ten of diamonds will be guarded, and that an Ace and a Ten will make, both of them on your losing card, or one of them on the diamond Ten. A careful player would be satisfied with 100 on such a hand, for if he fails to make the announced schneider, he loses everything.
It may be fired from any convenient position behind the row of five men, so long as the shot passes roughly over the head of the middle man of the five. Of course, while in Little Wars there are only three or four players, in any proper Kriegspiel the game will go on over a larger area--in a drill-hall or some such place--and each arm and service will be entrusted to a particular player. This permits all sorts of complicated imitations of reality that are impossible to our parlour and playroom Little Wars. We can consider transport, supply, ammunition, and the moral effect of cavalry impact, and of uphill and downhill movements. We can also bring in the spade and entrenchment, and give scope to the Royal Engineers. But before I write anything of Colonel Sykes suggestions about these, let me say a word or two about Kriegspiel country. The country for Kriegspiel should be made up, I think, of heavy blocks or boxes of wood about 3 x 3 x 1/2 feet, and curved pieces (with a rounded outline and a chord of three feet, or shaped like right-angled triangles with an incurved hypotenuse and two straight sides of 3 feet) can easily be contrived to round off corners and salient angles. These blocks can be bored to take trees, etc., exactly as the boards in Little Wars are bored, and with them a very passable model of any particular country can be built up from a contoured Ordnance map. Houses may be made very cheaply by shaping a long piece of wood into a house-like section and sawing it up.