Foster in 1881, in connection with the game of whist, is now used by everyone with any pretensions to being a bridge player. The rule itself is this:-- When the eldest hand leads any card which is not an honour, deduct the spots on it from eleven. From the remainder thus found, deduct the number of cards, _=higher than the one led=_, which are not in your own hand nor in Dummy’s in that suit. This final remainder is the number of cards which are in the declarer’s hand which are higher than the card led. The principal thing to remember is, that it is only the cards higher than the one led that you need trouble about. To illustrate:-- Suppose you are third hand, and your partner leads the seven of clubs, Dummy lays down the Q 9 2, and you hold A J 3, thus:-- [Illustration: 🃗 Leader Dummy 🃝 🃙 🃒 Third hand. 🃑 🃛 🃓 ] Deducting seven from eleven, you find it leaves four. These four cards, higher than the one lead, are all in sight, Q 9 in Dummy; A J in your own hand, therefore the declarer cannot have any card higher than the seven. If he has, your partner’s lead is not his fourth-best, as you will see if you lay out the cards. _=RETURNING SUITS.
Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained. No player is allowed under any circumstances to borrow from another, nor to be “shy” in any pot; that is, to say, “I owe so many.” If he has any counters in front of him, his betting is limited to what he has; if he has none, he is out of the game, for that hand at least. As a player cannot increase the amount he has in front of him during the play of a hand, it is best to keep on the table at all times as much as one is likely to want to bet on any one hand. It is the usual custom, and an excellent one, to fix upon a definite hour for closing a game of table stakes, and to allow no player to retire from the game before that hour unless he is _=decavé=_, (has lost all his capital). Should he insist on retiring, whatever counters he has must be divided among the other players, and if there are any odd ones after the division, they must be put into the current pool. In table stakes, any player may _=call a sight=_ for what money or counters he has in front of him, even should another player have bet a much larger amount. For instance: A has bet three dollars, and B has only two dollars in front of him, but wishes to call A. B calls for a sight by putting his two dollars in the pool, and A must then withdraw his third dollar from the pool, but leave it on the table to be called or raised by any other player. Should C wish to call A, or even to raise him, A and C may continue the betting independently of B’s part of the pool.
He chooses one of them, who goes to the opposite side with him, and the game goes on until all are rovers like himself. See Here comes a Lusty Wooer, Jolly Hooper. Jolly Sailors I. Here comes one [some] jolly, jolly sailor boy, Who lately came on shore; He [they] spent his time in drinking wine As we have done before. We are the Pam-a-ram-a-ram, We are the Pam-a-ram-a-ram, And those who want a pretty, pretty girl, Must kiss her on the shore, Must kiss her on the shore. --Warwick (from a little girl, through Mr. C. C. Bell). II.
|For my lady s |For the farmer s |For my lady s | | |daughter. |daughter. |daughter. | | 5.| -- | -- | -- | | 6.| -- | -- | -- | | 7.| -- | -- | -- | | 8.| -- | -- | -- | | 9.| -- | -- | -- | |10.| -- | -- | -- | |11.
When the original leader is underplayed in his own suit, he should invariably put up his best card. _=Finessing.=_ The expert may finesse much more freely than the beginner. Having led from such a suit as K J x x and partner having won with Ace and returned a small card, the Jack may be finessed with strong trumps. If the adversaries lead trumps, and the Ace wins the first round, a player holding the King second hand on the return, may finesse by holding it up, trusting his partner for the trick. In all cases that mark the best of the suit against a player, and on his left, he may finesse against the third best being there also. For instance: A player leads from K 10 x x x. Third Hand plays Queen and returns a small card. The Ten should be finessed, regardless of trump strength, as the Ace must be on the left, and the finesse is against the Jack being there also. Many varieties of this finesse occur.
O. Addy says the following lines are said or sung in a game called T Bull s i t Barn, but he does not know how it is played:-- As I was going o er misty moor I spied three cats at a mill-door; One was white and one was black, And one was like my granny s cat. I hopped o er t style and broke my heel, I flew to Ireland very weel, Spied an old woman sat by t fire, Sowing silk, jinking keys; Cat s i t cream-pot up to t knees, Hen s i t hurdle crowing for day, Cock s i t barn threshing corn, I ne er saw the like sin I was born. Bulliheisle A play amongst boys, in which, all having joined hands in a line, a boy at one of the ends stands still, and the rest all wind round him. The sport especially consists in an attempt to heeze or throw the whole mass on the ground.--Jamieson. See Eller Tree, Wind up Jack, Wind up the Bush Faggot. Bummers A play of children. Bummers--a thin piece of wood swung round by a cord (_Blackwood s Magazine_, Aug. 1821, p.
It appears, however, from this description to lack the two principal elements of most kiss-in-the-ring games--the chase between pursued and pursuer, and the kissing in the ring when the capture is made. In the Hanging Heaton version two children kneel and kiss in the middle of the ring. Mr. Newell (_Games_, p. 73), in describing a game with a similar rhyme, mentions a version which had been sent him from Waterford, Ireland. He says, We learn from an informant that in her town it was formerly played in this peculiar manner. Over the head of a girl who stood in the centre of a ring was held a shawl, sustained by four others grasping the corners. The game then proceeded as follows-- King William was King George s son, From the Bay of Biscay O! Upon his breast he wore a star-- Find your way to English schools. Down on the carpet you must kneel; As the grass grows in the field, Salute your bride and kiss her sweet, And rise again upon your feet. Then followed the game-rhyme, repeated with each stanza-- Go choose you east, go choose you west, apparently the same as last four lines of Sheffield version.
If any one omit playing to a former trick, and such error be not discovered until he has played to the next, the adversaries may claim a new deal; should they decide that the deal stand good, the surplus card at the end of the hand is considered to have been played to the imperfect trick, but does not constitute a revoke therein. 70. If any one play two cards to the same trick, or mix his trump, or other card, with a trick to which it does not properly belong, and the mistake be not discovered until the hand is played out, he is answerable for all consequent revokes he may have made. If, during the play of the hand, the error be detected, the tricks may be counted face downward, in order to ascertain whether there be among them a card too many; should this be the case, they may be searched, and the card restored; the player is, however, liable for all revokes which he may have meanwhile made. THE REVOKE. 71. Is when a player, holding one or more cards of the suit led, plays a card of a different suit. 72. The penalty for a revoke-- I. Is at the option of the adversaries, who at the end of the hand may either take three tricks from the revoking player or deduct three points from his score, or add three to their own score; II.
The 7 red counters lost by A and Y being divided, shows a loss of 35 white counters for each of them. If three players take four tricks apiece, they each pay the fourth man a red counter. _=WINNING THE POOL.=_ Besides the white counters won and lost by the players individually, the successful caller takes the pool, provided he has made a bid of seven tricks or better, which is called _=a pool bid=_. Any lower bid does not entitle him to the pool, unless the other players compel him to play the hand out. In order to save the pool, it is usual for the adversaries, before playing to the second trick, to say: “_=I pay.=_” If all agree to pay, the bidder must accept the amount of his bid without any over-tricks, and the pool is not touched. If a player has made a pool bid, and the adversaries, before playing to the second trick, agree to pay, they cannot prevent the caller from taking the pool; but they save possible over-tricks. The agreement of the adversaries to pay must be unanimous. Misère Partout does not touch the pool.
Draughts is a better game, if you must have a game.” Chess is generally believed to have originated in India, and in its primitive form was called Chaturanga. It is mentioned in the Hindoo Puranas, at least 3000 years B. C. The game seems to have spread eastward long before it came West, going through Burmah to Thibet, Siam, China, Malacca, Java, and Borneo. Owing to the better preservation of historical records in China, many persons have been led to credit that country with the invention of chess, but recent investigations have shown that the Chinese got it from India. At some remote period of the world’s history the game was taken from China to Japan, and there are to-day many points in common between the games played in these two countries, especially in the arrangement of the pieces, although the Japanese board has eighty-one squares. Chess came westward through Constantinople, it having passed through Persia sometime during the sixth century. The Arabs seem to have learned the game, and taken it to Mecca and Medina, afterward passing it along to Syria and the Byzantines, sometime during the seventh century. Disbanded body-guards of the Byzantine emperors carried it to Scandinavia and the North, while it was gradually spreading over Europe by way of the Bosphoros and the Danube.
[This seems merely a mild form of marbles.]--Lincolnshire (Rev. ---- Roberts). There were several games played with buttons--some on level ground, in a ring or square; but the most approved was with a hole dug in the earth near a wall, or near the trunk of a large tree. The hole should be about the cavity of a small tea-cup, the players toeing a scratched line about four or five feet from the hole, after tossing for first innings. Each of the players (mostly two) contribute an equal number of buttons, say from two to ten, and of equal value or quality. The one having first turn takes the whole of them in his hand, and by an under-throw, or rather a pitch, endeavours to get the whole, or as many as possible, into the hole. If all go clean into the hole, he wins the game, and takes the whole of the buttons started with; but if one or more of the buttons are left outside the hole, the non-player has then the choice of selecting one which he considers difficult to be hit, and requesting the player to hit it with his _nicker_. This is made of solid lead, about the size of a florin, but twice its substance, and each player is provided with one of his own. Much judgment is required in making this selection, the object being to make it most difficult not only to hit it, but to prevent it being hit without being knocked into the hole, or sending the nicker in, or sending another button in, or even not striking one at all.
This rhyme is common in the Preest Cat sport toward the border. Anciently, when the priest s cat departed this life, wailing began in the country side, as it was thought it became some supernatural being--a witch, perhaps, of hideous form--so to keep it alive was a great matter.--Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. He also refers to a game called Robin-a-Ree, much like Preest Cat, only in passing the burnt stick round the ring the following rhyme is said-- Robin-a-Ree, ye ll no dee wi me, Tho I birl ye roun three times and three; O Robin-a-Ree, O Robin-a-Ree, O dinna let Robin-a-Reerie dee. Robin-a-Ree occurs in an old song.--Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. In Cornwall it is known as Robin s a-light, and is played around the fire. A piece of stick is set on fire and whirled around rapidly in the hand of the first player, who says, Robin s a-light, and if he go out I will saddle your back. It is then passed to the next, who says the same thing, and so on. The person who lets the spark die out has to pay a forfeit.
One may rush, two may rush; Come, my girls, walk under the bush. --Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, Games, cclxxxviii. (_b_) The Berrington version of this game is played as follows:--Two girls face each other, holding each other by both hands. Two others face each other, holding both hands across the other two. They see-saw backwards and forwards, singing the lines (fig. 1). One girl gets inside the enclosing hands (fig. 2), and they repeat till all four have popped under (fig. 3), when they jog up and down till they fall on the floor! (fig. 4).
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. If either of the adversaries also has more or less than his correct number, there must be a new deal. If any player has a surplus card by reason of an omission to play to a trick, his adversaries can exercise the foregoing privilege only after he has played to the trick following the one in which such omission occurred. In _=Boston=_, if at any time it is discovered that a player opposed to the bidder has _=less=_ than his proper number of cards, whether through the fault of the dealer, or through having played more than one card to a trick, he and his partners must each pay the bidder for his bid and all over-tricks. If the bidder has _=less=_ than his proper number of cards, he is put in for one trick at least, and his adversaries may demand the hand to be played out to put him in for over-tricks. In Misère Partout, any player having _=less=_ than his proper number of cards forfeits five red counters to each of the other players, and the hands are abandoned. If any player has _=more=_ than the proper number of cards, it is a misdeal, and the misdealer deals again, after forfeiting one red counter to the pool. In _=Solo Whist=_, the deal stands good.
16. Any one dealing out of turn, or with his adversaries’ pack, may be stopped before the trump card is turned, after which the deal is valid, and the packs, if changed, so remain. In _=Boston=_ and _=Cayenne=_, the dealer must be stopped before the last card is dealt. MISDEALING. 17. It is a misdeal:-- I. If the dealer omits to have the pack cut, and his adversaries discover the error before the trump card is turned, and before looking at any of their cards. II. If he deals a card incorrectly, and fails to correct the error before dealing another. III.