He then holds up so many fingers, and says-- Buck, buck, how many fingers do I hold up? The boy makes a guess. If the number guessed is wrong, the Rider gives the number guessed as well as the correct number, and again holds up so many, saying-- [Four] you say, but [two] it is; Buck, buck, how many fingers do I hold up? This goes on till the correct number is guessed, when the guesser becomes the Rider. The game was called Buck, Buck at Keith. Three players only took part in the game--the Post, the Buck, and the Rider. The words used by the Rider were-- Buck, buck, how many horns do I hold up? If the guess was wrong, the Rider gave the Buck as many blows or kicks with the heel as the difference between the correct number and the number guessed. This process went on till the correct number was guessed, when the Rider and the Buck changed places.--Rev. W. Gregor. (_b_) Dr.
Each check in turn is taken up and knocked against the ground. 9. Each check is taken up and tapped upon another. 10. The checks are first arranged three in a line, touching each other, and the fourth placed at the top of that at one end of the row. This is called the Cradle. It has to be taken down check by check, and if, in taking one, another is moved, the player is out. 11. Like the last, but the checks are put one above another to make a Chimney. 12.
The caller plays according to his best judgment. When a slam is called, the player proposing it has the original lead; but that does not alter the position of the deal for the next hand. _=REVOKES.=_ A revoke is a serious matter in Solo Whist. The penalty for it is the loss of three tricks, and the revoking players must pay the _=red=_ counters involved in the call whether they win or lose; but they may play the hand out to save over-tricks. For instance: A proposer and acceptor make 11 tricks; their adversaries having claimed a revoke. After deducting the revoke penalty, 3 tricks, the callers still have 8 tricks left, enough to make good the call. They each lose a red counter; but no white ones, having saved their over-tricks. Had they taken only 8 tricks altogether, the penalty for the revoke would have left them only 5, and they would each have had to pay one red and three whites. If either adversary of the callers revokes, the individual player in fault must pay for all the consequences of the error.
Any player bidding nap, and succeeding in winning all five tricks, receives ten counters from each adversary; but if he fails, he pays only five to each. When penny nap is played, the settlement being in coin, it is usual to make naps win a shilling or lose sixpence, in order to avoid handling so much copper. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ In calculating his chances for success in winning a certain number of tricks, the player will often have to take into consideration the probability of certain cards being out against him. This will vary according to the number of players engaged. For instance: If four are playing, and the bidder holds K Q of a plain suit, the odds against the ace of that suit being out against him are about 2 to 1. As it would be impossible for any person to remember all the jeux de règle for three tricks at Napoleon, each must learn from experience the trick-taking value of certain hands. Trump strength is, of course, the great factor, and the bidder should count on finding at least two trumps in one hand against him. Nap should never be bid on a hand which is not pretty sure of winning two rounds of trumps, with all other cards but one winners. One trick may always be risked in a nap hand, such as A Q of trumps, or a King, or even a Queen or Jack in a plain suit; the odds against the adversaries having a better card being slightly increased by the odds against their knowing enough to keep it for the last trick.
Taille, F., a number of packs shuffled together, which are not to be reshuffled or cut until all have been used. Talon, the same as Stock. Team Playing, requiring every member of a team to play with every other an equal number of times, at Whist. Tenace. The major tenace is the best and third best cards remaining, or unplayed, in any suit, such as A Q. The minor tenace is the second and fourth best, such as K J. Têtes, Kings, Queens and Jacks. Three-card Monte. A game in which three cards are dexterously thrown on the table by a gambler, and the victim is induced to bet that he can pick out one which has been previously named and shown.
This the children proceed to do, some by pretending to sew, some to wash, some to dig, some to knit, without any instruments to do it with. If the opposite side guess what they are doing, they change sides. This game, Miss Summers believes, is very old, and has been played by several generations in the village of Hazelbury Bryan.--Dorsetshire (_Folk-lore Journal_, vii. 230). See Trades. Dump A boys amusement in Yorkshire, in vogue about half a century ago, but now believed to be nearly obsolete. It is played in this manner. The lads crowd round and place their fists endways, the one on the other, till they form a high pile of hands. Then a boy, who has one hand free, knocks the piled fists off one by one, saying to every boy as he strikes his fist away, What s there, Dump? He continues this process till he comes to the last fist, when he exclaims:-- What s there? Cheese and bread, and a mouldy halfpenny! Where s my share? I put it on the shelf, and the cat got it.
B. Gomme). This is more usually called Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. See Air, Fire, and Water. Minister s Cat The first player begins by saying, The minister s cat is an ambitious cat, the next player an artful cat, and so on, until they have all named an adjective beginning with A. The next time of going round the adjectives must begin with B, the next time C, and so on, until the whole of the alphabet has been gone through.--Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire (Miss Matthews); Anderby, Lincolnshire (Miss Peacock). This is apparently the same game as the well-known I love my love with an A because she is amiable. In this game every player has to repeat the same sentence, but using a different adjective, which adjective must begin with the letter A. Various sentences follow.
_=14.=_ _=MISDEALING.=_ A misdeal loses the deal. It is a misdeal: If the cards have not been properly cut; if the dealer gives two cards to one player and three to another in the same round; if he gives too many or too few cards to any player; if he counts the cards on the table, or those remaining in the pack; or if he deals a card incorrectly, and fails to correct the error before dealing another. If the dealer is interrupted in any manner by an adversary, he does not lose his deal. _=15.=_ _=THE TRUMP CARD.=_ After the trump card is turned, each player in turn, beginning with the eldest hand, has the privilege of passing, assisting, or ordering up the trump. Should a player pass, and afterward correct himself by ordering up or assisting, both he and his partner may be prevented by the adversaries from exercising their privilege. If a player calls his partner’s attention to the fact that they are at the bridge, both lose their right to order up the trump.
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In _=Cayenne=_, the trump suit must be named by the dealer or his partner after they have examined their cards. The dealer has the first say, and he may select any of the four suits, or he may announce “grand,” playing for the tricks without any trump suit. In Cayenne, he may announce “nullo,” playing to take as few tricks as possible, there being no trump suit. If the dealer makes his choice, his partner must abide by it; but if the dealer has not a hand to justify him in deciding, he may leave the choice to his partner, who must decide. A declaration once made cannot be changed. IRREGULARITIES IN THE HANDS. 19. If, at any time after all have played to the first trick, the pack being perfect, a player is found to have either more or less than his correct number of cards and his adversaries have their right number, the latter, upon the discovery of such surplus or deficiency, may consult and shall have the choice:-- I. To have a new deal; or II. To have the hand played out, in which case the surplus or missing card or cards are not taken into account.
Atkinson (_Glossary of Cleveland Dialect_) says under Merls, the game of Merelles, or Nine Men s Morris. Toone (_Etymological Dictionary_) describes it as a game played on the green sward, holes being cut thereon, into which stones were placed by the players. Stead s _Holderness Glossary_ calls it Merrils, and describes it as a game played on a square board with eighteen pegs, nine on each side, called in many parts Nine Men s Morrice. See also _Sussex Arch. Collections_, xxv. 234, and a paper by Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite (_Arch. Journ.
=_ This form of contest is seldom used, because players dislike the continual changing of position, and the delay in arriving at the results of the score. It would require seven sets to exhaust the combinations; and at each table two hands should be dealt, played, and exchanged with the other table in the set, before the players change positions. This would require 28 hands to complete the match. _=Safford’s System=_ for arranging the players is to have indicator cards on the tables:-- [Illustration: N N +---------+ +---------+ | 4 | | 3 | W|8 7|E W|1 5|E | 6 | | 2 | +---------+ +---------+ S S ] The players take their seats in any order for the first set; after which they go to the next higher number; 8 keeping his seat, and 7 going to 1. _=Scoring.=_ Each individual must keep his own score, adding up the total tricks taken in each set of four hands. These totals must then be compared with those of the player occupying the same position, N, S, E, or W, at the other table in the set; and it will save time in the end if these are tabulated at once, on a sheet prepared for the purpose. For instance: Let this be the arrangement of eight players in the first set:-- b f a 1 c Hands 1 to 4. e 2 g d h If _=a=_ and _=c=_ take 34 tricks E & W; _=e=_ and _=g=_ taking only 30 with the same cards, either _=a=_ and _=c=_ must have gained them, or _=e=_ and _=g=_ must have lost them. It is a waste of time to put down both losses and gains, and all that is necessary is to call the top score zero, and charge all players with the loss of as many tricks as their total is short of the top score.
All Fours is to be found amongst the oldest games of cards, and is the parent of a large family of variations, all of which are of American birth. The youngest member of the family, Cinch, seems to have a bright future before it, and bids fair to become one of our most popular games. The chief defect in Cinch has been the method of scoring, which left too much to luck. In the following pages the author has attempted to remedy this. The name, “All Fours,” seems to have been varied at times to “All Four,” and was derived from four of the five points which counted towards game; the fifth point, for “gift” having been apparently quite overlooked. The game was originally ten points up, and the cards were dealt one at a time. According to the descriptions in some of the older Hoyles, the honours and Tens of the plain suits did not count towards game; but this is evidently an error, for we find in the same editions the advice to trump or win the adversary’s best cards in plain suits. This would obviously be a mere waste of trumps if these plain-suit cards did not count for anything. All Fours seems to have been popular with all classes of society at one time or another. Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” gives it among the principal games in his day, 1674.
B-girls usually work in pairs, so I looked down toward the other end of the polished mahogany. Sure enough, there was the brunette, frowning as she tried to figure why the blond bomber had high-tailed it out of there. I shook my head at her and she let it lie. That should have cut out the last distraction. But no, I could see one more bimbo working her way through the laughing, drink-flushed crowd toward me. She had hair-colored hair, which was sort of out of character for a barroom hustler. I put plenty of TK on the heel of her right slipper, and she stepped right out of it. It might as well have been nailed to the floor. Nothing was going to discourage this one, I saw. I let her pick it off the floor, squeeze it back on her skinny foot, and come toward me.
84 (Hersham, Surrey). Northall prints a version in his _Folk Rhymes_, 362-3, identical with No. 17. The tune of the Platt version sent by Miss Burne, and the Ogbourne and Manton (H. S. May), are almost identical, except the termination. This seems to be the most general tune for the game. The Lancashire tune is the same as the London version. Miss Burne says of the Madeley version: I never knew Green Gravel and Wallflowers played together as in this way elsewhere (I had not got this variant when I wrote _Shropshire Folk-lore_), except at Much Wenlock, where they reverse the two verses, and only sing _one line_ (the last) of Green Gravel. But I feel sure they must have been _meant_ to go together (see my note in _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p.
=_ Any number can play this game, the only limitation being the number of packs available and space enough on the table for each one to lay out his own tableau. One player is selected as the “caller” and he shuffles his pack and presents it to be cut. In the meantime each of the others sorts his individual pack into sequence and suit, so as to be able to pick out any named card without unnecessary delay. _=METHOD OF PLAYING.=_ The caller starts by taking off his top card and placing it face up on the table, at the same time announcing aloud its suit and rank, as “Seven of clubs.” This makes it unnecessary for the others to watch the cards the caller draws. Each player picks out his seven of clubs and places it on the table in front of him, face up, as a starter for his tableau. Suppose the next card called is the ten of diamonds. As each player can place that card in any one of eight different positions with regard to the seven of clubs, and the next card after that in any one of a dozen positions, it must be evident that although the twenty-five cards called will be the same for every tableau, the resulting poker combinations may be vastly different. _=SCORING.