Marked cards are of advantage only when the dealer plays, and are of little use beyond telling him what he can turn up for a trump, or what he will find in the Skat. The rule for having four in the game, if possible, is one of the greatest safeguards, unless the dealer is in secret partnership with one of the players. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ The chief things to master in Skat are the values of the hands, the principles of bidding on them, the best methods of playing them, and the proper methods of combining forces with your partner for the time being, in order to defeat the single player. _=Bidding.=_ Some persons attach a great deal of importance to the odds for and against certain cards being in the Skat. If a player without three is forced to risk finding a Matadore in the Skat, it is usually enough for him to know that the odds are about 3 to 1 against it. It is much more important for him to consider what cards may make against him, and what they would count. It is often necessary to estimate very closely the number of points that must fall on a certain number of leads. For instance: You are Vorhand, and hold these cards:-- [Illustration: 🂫 🂻 🃋 🃞 🃝 🃙 🃘 🃗 🃇 🂧 ] Even if you find the Ace and Ten with the best Wenzel in one hand against you, you have an almost certain club Solo, for if you lead a Wenzel, your adversary must either take it, or give you the Ace or Ten.
They regarded the objects upon the floor with the empty disdain of their sex for all imaginative things. But the writer had in those days a very dear friend, a man too ill for long excursions or vigorous sports (he has been dead now these six years), of a very sweet companionable disposition, a hearty jester and full of the spirit of play. To him the idea was broached more fruitfully. We got two forces of toy soldiers, set out a lumpish Encyclopaedic land upon the carpet, and began to play. We arranged to move in alternate moves: first one moved all his force and then the other; an infantry-man could move one foot at each move, a cavalry-man two, a gun two, and it might fire six shots; and if a man was moved up to touch another man, then we tossed up and decided which man was dead. So we made a game, which was not a good game, but which was very amusing once or twice. The men were packed under the lee of fat volumes, while the guns, animated by a spirit of their own, banged away at any exposed head, or prowled about in search of a shot. Occasionally men came into contact, with remarkable results. Rash is the man who trusts his life to the spin of a coin. One impossible paladin slew in succession nine men and turned defeat to victory, to the extreme exasperation of the strategist who had led those victims to their doom.
C. Bell. MIDDLESEX Miss Collyer. Hanwell Mrs. G. L. Gomme. { Miss Chase, Miss F. D. Richardson, { Mr.
The game is practically Whist, with the additional knowledge that both proposer and acceptor have strong hands. When partners sit next each other, there are many opportunities for leading strengthening cards through the adversaries, especially in the partner’s known or inferred strong suit. _=Finesse.=_ If neither proposer nor acceptor is the eldest hand, they should make no finesses; but get into the lead as soon as possible, and exhaust the trumps. The greatest danger of defeat for a proposal and acceptance is that the adversaries, with the original lead, may establish a cross-ruff, or get six tricks with their winning cards before the calling players get a lead. It is a common artifice for the proposer and acceptor, after they have exhausted the adversaries’ trumps, each to show a strong suit by leading it once, and then to lead the highest card of a weaker suit; thus offering each other chances for successful finesse. If a partner sitting on the right leads a suit, there should be no finesse; and in general, finessing should be avoided until the declaration is assured. It may then be used to secure probable over-tricks. _=Adversaries’ Play.=_ The players opposed to the call are always designated as the adversaries.
Cock s-headling. Cock-steddling. Codlings. Cogger. Cogs. Common. Conkers. Conquerors. Contrary, Rules of. Cop-halfpenny.
See Cat and Dog, Cudgel, Kit-cat. Cat after Mouse This game, sometimes called Threading the Needle, is played by children forming a ring, with their arms extended and hands clasped; one--the Mouse--goes outside the circle and gently pulls the dress of one of the players, who thereupon becomes the Cat, and is bound to follow wherever the Mouse chooses to go--either in or out of the ring--until caught, when he or she takes the place formerly occupied in the ring by the Cat, who in turn becomes Mouse, and the game is recommenced.--Dorsetshire (_Folk-lore Journal_, vii. 214). (_b_) Played at Monton, Lancashire (Miss Dendy); Clapham Middle-Class School (Miss Richardson); and many other places. It is practically the same game as Drop Handkerchief, played without words. It is described by Strutt, p. 381, who considers Kiss-in-the-Ring is derived from this Cat and Mouse. Catchers One bicken is required in this game, and at this a lad must stand with a bat and ball in hand. He hits the ball away along the sand.
The methods of _=Taking Tricks=_; _=Scoring=_; _=Claiming and Counting Honours=_; _=Marking Rubber Points=_, etc., are the same as in whist, and the counters are used in the same manner. _=Cutting Out.=_ As already observed, there is no change of partners, or of the rotation of the deal, until the completion of a rubber; but at the beginning of each rubber, dummy must deal the first hand. Should one side win the first two games in any rubber, the third is not played. At the end of the tournée, should any player wish to retire, and another offer to take his place, the cards must be shuffled and cut as at the beginning; a player’s position in one tournée giving him no rights in the next. There is nothing in the English game to recognize that there may be more than three candidates for dummy; as it is supposed that if four were present, they would prefer playing whist. _=Suggestions for Good Play.=_ As these are equally proper to any form of dummy, we shall postpone their consideration until we have described the other varieties of the game; French dummy, and Bridge; giving them all at the end of the chapter on “Bridge.” DOUBLE DUMMY.
=_ The trump suit named, each player discards and leaves _=face upward=_ on the table as many cards as he pleases. He must discard three, to reduce his hand to six cards. If he discards more than three he must draw from the remainder of the pack to restore the number of his cards to six; so that after the discard and draw each player at the table will have exactly six cards, although nine were originally dealt him. The dealer, beginning on his left, gives to each player in turn as many cards from the top of the pack as may be necessary to restore the number in his hand to six. When it comes to the dealer’s turn, instead of taking cards from the top of the pack, he may search the remainder of the pack, and take from it any cards that he pleases. This is called _=robbing the deck=_. Should he find in his own hand and the remainder of the pack more than six trumps, he must discard those he does not want, showing them face up on the table with the other discards. Should any player discard a trump, his partner has the right to call his attention to it, and if the player has not been helped to cards, or has not lifted the cards drawn, the trump erroneously discarded may be taken back; otherwise it must remain among the discards until the hand has been played, when, if it is of any counting value, it must be added to the score of the side making the trump. Although there is no law to that effect, it is considered imperative for each player except the dealer to discard everything but trumps. This is partly because no other cards are of the slightest use, and partly because one of the points of the game is that the number of trumps held by each player before the draw should be indicated by his discard.
) The dealer now plays a deuce, and announces seventeen. This card does not form any sequence with those that have gone immediately before it, because if the order of play is retraced it will be found that another deuce is encountered before we reach the Four. This illustrates the rule already given, that sequences formed in play must always be single, and cannot be reckoned with substitute cards, like pairs royal. If they could, the last player in this case might claim a double run of five and a pair. The pone now plays another 4, which forms the sequence afresh if we go back to the third card played. He announces: “Twenty-one, with a run of five,” and pegs five holes more. The dealer plays a 3, also claiming a run of five, which he pegs, and as that is the last card to be played in that hand he also pegs one hole for _=last card=_. The total score of the dealer is now 10 points, and that of the pone is 15. The cards they held, and the order in which they were played is as follows:-- [Illustration: Pone:-- 🂤 🃃 🃕 🃔 Dealer:-- 🃂 🂱 🂲 🃓 ] _=SHOWING.=_ In order to illustrate the manner of counting the hands, which is called showing, let us suppose the starter to be a Queen, and that the pone discarded an Ace and a Ten for the crib, the dealer laying out two Jacks.
Heads in and backs out, Hinkumbooby round about; Fal de ral la, &c. Backs in and heads out, Hinkumbooby round about; Fal de ral la, &c. A feet in and nae feet out, Hinkumbooby round about; Fal de ral la, &c. Shake hands a , shake hands a , Hinkumbooby round about; Fal de ral la, &c. Good night a , good night a , Hinkumbooby round about; Fal de ral la, &c. --Chambers (_Popular Rhymes_, pp. 137-139). IV. This is the way we wash our hands, Wash our hands, wash our hands, To come to school in the morning. This is the way we wash our face, Wash our face, wash our face, To come to school in the morning.
-+ | | . | | . | | . | | ⛂ | +---+-.-+---+-.-+---+-.-+---+-.-+ | | . | | . | | .
=_ If a player who can capture a piece neglects to do so, his adversary has the choice of three things:--To compel the player to take back his move and capture the piece; to huff (remove from the board,) the man that should have captured the piece; or to let the move stand, and go on with his own move. A huff does not constitute a move; the piece is simply removed from the board as a penalty, but the penalty must be enforced before the player exacting it makes his own move. _=Kings.=_ When a man arrives at any of the four squares on the edge of the board farthest from the side on which he started, he becomes a King, and is _=crowned=_ by putting another man of the same colour on the top of him. In diagrams, kings are distinguished by putting a ring round the single man. ⦾ ⦿. Kings can move either backward or forward, but only one square at a time. If a man arrives at the king-row by capturing an adverse piece, that ends the move, and the newly made king cannot move again, even to capture another piece, until his adversary has moved. [See notes to Diagram No. 7.
We arranged to move in alternate moves: first one moved all his force and then the other; an infantry-man could move one foot at each move, a cavalry-man two, a gun two, and it might fire six shots; and if a man was moved up to touch another man, then we tossed up and decided which man was dead. So we made a game, which was not a good game, but which was very amusing once or twice. The men were packed under the lee of fat volumes, while the guns, animated by a spirit of their own, banged away at any exposed head, or prowled about in search of a shot. Occasionally men came into contact, with remarkable results. Rash is the man who trusts his life to the spin of a coin. One impossible paladin slew in succession nine men and turned defeat to victory, to the extreme exasperation of the strategist who had led those victims to their doom. This inordinate factor of chance eliminated play; the individual freedom of guns turned battles into scandals of crouching concealment; there was too much cover afforded by the books and vast intervals of waiting while the players took aim. And yet there was something about it...
In the North, and in Suffolk, it is called Cocks, a puerile game with the tough tufted stems of the ribwort plantain (Brockett s _North Country Words_). Moor (_Suffolk Words_) alludes to the game, and Holloway (_Dictionary of Provincialisms_) says in West Sussex boys play with the heads of rib grass a similar game. Whichever loses the head first is conquered. It is called Fighting-cocks. Cock-fight This is a boys game. Two boys fold their arms, and then, hopping on one leg, butt each other with their shoulders till one lets down his leg. Any number of couples can join in this game.--Nairn (Rev. W. Gregor).
=_ These games are divided into two principal classes, those in which the player undertakes to win, and those in which he tries to lose. When he plays to lose, it is to lose every trick, there being no trump suit, and the cards in each suit ranking A K Q J 10 9 8 7. These games are called _=Null=_, or Nullo, and _=Null Ouvert=_, the latter being played with the successful bidder’s cards exposed face upward on the table, but not liable to be called. The moment he wins a trick in a Nullo, he loses his game. Nullos are quite foreign to Skat, and appear to have been introduced as a consolation for players who always hold bad cards. When _=Ramsch=_ is played, the object is to take less than either of the other players; but the cards rank as in the ordinary game, except that the four Jacks are the only trumps. In all other games the successful bidder undertakes to win; but his success does not depend on the number of tricks he takes in, but on the total value of the counting cards contained in those tricks. The total value of all the counting cards is 120 points, and to be successful, the single player must win at least 61. If he succeeds in winning 61 or more points, he wins his game, whatever it may be. If he can get 91 points, he wins a double game, which is called _=schneider=_.
Francis Douce (_Sports_, p. 102). The bats in this drawing are nearly identical with modern golf-sticks, and Golf seems to be derived from this game. Peacock mentions it in his _Glossary of Manley and Corringham Words_. Forby has an interesting note in his _Vocabulary of East Anglia_, i. 14. He says, The bandy was made of very tough wood, or shod with metal, or with the point of the horn or the hoof of some animal. The ball is a knob or gnarl from the trunk of a tree, carefully formed into a globular shape. The adverse parties strive to beat it with their bandies through one or other of the goals. Bandy Cad or Gad A game played with a nurr and crooked stick, also called Shinty, and much the same as the Hockey of the South of England.
These tabs are printed in vertical columns, about five deals to a sheet. A dot indicates the soda card; a dash, hoc. All winners are marked with a down stroke, and all losers with a cypher. The diagram in the margin will give a very good idea of a faro tab for a complete deal. The Queen was soda, the Five split out, and the Eight was in hoc. A | 0 0 1 0 2 | 0 1 1 1 3 | 0 0 1 1 4 | 1 0 0 0 5 | 0 0 X 6 | 1 1 1 1 7 | 0 1 1 0 8 | 1 1 0 - 9 | 0 1 0 1 10 | 0 0 0 0 J | 1 1 1 0 Q | . 0 1 0 K | 1 0 1 1 _=Systems.=_ On the manner in which the cards will go, a great many systems of play are based. There are sixteen different ways for a card to “play,” which are simply the permutations of the stroke and the cypher arranged in rows of four at a time. If a player is betting _=three on a side=_, he will take each card as it becomes a case, and bet that it either wins three times and loses once, or loses once and wins three times.
Same old ticking world, said Underhill. Nothing to report. No wonder they didn t develop the pin-set until they began to planoform. Down here with the hot Sun around us, it feels so good and so quiet. You can feel everything spinning and turning. It s nice and sharp and compact. It s sort of like sitting around home. Woodley grunted. He was not much given to flights of fantasy. Undeterred, Underhill went on, It must have been pretty good to have been an Ancient Man.
At the bottom they loose hands and divide, the first rank turning right, the second left, and march back in two single files to the other end again, where they re-form as at first, and repeat their man[oe]uvre, singing the verses alternately. The Lincolnshire game is played by the children walking two and two in a circle round one of their companions, singing. The players then stand facing the child in the centre, and place their hands on their partners shoulders. After the lines are sung the centre child cries out, Halt! Shoulder arms! Fire! at which words each child kisses his partner. If the commander sees any one hesitate, or avoid kissing, he runs forward and takes the defaulter s place, leaving him to fill the middle position. Similar versions are played at Earls Heaton (Mr. Hardy), Forest of Dean (Miss Matthews), Ellesmere (Burne, _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 574), Derbyshire (_Folk-lore Journal_, i. 386). Hurling A game played with a ball.
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. Should C have even less money than B, say one dollar, he may still further reduce the original pool, leaving the two dollars aside for settlement between A and B, and A’s third dollar still aside from that again for the decision of any other player. Let us suppose that A and C continue the betting until one calls. When the hands are shown, if either A’s or C’s is better than B’s, B loses his interest; but if B’s hand is better than either A’s hand or C’s hand, he takes the part of the pool for which he called a sight, while A and C decide the remainder between them. For instance: A calls C, and C shows three tens. Neither A nor B can beat it, and C takes everything. But if B had three Jacks, and A only three fives, B would take the part of the pool for which he called a sight, and C would take the remainder.
Silver and gold I have not got. What has this poor prisoner done? Stole my watch and broke my chain. How many pounds will set him free? Three hundred pounds will set him free. The half of that I have not got. Then off to prison he must go. --Crockham Hill, Kent (Miss E. Chase). (_b_) This game is now generally played like Oranges and Lemons, only there is no tug-of-war at the end. Two children hold up their clasped hands to form an arch. The other children form a long line by holding to each other s dresses or waists, and run under.
=_ Suppose the first card played by the pone was a 4. The dealer plays a 2, announcing: “Six.” The pone plays a 3, announcing: “Nine, with a run of three,” and pegging three holes for the sequence formed in play. The dealer plays an Ace; “Ten, with a run of four,” and pegs four holes for the sequence of four cards made in play, all of which are face upward on the table, although he held only two of them. _=Fifteens.=_ The pone then plays a 5, which, added to the 10 just announced by the dealer, makes 15, with a run of five cards; seven holes to peg altogether. (This is quite independent of the sequence previously scored, just as the double pair royal was of the previous single pair.) The dealer now plays a deuce, and announces seventeen. This card does not form any sequence with those that have gone immediately before it, because if the order of play is retraced it will be found that another deuce is encountered before we reach the Four. This illustrates the rule already given, that sequences formed in play must always be single, and cannot be reckoned with substitute cards, like pairs royal.
A revoke cannot be claimed if the claimant or his partner has played to the following deal, or if both have left the table at which the revoke occurred. If the revoke is discovered in season, the penalty must be enforced and cannot be waived. SEC. 6. At the end of the play of a deal the claimants of a revoke can examine all of the cards; if any hand has been shuffled the claim may be urged and proved if possible; but no proof is necessary and the revoke is established if, after it has been claimed, the accused player or his partner disturbs the order of the cards before they have been examined to the satisfaction of the adversaries. LAW XI.--MISCELLANEOUS. SEC. 1. If any one calls attention in any manner to the trick before his partner has played thereto, the adversary last to play to the trick may require the offender’s partner to play his highest or lowest of the suit led, and, if he has none of that suit, to trump or not to trump the trick.