One player should keep the score, and announce it distinctly, in order that it may be known how many points each player or side requires to win the game. In the case of ties, the Ten counts out first; then cards; then A K Q of trumps in their order, and the Jack last. A revoke, if detected and claimed before the cards are cut for the next deal, immediately ends the game. _=METHODS OF CHEATING.=_ When only one pack is used, the greek can often succeed in dealing himself the Jack of trumps, and usually loses no time in marking the Ten, so that he can at least distinguish the player to whom it is dealt. 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.
|Draw, draw water. | | 2.| -- | -- | -- | | 3.| -- | -- | -- | | 4.|For my lady s |Send a lady a |For my lady s | | |daughter. |daughter. |daughter. | | 5.| -- | -- | -- | | 6.| -- | -- | -- | | 7.
Children, I call you. I can t hear you. Where are your manners? In my shoe. Who do you care for? Not for you. --Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy). VIII. Pray, mother, pray, May I go out to play? No, daughter, no, daughter, Not every fine day. Why, mother, why? I shan t be gone long.
=_ When stakes are played for, it should be distinctly understood at the beginning whether the unit is for a game, for a rubber, for rubber points, or for tricks. The English game is invariably played for so much a rubber point; sometimes with an extra stake upon the rubber itself. In America, it is usual to play for so much a game; but in some cases the tricks are the unit, deducting the loser’s score from seven, or playing the last hand out and then deducting the loser’s score. A very popular method is to play for a triple stake: so much a trick, playing each hand out; so much a game; and so much a rubber. These three stakes are usually in the proportion of 10, 25, and 50. In clubs it is customary to have a uniform stake for whist, and to fix a limit for all betting on the game beyond the “club stake.” Good usage demands that those at the table should have the refusal of any bet made by a player, before it is offered to an outsider. _=METHOD OF PLAYING.=_ The player on the dealer’s left begins by leading any card he chooses, and the others must all follow suit if they can. Failure to follow suit when able is called _=revoking=_; the penalty for which, under the American laws, is the loss of two tricks; under the English laws, three tricks or points.
=_ The combinations which may be announced and scored during the play of the hand are divided into three classes: A, Marriages and Sequences; B, Béziques; and C, Fours. Only one combination can be scored at a time, and it must be announced and laid on the table immediately after the player holding it has won a trick, and before he draws his card from the talon. If he draws without announcing, it is equivalent to saying he has no declaration to make. Having drawn his card, even if he has not looked at it, he cannot score any declaration until he wins another trick. The various combinations and their values are as follows: CLASS A. King and Queen in any plain suit, _=Marriage=_ 20 King and Queen of trumps, _=Royal Marriage=_ 40 Five highest cards in a plain suit, _=Sequence=_ 150 Five highest cards in trumps, _=Royal Sequence=_ 250 CLASS B. Spade Queen and Diamond Jack, _=Single Bézique=_ 40 Two spade Queens and diamond Jacks, _=Double Bézique=_ 500 Three spade Queens and diamond Jacks, _=Triple Bézique=_ 1500 Four spade Queens and diamond Jacks, _=Quadruple Bézique=_ 4500 CLASS C. Any four Aces 100 Any four Kings 80 Any four Queens 60 Any four Jacks 40 Besides the foregoing, there is the score of fifty points for carte blanche, which may be announced only before the first trick is played to, and the score of fifty points for the winner of the last trick of all. In class A, the first marriage declared must of course count 40, as it is the trump suit for that deal. In class C, the four court cards may be of different suits, or any two or more of them may be of the same suit.
One of the most common errors is to cover a Jack led with a Queen, when holding A Q and others. The Ace should be put on invariably. To play the Queen in such a position is called _=finessing against yourself=_. _=Singly Guarded Honours.=_ Many players put on the King Second Hand, if they hold only one small card with it, and a small card is led. This will win the trick as often as it will lose it; but it betrays the hand to the adversary, and enables him to finesse deeply if the suit is returned. It may be done in order to get the lead, and in trumps the practice is very common, and generally right. With Queen and only one small card, it can be demonstrated that it is useless to play the Queen Second Hand, except as an experiment, or to get the lead in desperate cases. With any combination weaker than J 10 x, it is useless to attempt to win the trick Second Hand, and only makes it difficult for the partner to place the cards correctly. _=The Fourchette.
The unit value of a heart Solo being 10, he could have gone on bidding to 60 had it been necessary, and he will win 60 from each of his adversaries if he succeeds in reaching 91 points in the counting cards he takes in in his tricks, together with what he finds in the Skat. If his adversaries got to 30 with their counting cards, he would have lost 60 to each of them, although he bid only 30, because he announced his game as schneider, and did not make it. Had he not announced the schneider, and reached 91 or more in his counting cards, he would have won a game worth 50, losing the extra multiplier by not announcing the schneider in advance; for a schneider made without announcing it is worth only 2. In reckoning the value of a game it is always safer to bid on playing “with” than “without” Matadores in a Solo or Tourné; because, although you may have a hand “without four,” you may find a Wenzel in the Skat, and if it is the club Jack you lose three multipliers at once. _=BIDDING.=_ The players must be familiar with the manner of computing the various games in order to bid with judgment, and without hesitation. Suppose you hold the three highest Matadores with an average hand, not strong enough in any one suit to play a Solo, but good enough for a Tourné. Your smallest possible game will be diamonds with three; which will be worth 5 multiplied by 4; 1 for the game, and 3 for the Matadores, 20 points. 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.
|Green gravel. |Green gravel. |Green gravel. | | 2.| -- | -- | -- | | 3.| -- | -- | -- | | 4.| -- | -- | -- | | 5.| -- | -- | -- | | 6.|The grass is so green.|The grass is so green.
The Joker is the lowest trump, so that the deuce of trumps will win it, but it will win any trick in plain suits. Fifty or a hundred points is the game. In counting out, the order of precedence is: High, Low, Jack, Ten (Game), Three, Five, Nine, Snoozer. CINCH, DOUBLE PEDRO, OR HIGH FIVE. This is now regarded as the most important variety of All Fours, and bids fair to supplant the parent game altogether. Properly speaking, Cinch is one of the pedro variations of Auction Pitch, the difference being that no one sells, and that there is added the always popular American feature of a draw to improve the hand. The derivation and meaning of the name, Cinch, seems to be very much misunderstood. Many persons assume it is simply a name for the Left Pedro, but such is not the case. Cinch is a Mexican word for a strong saddle-girth, and when used as a verb it refers to the manner of adjusting the girth on a bucking broncho so that no amount of kicking will get him free. The word is used in this sense to describe one of the principal tactics of the card game, which is to “cinch” certain tricks, so that the adversary cannot possibly get either of the Pedroes free.
Some other movements are sometimes used according to fancy, as for example the clapping of the ground with the palm of the hand before taking up the checks and catching the ball.--J. T. Micklethwaite (_Arch. Journ._, xlix. 327-28). I am told that in the iron districts of Staffordshire, the round bits of iron punched out in making rivet holes in boiler plates are the modern representatives of hucklebones.--_Ibid._ In Westminster four stones are held in the right hand, a marble is thrown up, and all four stones thrown down, and the marble allowed to bounce on the hearthstone or pavement, and then caught in the same hand after it has rebounded.
Wood (_Modern Playmate_, p. 189). Newell (_Games_, p. 122) gives this with a jesting formula of initiation into knighthood. He says it was not a game of children, but belonged to an older age. See Call-the-Guse. Magical Music A pleasant drawing-room evening amusement.--Moor s _Suffolk Words_. Probably the same as Musical Chairs. Malaga, Malaga Raisins A forfeit game.
| -- | -- | -- | |42.| -- | -- | -- | |43.| -- | -- | -- | |44.| -- | -- |Off to prison you must| | | | |go. | |45.| -- |Huzza! it will last | -- | | | |for ages long. | | |46.| -- | -- | -- | |47.| -- | -- | -- | |48.| -- | -- | -- | |49.
| -- | -- |You shall have a duck.| | 13.|We will give you pots | -- | -- | | |and pans. | | | | 14.|..... brass.
To remedy this, F.C. Thwaites of the Milwaukee Whist Club suggested the introduction of the nullo. This was a bid to lose tricks, at no trump only, and its value was to be minus 10, that is, it was to be outranked only by a no-trumper to win. At first, this bid was largely used simply as an additional game-going declaration, and was strongly objected to by many leading players. But as its true place as a defensive bid became better understood it soon came into favour. In the nullo there are no honours, and the declarer scores the tricks over the book made by his opponents, which he forces them to take. Many interesting card problems have been built upon the nullo. Toward the end of 1913 still another change seems to have suggested itself to some of the English players who were familiar with the Russian game of vint, and that is to play auction just as it is played up to the point of the lead to the first trick, but that no dummy is exposed, the four players holding up their cards and following suit just as they would at whist. Whether or not this game will ever become as popular as the combination of dealer and dummy, it is difficult to say, but appearances are against it.
I am particularly indebted to Colonel Mark Sykes for advice and information in this matter. He has pointed out to me the possibility of developing Little Wars into a vivid and inspiring Kriegspiel, in which the element of the umpire would be reduced to a minimum; and it would be ungrateful to him, and a waste of an interesting opportunity, if I did not add this Appendix, pointing out how a Kriegspiel of real educational value for junior officers may be developed out of the amusing methods of Little War. If Great War is to be played at all, the better it is played the more humanely it will be done. I see no inconsistency in deploring the practice while perfecting the method. But I am a civilian, and Kriegspiel is not my proper business. I am deeply preoccupied with a novel I am writing, and so I think the best thing I can do is just to set down here all the ideas that have cropped up in my mind, in the footsteps, so to speak, of Colonel Sykes, and leave it to the military expert, if he cares to take the matter up, to reduce my scattered suggestions to a system. Now, first, it is manifest that in Little Wars there is no equivalent for rifle-fire, and that the effect of the gun-fire has no resemblance to the effect of shell. That may be altered very simply. Let the rules as to gun-fire be as they are now, but let a different projectile be used--a projectile that will drop down and stay where it falls. I find that one can buy in ironmongers shops small brass screws of various sizes and weights, but all capable of being put in the muzzle of the 4 7 guns without slipping down the barrel.
Kitty, the percentage taken out of a pool to pay for refreshments, or for the expenses of the table. Knight Player, one who can give the odds of a Knight to weak players, at Chess. Last Trick, an expression used to distinguish the last trick when all the cards are played from the last when all the cards are not played, especially in Bézique and Sixty-six. Last Turn, the three cards left in the box at the end of the deal at Faro, the order of which may be bet upon. Lead, to play the first card in any trick. Levée, F., a trick. (Tric, is the odd trick.) Liées, F., to play rubbers.
4--Battle of Hook s Farm. The Battle developing rapidly.] [Illustration: Fig. 5a--Battle of Hook s Farm. Red Cavalry charging the Blue Guns.] (4) Any isolated body may hoist the white flag and surrender at any time. (5) A gun is captured when there is no man whatever of its original side within six inches of it, and when at least four men of the antagonist side have moved up to it and have passed its wheel axis going in the direction of their attack. This latter point is important. An antagonist s gun may be out of action, and you may have a score of men coming up to it and within six inches of it, but it is not yet captured; and you may have brought up a dozen men all round the hostile gun, but if there is still one enemy just out of their reach and within six inches of the end of the trail of the gun, that gun is not captured: it is still in dispute and out of action, and you may not fire it or move it at the next move. But once a gun is fully captured, it follows all the rules of your own guns.
I m blind! he said, not able to believe it. He began to lose his balance. I felt one of the bouncers go for his sap. Try it, you gorilla, I told him, wrenching around, now that I was free on his side. Try it and I ll rip the retinas off your eyeballs the way you d skin a peach! He recoiled as though I were a Puff Adder. The other bouncer let go of me, too. I skidded in the slippery sawdust, scared half to death, but got my back against a wall just as the stick-man who had slugged me lost his orientation completely and fell to his knees in the sawdust. It would be some minutes before his vision started dribbling back. * * * * * The click of the door latch broke the silence. One of the other stick-men eased himself in, holding the door only wide enough to squeeze past the jamb.
Instead of the players changing positions for the overplay, the trays are reversed. If the indicators pointed N & S on the original deals, they must lie E & W for the overplay. [Illustration: A A +---------+ +---------+ | ^ | | | | | | | | B| | |B B| DE --- |B | | | AL | | DEALER| | ER | +---------+ +---------+ A A ORIGINAL POSITION OF TRAYS. POSITION FOR OVERPLAY. ] _=Scoring.=_ The E & W hands only are scored, the card being laid aside after the original play is completed, and a new card used for the overplay. The difference in the totals of these two sets of score-cards will show which pair gained the most tricks. _=Four Pairs.=_ These should be arranged at two tables, changing adversaries after every 8 hands. The third set will exhaust the combinations, and it will then be found that each pair has played and overplayed an equal number of hands against every other pair.
In the foregoing deal he would have bet on the A 3 4 6 9 J to lose on the fourth card out of the box, and would have bet on the case cards of the 2 7 8 10 Q K to win. The Soda, it must be remembered, is really a winning card. Of these bets he would have won 5 out of twelve, taking back his money on the 8, as that card was left in hoc. Playing _=break even=_, these bets would have been exactly reversed, as all the cards would have played either to win and lose an equal number of times, or to _=win=_ or _=lose out=_; that is, to do the same thing all four times. Another favourite system is colours. The player takes some definite card, such as the soda, or the first winner or loser, as his starter, and whatever the colour of the third card of each denomination, that is, the card that makes it a case, he plays it to win or lose, according to the system of colours he is playing. Many players reverse on the last turn. When a player bets one card to lose and another to win, and loses both bets on the same turn, he is _=whipsawed=_. _=The Last Turn.=_ If three different cards are left in for the last turn, the players can _=call the turn=_, naming the order in which they think the cards will be found.
The dealer’s partner must collect the cards for the ensuing deal, and has the first right to shuffle that pack. 31. Each player after shuffling must place the cards properly collected, and face downwards, to the left of the player about to deal. 32. The dealer has always the right to shuffle last; but should a card or cards be seen during his shuffling, or whilst giving the pack to be cut, he may be compelled to reshuffle. THE DEAL. 33. Each player deals in his turn; the right of dealing goes to the left. 34. The player on the dealer’s right cuts the pack, and, in dividing it, must not leave fewer than four cards in either packet; if in cutting, or in replacing one of the two packets on the other, a card be exposed, or if there be any confusion of the cards, or a doubt as to the exact place in which the pack was divided, there must be a fresh cut.
FORTUNE TELLING. Whatever the arrangement employed for laying out the tableau in fortune telling, the result of the reading will always be dependent on the person’s ability to string together in a connected story the meanings which are attached to the various cards. According to Eittella, the father of all fortune telling, only 32 cards should be used, and it is essential that they should be single heads, because a court card standing firmly on its feet is a very different thing from one standing on its head. If single-head cards are not at hand, the lower part of the double-head cards must be cancelled in some manner. The following are the interpretations of the various cards, the initial _=R=_ meaning that the card is reversed, or standing on its head. _=HEARTS.=_ Ace. The house, or home. King. A benefactor.
The batsmen, keeping their sticks in the holes, then agree which of the two holds the Cat. One batsman runs across and puts his stick into the hole behind which the boy kneels whom they consider has the Cat, the other then running to his place. If they are right in their guess, the holder of the Cat throws it across the ground for the opposite bowler to put it in the hole before the second batsman reaches it. If they guess wrongly, the holder of the Cat puts it into the hole as soon as the batsman runs, and they then become the batsmen for the next game. If the batsmen leave their holes unguarded with the stick, the catsmen can at any time put them out, by putting the Cat in a hole. If more than two boys on a side play, the others field as in Cricket. --Barnes (A. B. Gomme). See Cat and Dog.