This also shows that the player should not have taken up the Ten until he wanted to use it. Nothing is gained by closing, except compelling the adversary to follow suit; because if you close to make him schwartz, and he gets a trick, you count two only; if you close to make him schneider, and he gets out, you count one only. If you fail in the first case, he counts three, and any failure will give him two points. THREE-HANDED SIXTY-SIX. This is exactly the same as the ordinary game, except that the dealer takes no cards, but scores whatever points are won on the hand he deals. If neither of the others score, either through each making 65, or one failing to claim 66, the dealer scores one point, and the others get nothing. The dealer cannot go out on his own deal. He must stop at six, and win out by his own play. There are two ways to settle: Each may pay a certain amount to the pool, and the first man out take it all; or, after one is out, the two remaining finish the game, and the loser pays both or settles for the refreshments, as the case may be. If the first man goes out when it will be his turn to deal, he must deal the next hand.
--Jamieson. (_b_) This is not unlike the Stool-Ball described by Strutt (_Sports and Pastimes_, p. 76), but it more nearly resembles Club-Ball, an ancient English game (ibid., p. 83). The game of Cat, played with sticks and a small piece of wood, rising in the middle, so as to rebound when struck on either side, is alluded to in _Poor Robin s Almanack_ for 1709, and by Brand. Leigh (_Cheshire Glossary_) gives Scute as another name for the game of Cat, probably from _scute_ (O.W.), for boat, which it resembles in shape. See Cudgel, Kit-cat, Tip-cat.
The old rule was for one player to continue to act as banker and to deal the cards until one of his adversaries held a natural, the dealer having none to offset it. When this occurred, the player who held the natural took the bank and the deal until some one else held a natural. Another way was to agree upon a certain number of rounds for a banker, after which the privilege was drawn for again. Another was for one player to remain the banker until he had lost or won a certain amount, when the privilege was drawn for again. The modern practice is for each player to be the banker in turn, the deal passing in regular rotation to the left. When this is done there must be a penalty for dealing twice in succession, and it is usually fixed at having to pay ties, if the error is not discovered until one player has drawn cards. If before that, it is a misdeal. _=Pools.=_ Vingt-et-un is sometimes played with a pool. Each player contributes one counter at the start, and the pool is afterward fed by penalties.
B. we go. | -- | | 5.|L. B. is broken down. |L. B. is broken down. |L.
Any player losing all his counters at any table must get a fresh stake of fifty more from the banker, and must then exchange seats with the player at the booby table who has the most counters. Three or four prizes are usually provided for: One for the player who has won the greatest number of yellow chips at the head table, and one each for the lady and gentleman winning the greatest number of counters during the evening’s play. Those who have been provided with an extra stake must be charged with it when settling up. In case of ties for the number of yellow chips, the player with the largest number of ordinary counters wins. The booby prize, if any, is usually given to the player with the smallest number of ordinary chips, or the fewest number of yellow ones. BRAG. There are two varieties of this old English game; single, and three-stake Brag. Both are played with a full pack of fifty-two cards; the positions of the players, arrangements for counters, decision of the betting limit, etc., being the same as in Draw Poker. Three to twelve players may form a table.
=_ If the first two games are won by the same player and his dummy, the third is not played. Tournées are not played, and the completion of the rubber breaks up the table. _=CUTTING IN.=_ The table being complete with two, at the end of a rubber a new table must be formed. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ The player should first carefully examine the exposed hands, and by comparing them with his own, suit by suit, should fix in his mind the cards held by his living adversary. This takes time, and in many places it is the custom to expose the four hands upon the table. Players who have better memories than their opponents object to this, for the same reason that they prefer sitting on the right of the living player. It is not at all uncommon for a player to forget that certain cards have been played, to his very serious loss. The hands once fixed in the mind, some time should be given to a careful consideration of the best course to pursue; after which the play should proceed pretty rapidly until the last few tricks, when another problem may present itself.
But suppose this young man was to die And leave this girl a widow? The bells would ring, the cats would sing, So we ll all clap together. --Frodingham and Nottinghamshire (Miss M. Peacock). IX. Stepping up the green grass, Thus, and thus, and thus; Will you let one of your fair maids Come and play with us? We will give you pots and pans, We will give you brass, We will give you anything For a pretty lass. No! We won t take your pots and pans, We won t take your brass, We won t take your anything For a pretty lass. Stepping up the green grass, Thus, and thus, and thus; Will you let one of your fair maids Come and play with us? We will give you gold and silver, We will give you pearl, We will give you anything For a pretty girl. Yes! Come, my dearest [Mary], Come and play with us, You shall have a young man Born for your sake. And the bells shall ring And the cats shall sing, And we ll all clap hands together. --Addy s _Sheffield Glossary_.
_=METHODS OF CHEATING.=_ Whist offers very few opportunities to the card-sharper. When honours are counted, he may be able to keep one on the bottom of the pack until the completion of the deal by _=making the pass=_ after the cards have been cut. A _=greek=_ who possessed sufficient skill to do this without detection would be very foolish to waste his talents at the whist table; for, however large the stakes, the percentage in his favour would be very small. When whist is played with only one pack, a very skillful shuffler may gather the cards without disturbing the tricks, and, by giving them a single _=intricate=_ shuffle, then drawing the middle of the pack from between the ends and giving another single intricate shuffle, he may occasionally succeed in dealing himself and his partner a very strong hand in trumps, no matter how the cards are cut, so that they are not shuffled again. A hand dealt in this manner is framed on the walls of the Columbus, Ohio, Whist Club; eleven trumps having been dealt to the partner, and the twelfth turned up. In this case the shuffling dexterity was the result of fifteen years’ practice, and was employed simply for amusement, the dealer never betting on any game, and making no concealment of his methods. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ Although whist is a game of very simple construction, the immense variety of combinations which it affords renders it very complicated in actual practice; there being probably no game in which there is so much diversity of opinion as to the best play, even with the same cards, and under similar conditions. It has been repeatedly remarked that in all the published hands at whist which have been played in duplicate, or even four times over, with the same cards, no two have been alike.
Any one dealing out of turn, or with the adversary’s cards, may be stopped before the trump card is turned up, after which the game must proceed as if no mistake had been made. 49. A player can neither shuffle, cut, nor deal for his partner, without the permission of his opponents. 50. If the adversaries interrupt a dealer whilst dealing, either by questioning the score or asserting that it is not his deal, and fail to establish such claim, should a misdeal occur, he may deal again. 51. Should a player take his partner’s deal and misdeal, the latter is liable to the usual penalty, and the adversary next in rotation to the player who ought to have dealt then deals. THE TRUMP CARD. 52. The dealer, when it is his turn to play to the first trick, should take the trump card into his hand; if left on the table after the first trick be turned and quitted, it is liable to be called; his partner may at any time remind him of the liability.
HELP YOUR NEIGHBOUR. Six persons play, with three dice, and five points is Game. Each player has a number, from 1 to 6, and is provided with five counters, and the first to get rid of them wins. Each player in rotation has one throw, and no matter what he throws, the player whose number appears on the upper face of any die thrown counts one point toward game. If No. 2 should throw a four and two sixes, for instance, he would count nothing himself, but No. 4 would count 1, and No. 6 would count 2 points toward game. PASSE DIX. Any player can be the banker for the first round, and he holds his position as long as he wins.
=_ When the third hand returns his partner’s suit, he should lead the higher of two cards, and the lowest of three, unless he has a card which will beat anything Dummy may hold in the suit, in which case he should _=always beat Dummy=_. _=PLAYING AGAINST DUMMY.=_ Some of the fine points in bridge arise in situations which require a careful consideration of the Dummy’s cards. There are three great principles in playing against Dummy:-- 1st. Lead through the strong suits, and up to the weak. 2nd. Do not lead through a fourchette. 3rd. Do not lead up to a tenace. These rules must not be blindly followed in every instance.
_=Scoring Dix.=_ If a player holds or draws the Nine of trumps, he has the privilege of exchanging it for the turn-up card, and scoring ten points for dix. The exchange must be made immediately after winning a trick, and before drawing his card from the stock. Should the turn-up be a Nine, the exchange may still be made and scored; and if one player has already exchanged a Nine for the turn-up, the second Nine may still be exchanged for the first, and scored. A player cannot score dix and any other combination at the same time. For this reason a player whose time is short will often forego the dix score altogether unless the trump card is valuable. _=Irregular Melds.=_ If a player announces a combination which he does not show, such as fours when he has three only, which he may easily do by mistaking a Jack for a King, his adversary can compel him not only to take down the score erroneously marked, but to lead or play one of the three Kings. A player may be called upon to lead or play cards from other erroneous declarations in the same manner, but if he has the right card or cards in his hand, he may amend his error, provided he has not drawn a card from the stock in the meantime. _=The Last Twelve Tricks.
387) also describes this game. Hunt the Staigie A boys game. One is chosen to be the Staigie (little stallion). The other players scatter themselves over the playground. The Staigie locks his fingers into each other. He then repeats the words-- Hunt the Staigie, Huntie, untie, staige, Ailleman, ailleman, aigie, and rushes off with his hands locked, and tries to touch one of the players. He must not unlock his hands till he has caught one. When he has captured one, the two join hands and hunt for another. When another is caught, he joins the two. This goes on till all are hunted down.
Some judgment is necessary in drawing in this manner, for all the hands are exposed, and each player knows exactly what he has to beat. In _=American Brag=_, there are eight braggers; the Jacks and nines of each suit, and they are all of equal rank when used as braggers. Pairs or triplets formed with the aid of braggers outrank naturals, so that three Jacks is an invincible hand, beating three aces. Two braggers and an ace outrank two aces and a bragger; but the absurd part of the arrangement is that three Jacks and three nines are a tie. The method of playing differs from English Brag. If the players simply equal the dealer’s ante, nothing unusual occurs, and all the hands are shown at once. But if any player raises, and another sees this raise, these two immediately exchange hands, without showing them to the other players, and the one who held the worse hand retires from that pool, returning the better hand to its original holder, who then awaits a call or raise from the next player in order, the entire amount staked still remaining in the pool. This lose-and-drop-out system is continued until only one player remains to dispute the pool with the dealer. If they come to a call, both hands are shown to the table. If the bragger is not called, he takes the pool without showing his hand.
384) also describes the game as played in two ways--a game with bowling marbles at a wooden bridge; and another game, also with marbles, in which four, five, or six holes, and sometimes more, are made in the ground at a distance from each other, and the business of every one of the players is to bowl a marble, by a regular succession, into all the holes, and he who completes in the fewest bowls obtains the victory. In Northamptonshire a game called Nine Holes, or Trunks, is played with a long piece of wood or bridge with nine arches cut in it, each arch being marked with a figure over it, from one to nine, in the following rotation--VII., V., III., I., IX., II., IIII., VI., VIII.
| -- |The bush is too high, | -- | | | |the bush is too low. | | |16.| -- |Please, old woman, | -- | | | |creep under the bush. | | |17.| -- | -- | -- | |18.| -- | -- | -- | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ |No.| Norfolk (1). | Norfolk (2). | Haydon. | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | 1.
=_ Three of one kind, and two useless cards. [Illustration: 🃉 🂹 🃙 🂭* 🂢*] 46 to 1 _=Straight.=_ All five cards in sequence, but of various suits. [Illustration: 🃉 🂸 🃗 🃆 🂥] 254 to 1 _=Flush.=_ All five cards of one suit, but not in sequence. [Illustration: 🂡 🂮 🂨 🂥 🂣] 508 to 1 _=Full Hand.=_ Three of one kind, and two of another kind; no useless cards. [Illustration: 🃅 🂥 🃕 🂽 🂭] 693 to 1 _=Fours.=_ Four cards of one kind, and one useless card. [Illustration: 🃆 🂦 🃖 🂶 🂾*] 4164 to 1 _=Straight flush.
The players form a ring; one player in the middle called the Bull, one outside called the King. Bull: Where is the key of the barn-door? Chorus: Go to the next-door neighbour. King: She left the key in the church-door. Bull: Steel or iron? He then forces his way out of the ring, and whoever catches him becomes Bull.--Berrington (Burne s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, pp. 519, 520). Another version is that the child in the centre, whilst the others danced around him in a circle, saying, Pig in the middle and can t get out, replies, I ve lost my key but I will get out, and throws the whole weight of his body suddenly on the clasped hands of a couple, to try and unlock them. When he had succeeded he changed the words to, I ve broken your locks, and I have got out. One of the pair whose hands he had opened took his place, and he joined the ring.--Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v.
=_ The following are exposed cards, which must be left face up on the table, and are liable to be called by either adversary: 1. Every card faced upon the table otherwise than in the regular course of play. 2. Two or more cards played to a trick; the adversaries may elect which shall be played. 3. Any card named by the player holding it. The adversary on the right of an exposed card must call it before he plays himself. If it will be the turn of the player holding the exposed card to lead for the next trick, the card, if wanted, must be called before the current trick is turned and quitted. Should a player having the lead, and an exposed card in front of him, play before the previous trick is turned and quitted, the card so led may also be claimed as exposed. If a trump is exposed after the trump suit has been named, the adversaries may prevent the playing of such a card; but the holder of it is not liable to any penalty for a revoke under such circumstances.