_=Two Pairs=_; such as two 9’s and two 7’s, with an odd card. _=A Pair=_; such as two Aces and three odd cards. If no pair is shown, the _=Highest Card=_ wins. A short hand, such as four cards, cannot be claimed as either a straight or a flush. _=36. Ties.=_ In case of ties, the highest of the odd cards decides it. Ultimate ties must divide the pool. When combinations of equal rank are shown, the one containing the highest cards wins, the rank of the cards being, A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2; so that two pairs, K’s and 4’s, will beat two pairs, Q’s and J’s. Three 5’s and a pair of 2’s, will beat three 4’s and a pair of aces.
=_ When a gammon or backgammon counts you nothing more if you win it, and costs you nothing more if you lose it, the tactics of the game are entirely changed. It is folly to take any risks for the sake of a gammon, and any plays which leave unnecessary blots are very bad; for which reason the three throws shown in the foregoing diagram would be absurd in the American game. On the other hand, you may risk being gammoned, or even backgammoned, if it is the only way to save the game. An Englishman cannot take this risk, for he might lose a triple game in attempting to save a single. Secure the five point in your own and your adversary’s home table as soon as possible, and then the bar and four points. After the first few throws the player should take a general survey of the board, in order to see whether he is ahead or behind, or if he has any advantage of position. He must then decide whether he will play a _=backward=_ or a _=forward=_ game. A glance at the relative positions of the men will usually show if one side is much more advanced than the other, without going into any minute calculations as to how many points nearer home one side _may_ be. If, at the beginning of the game, one player makes two or three large throws in succession, while his adversary gets small throws only, the latter will have little chance of winning the game simply by running for home, whereas the former’s best chance will be to follow up his early advantage and get home as fast as possible. The only hope for the man who is behind is that he can pick up some of his opponent’s men, setting them back, and in order to do this he must keep behind his adversary, so as to meet as many of his men as possible.
I have sometimes thought that we (the Scotch) have borrowed this recreation from our neighbours of the Green Isle, as at their wakes they have a play much of the same kind, which they call Riding Father Doud. One of the wakers takes a stool in his hand, another mounts that one s back, then Father Doud begins rearing and plunging, and if he unhorses his rider with a dash he does well. There is another play (at these wakes) called Kicking the Brogue, which is even ruder than Riding Father Doud, and a third one called Scuddieloof. --Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. Patterson (_Antrim and Down Glossary_) mentions a game called Leap the Bullock, which he says is the same as Leap-frog. Dickinson s _Cumberland Glossary Supplement_, under Lowp, says it means a leap or jump either running or standing. The various kinds include Catskip --one hitch, or hop, and one jump; Hitch steppin --hop, step, and lowp; a hitch, a step, and a leap; Otho --two hitches, two steps, and a leap; Lang spang --two hitches, two steps, a hitch, a step, and a leap. See Accroshay, Knights, Leap-frog. Lubin [Music] --Hexham (Miss J. Barker).
| -- | -- | -- | |26.| -- | -- | -- | |27.| -- | -- | -- | |28.| -- | -- | -- | |29.| -- | -- | -- | |30.| -- | -- | -- | |31.| -- | -- | -- | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ |No.| Wales. | Isle of Wight. | Isle of Man.
_=Playing Out of Turn.=_ If the third hand plays before the second, the fourth may play before the second also; either of his own volition, or by the direction of the second hand, who may say: “Play, partner.” If the fourth hand plays before the second, the third hand not having played, the trick may be claimed by the adversaries, no matter who actually wins it; but the actual winner of it must lead for the next trick. If any player abandons his hand, the cards in it may be claimed as exposed, and called by the adversaries. _=The Revoke.=_ A revoke is a renounce in error, not corrected in time, or non-compliance with a performable penalty. It is a revoke if a player has one of the suit led, and neither follows suit nor trumps. A person prohibited from playing an exposed trump is not liable to any penalty if it causes him to revoke. A revoke is established when the trick in which it occurs has been turned and quitted; or when either the revoking player or his partner, whether in his right turn or otherwise, has led or played to the following trick. If a revoke is claimed and proved, the revoking side cannot score any points that deal; but they may play the hand out to prevent the adversaries from making points.
Loggats An old game, forbidden by statute in Henry VIII. s time. It is thus played, according to Stevens. A stake is fixed in the ground; those who play throw Loggats at it, and he that is nearest the stake wins. Loggats, or loggets, are also small pieces or logs of wood, such as the country people throw at fruit that cannot otherwise be reached. Loggats, little logs or wooden pins, a play the same with ninepins, in which the boys, however, often made use of bones instead of wooden pins (Dean Miles MS.; Halliwell s _Dictionary_). Strutt refers to this game (_Sports_, p. 272). London A diagram (similar to Fig.
In all the following illustrations the black men move round the board from right to left, like the hands of a clock, while the white men go in the opposite direction; so that the two opposing forces are continually meeting and passing, like the people in the street. The _=Object of the Game=_ is for each player to move his men from point to point in order to get them all into his home table. It does not matter what part of the home table they reach, so that they get across the bar. The men are moved according to the throws of the dice, each player in turn having a throw and a move. After the men on either side are all home, they are taken off the board according to the throws of the dice, and the player who is the first to get all his men off the board in this manner wins the game. If each player has taken off some of his men, the player getting all his off first wins a _=hit=_, which counts as a single game. If one player gets off all his men before his adversary has thrown off a single man, it is a _=gammon=_, and counts as a double game. If the loser has not only taken off none of his men, but has one or more men left on the side of the board farther from him when his adversary throws off his last man, it is a _=backgammon=_, and counts as a triple game. In America, gammons and backgammons are seldom played, every game being simply a hit. This spoils some of the fine points of the game, and entirely alters the tactics of the players, as will be seen when we come to the suggestions for good play.
Properly speaking, Poker is not the founder, but simply the most famous representative of a very ancient and always very popular family of games, all of which can be traced to one source, the old French game of Gilet, which was undoubtedly of Italian origin, perhaps a variety of Primero. Gilet we find changed to Brelan in the time of Charles IX., and although Brelan is no longer played, the word is still used in all French games to signify triplets, and “brelan-carré” is the common French term for four of a kind in _le poker Américain_. From Brelan we trace the French games of Bouillotte, and Ambigu, and the English game of Brag; but the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of _as nas_. The peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of Poker we find well described by Seymour, in his chapter on “Brag,” in the “Court Gamester,” 1719: “The endeavour to impose on the judgment of the rest who play, and particularly on the person who chiefly offers to oppose you, by boasting or bragging of the cards in your hand. Those who by fashioning their looks and gestures, can give a proper air to their actions, as will so deceive an unskilful antagonist, that sometimes a pair of fives, trays or deuces, in such a hand, with the advantage of his composed countenance, and subtle manner of over-awing the other, shall out-brag a much greater hand, and win the stakes, with great applause and laughter on his side from the whole company.” Quite a number of card games retain the feature of pairs, triplets, sequences, and flushes, but omit the element of brag or bluff, and can therefore hardly be considered full-blooded members of the poker family. Whiskey Poker, for instance, has really little or nothing in common with the true spirit of poker, and is simply the very ancient game of Commerce, played with five cards instead of three. The descriptions of this game in the earliest Hoyles betray its French origin; particularly in the use of the piquet pack; the French custom of cutting to the left and dealing to the right; and the use of the words “brelan,” and “tricon.” In later descriptions of the “new form” of Commerce, about 1835, we find 52 cards are used, and dealt from left to right, and the names of the combinations are changed to “pairs-royal,” “sequences,” and “flushes.
When the show-down is called for, he has twenty-eight points in his deadwood; but by adding his club ten to the caller’s sequence of J Q K, and the heart ten to the caller’s 6 7 8 9 in that suit, he reduces his deadwood to eight points, the pair of fours, and beats the caller out by a point. _=PENALTIES.=_ If any player turns out to have less in his deadwood than the caller, as in the example just given, the caller forfeits ten points to him, in addition to having to pay for the difference. Should a player call for a show-down when he has more than ten in his deadwood, he loses five points to each of the others at the table and takes up his cards again. DOUBLE-PACK RUM. _=CARDS.=_ This game is always played with two full packs of fifty-two cards each and two jokers, all shuffled together and used as one. The ace may be high or low in sequences. _=DEALING.=_ Ten cards are given to each player, one at a time, and the next card is turned up and laid beside the stock to start the discard pile.
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The Ace is the lowest card. 14. In all cases, every one must cut from the same pack. 15. Should a player expose more than one card, he must cut again. FORMATION OF TABLE. 16. If there are more than four candidates, the players are selected by cutting; those first in the room having the preference. The four who cut the lowest cards play first, and cut again to decide on partners; the two lowest play against the two highest; the lowest is the dealer, who has choice of cards and seats, and, having once made his selection, must abide by it. 17.
117, is a carving which represents three rats busily engaged in hanging a cat on a gallows of this kind. Cat i the Hole A game well known in Fife, and perhaps in other counties. If seven boys are to play, six holes are made at certain distances. Each of the six stands at a hole, with a short stick in his hand; the seventh stands at a certain distance holding a ball. When he gives the word, or makes the sign agreed upon, all the six change holes, each running to his neighbour s hole, and putting his stick in the hole which he has newly seized. In making this change, the boy who has the ball tries to put it into an empty hole. If he succeeds in this, the boy who had not his stick (for the stick is the Cat) in the hole to which he had run is put out, and must take the ball. There is often a very keen contest whether the one shall get his stick, or the other the ball, or Cat, first put into the hole. When the Cat _is in the hole_, it is against the laws of the game to put the ball into it.--Jamieson.
An Englishman cannot take this risk, for he might lose a triple game in attempting to save a single. Secure the five point in your own and your adversary’s home table as soon as possible, and then the bar and four points. After the first few throws the player should take a general survey of the board, in order to see whether he is ahead or behind, or if he has any advantage of position. He must then decide whether he will play a _=backward=_ or a _=forward=_ game. A glance at the relative positions of the men will usually show if one side is much more advanced than the other, without going into any minute calculations as to how many points nearer home one side _may_ be. If, at the beginning of the game, one player makes two or three large throws in succession, while his adversary gets small throws only, the latter will have little chance of winning the game simply by running for home, whereas the former’s best chance will be to follow up his early advantage and get home as fast as possible. The only hope for the man who is behind is that he can pick up some of his opponent’s men, setting them back, and in order to do this he must keep behind his adversary, so as to meet as many of his men as possible. This enables us to formulate the great principle of the American game, which is that when a player is ahead he should go ahead as fast as he can; and when he is behind, he should stay behind as long as he can. In the first place he is playing a forward, and in the second place a backward game. _=The Forward Game.