In 1767 Benjamin Franklin went to Paris, and it is generally believed that he introduced the American variety of the game known as Boston, which became the rage in Paris some time after the war of independence. So popular did whist become in Italy that we find the boxes at the opera in Florence provided with card tables in 1790. The music of the opera was considered of value chiefly as, “increasing the joy of good fortune, and soothing the affliction of bad.” A code of laws was drawn up about 1760 by the frequenters of White’s and Saunders’ in London. These seem to have remained the standard until “Cælebs” published, in 1851, the code in use at the Portland Club. In 1863 John Loraine Baldwin got together a committee at the Arlington, now the Turf Club, and they drew up the code which is still in use all over the world for English whist. In the United States, laws better suited to the American style of play were drawn up by the American Whist League in 1891, and after several revisions were finally adopted, in 1893, as the official code for League clubs. The literature of whist saw its palmiest days at the beginning of this century. 7,000 copies of Bob Short’s “Short Rules for Whist” were sold in less than a year. Mathews’, or Matthews’, “Advice to the Young Whist-Player,” went through eighteen editions between 1804 and 1828.
I. Oh, a-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go; We ll catch a little fox and put him in a box, And never let him go. --Bath (Miss Large). II. Hunting we will go, brave boys, Hunting we will go; We ll catch an old fox And put him in a box, For a-hunting we will go. Halt! shoulder arms! fire! --Horncastle, North Kelsey, Lincoln (Miss Peacock). III. O have you seen the Shah, O have you seen the Shah? He lights his pipe on a star-light night, O have you seen the Shah? For a-hunting we will go, A-hunting we will go; We ll catch a fox and put him in a box, A-hunting we will go. --Epworth, Doncaster (C. C.
If Dummy passes, you make two tricks; if he covers, you have tenace over the Jack. With A 10 9 x; Dummy having J x x x; play the 10. If partner has the K, your A 9 is tenace over the Q. With A J 10 x; Dummy having Q x x x; if the suit must be led, play the Jack; but such positions should be avoided, except in the end game, or when you play for every trick. With A J 10 x; Dummy having no honour in the suit; if you must lead the suit, play the 10. In trumps, with K Q x x; Dummy having A J x x; play the Queen. If Dummy wins with A, play a small card for the second round, and he may refuse to put on the J. The declarer not having the 10, would make Dummy cover; but nothing is lost if he does, and it marks the 10 with your partner. With King and others of a suit in which Dummy has not the Ace; avoid leading the suit until the Ace has fallen. With King alone, play it if Dummy has the Ace; keep it if he has not.
The next player on the left must then continue the sequence in the same suit if he can, but he may play either up or down, laying the card on the right or left of the starter. If a Five is led, he may play a Four or a Six. Only one card is played at a time by each person in turn. Any person not being able to continue the sequence may start another if he has another Five, but he cannot start one with a Nine unless the first starter in the game was a Nine. He is also at liberty to start a new sequence with a Five or Nine instead of continuing the old, but he must play if he can, one or the other. If he is unable to play, he must pay one counter into the pool, which is won by the first player who gets rid of all his cards. The winner is also paid a counter for every card held by the other players. FAN TAN. This is the simplest form of Stops, and requires no layout. Any number of players can take part, and a full pack of fifty-two cards is used.
An unexpected journey. Nine. That expected money will not come to hand. Eight. Some surprising actions on the part of a young man. Seven. Success in lotteries, gambling or speculation. _=R.=_ The amount will be very small. _=SPADES.
With two men still to bid, a good player would probably make himself safe by shutting out A’s bid, probably offering 26. Let us suppose B then to examine his hand, finding ♡ J 10; ♣ Q 9 8 7; ♢ A 10 9; ♠ 10 9 8 2. Being unsafe in everything, he passes, and practically submits to his fate, his only hope being that the pool will result in a Jack. Z then examines his hand, finding ♡ Q 9 7 5 2; ♣ none; ♢ Q J 6 2; ♠ A K Q J. He sees at once that on spades he would lose everything, and on diamonds he would have a very poor chance. On clubs the result would depend on how often spades were led. In hearts, he has a very good hand, especially as he has a missing suit to discard in. As he is the last bidder he can make sure of the choice for 27, which he bids, and pays into the pool. The result of the play is given in Illustrative Hand No. 4.
The first and third lines are sung three times. Partners are chosen during the singing of the last line. Miss Peacock adds, The rest wanting, as my informant had forgotten the game. In the Sharleston version the children march round two by two, in a double circle, with one child in the centre, singing the verse. At the conclusion, the children who are marching on the inner side of the circle leave their partners and take the place of one in front of them, while the centre child endeavours to get one of the vacant places, the child turned out taking the place of the one in the centre, when the game begins again. In the Earls Heaton version there is the circle of children, with one child in the centre, who chooses a partner after the lines have been sung. (_c_) From this it would seem that while the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire words appear to be the most complete, the action has been preserved best at Sharleston. The acting of this version is the same as that of The Jolly Miller. The third variant is evidently an imitation of the song, John Brown. Green Grow the Leaves (2) [Music] --Northants (R.
A player should be carefully watched who keeps his eyes on the pack while shuffling, or who rivets his attention on the backs of the cards as he deals. Two packs should be used in all round games of cards. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ The chief counting elements that are affected by the play being the trump Ten and the cards, it is usual to devote particular attention to winning them. With J A of trumps, or A K, it is best to lead two rounds immediately; but with a tenace, such as J K, or A Q it is better to place the lead on your left if possible. The high cards in the plain suits are capable of being very skilfully managed in this matter of placing the lead. It sometimes happens that a player with the Ten may be fourth hand on a suit of which he has none; or he may catch the Ten with a small honour if it is used in trumping in. The partnership games offer many fine opportunities for playing the Ten into the partner’s hand, especially when it is probable that he has the best trump, or a better trump than the player on the left. In calculating the probabilities of saving the Ten by trumping in, it must be remembered that the greater the number of players, the less chance there is that a suit will go round more than once, because there are only nine cards of each suit in play. Many players, in their anxiety to catch the Ten, overlook the possibilities of their hands in making cards, the count for which often runs into high figures.
If you see a dealer take up the cards already taken from the box, slipping them one under the other, as if to straighten them up, the sooner you cash your chips the better, for you are up against a brace game, no matter where it is dealt. The proprietors of some fashionable “clubs,” especially at watering places, pretend to be above all such things as cheating at faro, and get indignant at the suggestion of the possibility of there being anything crooked in their establishments. The author has but one reply to all such. If it is true that there is nothing unfair in your game, let me put a type-writer girl in the dealer’s place to shuffle and pull out the cards, and let your men just see to paying and taking bets. The boast of all these fashionable gambling houses is that they never won a man’s money except in a square game. Strange to say, this is generally true, and the explanation is very simple. If you are losing there is no necessity to cheat you, so you lose your money in a square game. If you are winning, it is the bank’s money, and not yours, that they would win if they started to cheat you; and as the dealer is paid to “protect the money of the house,” as they call it, he is perfectly justified in throwing the harpoon into you for a few deals, just to get his own money back; but he is very careful not to cheat you out of any of your own money. You may lose if you like, but you cannot win; faro banks are not run that way. ROUGE ET NOIR, OR TRENTE-ET-QUARANTE.
The dealer then counts, showing his hand first. This, with the starter, is as follows:-- [Illustration: 🂭 🂱 🂲 🃂 🃓 ] This is worth 14 holes. In addition to the run of three with one duplicate, three fifteens can be formed by combining the starter and a Three with each of the deuces, and then taking the starter and the Ace with both the deuces together. This puts the dealer’s total score to 24, with the crib still to count. This is as follows, with the starter:-- [Illustration: 🂭 🃛 🂫 🃚 🂡 ] This is worth 9 holes; 8 for the run of three with one duplicate, and 1 for his nobs. There are no fifteens, and the Ace is worthless. This puts the dealer three holes round the corner, and on the homestretch for the game hole. The deal now passes to the player that was the pone, and the next crib will belong to him. Beginners often experience difficulty in deciding when a run has been made in play, and when it has not. If there is any dispute about it, the cards should be placed as shown in these diagrams, and if any duplicate is encountered before the run is complete, it cannot be pegged.
An egg-shell would not hold them. You can wash them by the river side. But what if I should fall in? We ll get a rope and pull you out, To me, I, O, OM. --Sheffield (S. O. Addy). V. Mother, come buy me two milking-pails, Two milking-pails, two milking-pails, Mother, come buy me two milking-pails, O sweet mother o mine. [Then verses beginning with the following lines--] Where shall I get my money from, O sweet daughter o mine? Sell my father s feather beds. Where shall your father sleep? Sleep in the servant s bed.
=_ An adversary should get rid of some one suit, if possible; for when that suit is afterwards led he will have free choice of his discards in the other suits. Short suits should be discarded in preference to high cards in long suits, unless the cards in the short suit are very low. Discards give great information to the adversaries if the rule is followed to discard the highest of a suit; because all cards higher than those discarded must be between the two other adversaries and the caller, and each adversary is thus furnished with a guide. It is useless to discard a suit of which the caller is void; and it is best to keep discarding from one suit until it is exhausted, or only the deuce remains. The trump signal is frequently used in discarding to indicate that the signaller wishes to get into the lead. _=Returning Suits.=_ Whether or not to return a partner’s lead may often be decided by inferences from the fall of the cards. It is frequently an easy matter to locate the cards in the various suits, if it is borne in mind that adversaries who play after the caller get rid of their highest cards. For instance: Right leads the 9; caller plays the 5; left the 10; and the last player finds he holds K Q J 6 of the suit. He should know that the caller has nothing between the 5 and the 9, and must have the Ace; so his cards were probably A 5 4 3 2.
”=_ “J’adoube,” “I adjust,” or words to that effect, cannot protect a player from any of the penalties imposed by these laws, unless the man or men touched, obviously _need_ adjustment, and unless such notification be distinctly uttered _before_ the man, or men, be touched, and only the player whose turn it is to move is allowed so to adjust. The hand having once quitted the man, but for an instant, the move must stand. Men overturned or displaced accidentally may be replaced by either player, without notice. A wilful displacement, or overturning of any of the men, forfeits the game. _=Penalties.=_ Penalties can be enforced only at the time an offence is committed, and before any move is made thereafter. A player touching one of his men, when it is his turn to play, must move it. If it cannot be moved he must move his King. If the King cannot move, no penalty can be enforced. For playing two moves in succession, the adversary may elect which move shall stand.
_=Foster’s Eleven Rule.=_ By deducting from eleven the number of pips on any low card led, the Third Hand may ascertain how far his partner’s suit is from being established. For instance: if the card led is the Seven, Second Hand playing the Eight, and Third Hand holding A J 6 3, from which he plays Ace, Fourth Hand playing the Five; the only card against the leader must be the King or Queen; he cannot have both, or he would have led one. If the Second Hand has not the missing card, he has no more of the suit. The number of inferences which may be made in this manner by observant players is astonishing. A great many examples and exercises in them are given in _=Foster’s Whist Manual=_. _=Third Hand having None of the Suit=_, should trump anything but an Ace or a King on the first round. On the second round, if there is only one card against the leader, his partner should pass with four trumps, and allow the suit to be established. For instance: If the leads have been Ace, then Jack, Third Hand holding only one of the suit; he should pass if the Second Hand does not play King. _=Third Hand on Strengthening Cards.
E. take one move; to repair, R.E. take five moves. A supply depot can be destroyed by one man in two moves, no matter how large (by fire). Four men can destroy the contents of six waggons in one move. A contact mine can be placed on a road or in any place by two men in six moves; it will be exploded by the first pieces passing over it, and will destroy everything within six inches radius.* Next as to Constructions: Entrenchments can be made by infantry in four moves.* They are to be strips of wood two inches high tacked to the country, or wooden bricks two inches high. Two men may make an inch of entrenchment.