The holder of the best trump at the end takes the pool. OLD MAID. Strange to say, this oft-quoted and continually derided game is not mentioned in any work on cards, a singular omission which we hasten to supply. Any number of young ladies may play, and a pack of fifty-one cards is used, the Queen of hearts having been deleted. Any player can deal the cards, which are distributed one at a time until the pack is exhausted; if every player has not the same number it does not matter. Beginning with the eldest hand, each player sorts her cards into pairs of the same denomination; such as two Fives, two Jacks, etc., and all pairs so formed are laid upon the table face down, without showing them to the other players. All the cards laid out in this manner are left in front of the player, in order to discover errors, if any. Three of a kind cannot be discarded, but four of a kind may be considered as two pairs. The discarding of pairs complete, the dealer begins by spreading her remaining cards like a fan, and presenting them, face downward, to her left-hand neighbour, who must draw one card at random.
If a person exposes more than one card in cutting, the lowest is taken to be his cut. If he does not cut, or will not show his cut, he loses the first deal. _=STAKES.=_ Écarté is played for so much a game. If the gallery is betting, all money offered must be placed on the table, and if the bets are not taken by the players, they may be covered by the opposing gallery. _=DEALING.=_ It is usual for the dealer to invite his adversary to shuffle the cards, but if two packs are used this is not necessary. The dealer must shuffle the pack and present it to his adversary to be cut. At least two cards must be left in each packet, and the upper part of the pack must be placed nearer the dealer. Five cards are given to each player, and the eleventh is turned up for the trump.
_=Declaring.=_ The elder hand announces his point, as in Piquet, and arrives at its value in the same way, reckoning the Ace for 11, etc. The dealer replies, “Good,” or “Not good,” as the case may be; but there are no equalities. If the point is a tie, the elder hand counts it. The point is worth a _=white=_ counter. The impérials are then called, each being worth one _=red=_ counter. The sequences are called first, that in trumps being “good” of course; then the fours are called, the best being four Kings, and the lowest four Aces. In plain-suit sequences there are no “equals,” the elder hand counting ties as an offset to the advantages of the deal. _=Playing.=_ The elder hand leads a card, and the dealer then declares and marks any impérials he may have that are good; after which he plays a card.
gutenberg.org. This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. .The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Game of Rat and Dragon This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Game of Rat and Dragon Author: Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger Release date: August 5, 2009 [eBook #29614] Language: English Credits: Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Adam Buchbinder, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.
=_ Each of the players should be provided with a certain number of counters, all of which must be sold and redeemed by the banker or his assistant. _=Cards.=_ Three packs of fifty-two cards each are shuffled together and used as one. The players shuffle as much as they please, the banker last, and the banker then presents them to any player he pleases to have them cut. The banker may burn one or two cards if he pleases; that is, turn them face upward on the bottom of the pack. _=Object of the Game.=_ The court cards and Tens count nothing, but all others, including the Ace, are reckoned at their face value. The object is to secure cards whose total pip value will most closely approach the number 8 or 9. An 8 made with two cards is better than a 9 made with three. _=Stakes.
This, however, is not the case with the two first-mentioned words, and I am inclined to consider them as forming part of the earliest version. The word dis is carried through no less than ten out of the fourteen variants, the gradation in the forms being as follows:-- dis dass dish diss[y]--duss dossy this--thus --dust --dust[y] What the meaning of this word is it may be impossible to ascertain, though probably Mr. Newell may be correct in his suggestion that it represents the old English word adist, the opposite of ayont, meaning this way, come hither (_Games of American Children_, p. 51). But the point really is, that the version which contains the oldest word-forms would probably be the purest in other respects. The analysis of the whole game confirms this view, as the Scottish and Yorkshire versions are nearly parallel, while the discrepancies begin to creep in with the Shropshire version, reaching their last stage in the versions recorded by Halliwell and from Congleton. Following this line of argument, dik-ma-day becomes first duke, my dear, and then duck, my dear. Turning next to the import of the rhymes, apart from special words used, it is curious to note that dis is only converted into dusty, and hence into dusty day, in two versions out of the fourteen. The Lincolnshire version agrees with Halliwell s version in making some curious offers for a pretty lass, but these rhymes are probably an innovation. In the same way the incidents numbered 39-40, occurring in the Sussex version, and 43-46 occurring in the London and Hants versions, are borrowings from other games, and not original portions of this.
| -- | -- | -- | |[8.]| -- | -- | -- | | 24.|And ye shall get a |You shall have a nice |Ye sall get a bonny | | |young prince. |young man. |prince. | | 25.| -- | -- | -- | | 26.| -- | -- | -- | | 27.|A young prince for | -- |For your ain sake. | | |your sake.
=_ No person can be subjected to two penalties for one offence. If a player leads out of turn, and a suit is called, the card played in error cannot be also claimed as exposed and liable to be called. If a player revokes, and his adversary wins ten tricks, the revoke penalty adds three tricks to the ten already won; but these thirteen tricks will not entitle the player to score any points for a slam, because that would be exacting a double penalty; the tricks for the revoke, and the points for the slam. _=Intentional Error.=_ In all games it must be assumed that the player’s intentions are honest, and that any errors that arise are committed through inadvertence. Some of our law-makers have attempted so to adjust their codes as to provide against the manœuvres of the blackleg. This is simply impossible. Laws are made for gentlemen, and when it is obvious that a player does not belong to that class the remedy is not to appeal to the laws of the game for protection, but to decline to play with him. _=Etiquette.=_ It should be quite unnecessary to legislate against acts which annoy or do injustice to individuals, but there should be some provision in the laws of every game which will secure to each individual equal rights with others in the enjoyment of the game.
I froze in the middle of the road, hearing rubber scream as the driver floored the throttle and hurled the automobile right at me. He might as well have been on tracks. There was no place to go--I was in the middle of a six-lane boulevard, and could never make either curb before he ran me down. This is when it pays to be a perceptive. I ve talked to many TK s about how they visualize their lifts. We all conceive of it differently. With me a real strain is like shining a bright beam of light on the spot you re lifting. Be glad, Wally Bupp, I had time to tell myself. Be glad for a mechanical mind. Where do you lift four thousand pounds of car aimed right at you? Well, there is a small valve, can t weigh half an ounce, lightly spring-loaded, that is in the power-steering mechanism.
But let me, before I go on to tell of actual battles and campaigns, give here a summary of our essential rules. III THE RULES HERE, then, are the rules of the perfect battle-game as we play it in an ordinary room. THE COUNTRY (1) The Country must be arranged by one player, who, failing any other agreement, shall be selected by the toss of a coin. (2) The other player shall then choose which side of the field he will fight from. (3) The Country must be disturbed as little as possible in each move. Nothing in the Country shall be moved or set aside deliberately to facilitate the firing of guns. A player must not lie across the Country so as to crush or disturb the Country if his opponent objects. Whatever is moved by accident shall be replaced after the end of the move. THE MOVE (1) After the Country is made and the sides chosen, then (and not until then) the players shall toss for the first move. (2) If there is no curtain, the player winning the toss, hereafter called the First Player, shall next arrange his men along his back line, as he chooses.
In Pair Matches the score shall be recorded as made, independently of the revoke penalty, which shall be separately indicated as plus or minus revoke (“-R” for the revoking side, and “+R” for their adversaries). In such matches, the penalty for a revoke shall not increase the score of the opponents of the revoking players above the maximum, as made at the other tables, on the deal in which the revoke occurs; provided, however, that if the opponents win more tricks than such maximum, independently of the revoke penalty, their score shall stand as made. Nor shall the score of the revoking players be reduced, by the infliction of the revoke penalty, below the minimum so made at the other tables until the averages for the match and the relative scores of the other players have been determined; the score of the revoking players shall then, if necessary, be further reduced, so that in all cases they shall suffer the full penalty as provided in the first paragraph of this section. SEC. 5. 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.
387). II. There stands a lady on yonder hill, Who she is I cannot tell; I ll go and court her for her beauty, Whether she answers me yes or no. Madam, I bow vounce to thee. Sir, have I done thee any harm? Coxconian! Coxconian is not my name; tis Hers and Kers, and Willis and Cave. Stab me, ha! ha! little I fear. Over the waters there are but nine, I ll meet you a man alive. Over the waters there are but ten, I ll meet you there five thousand. Rise up, rise up, my pretty fair maid, You re only in a trance; Rise up, rise up, my pretty fair maid, And we will have a dance. --Lady C.
If he knocks off any of the Cots and Twisses nearer to the players than the Hob is, he claims them. The other players try to knock the Hob away with their key-stones from any Cots and Twisses that may not have been claimed; and if any key-stone touches Hob after all have thrown, the owner cannot claim any Cots and Twisses.--Earls Heaton (Herbert Hardy). Each player selects a Cast or stone to pitch with; on another stone, called the Hob, the Cots and Twys are placed; at some distance Scops are set in the ground. First the players pitch from the Hob to the Scop, and the one who gets nearest goes first. He then pitches at the Hob, and if he knocks off the stakes he has them, provided his Cast is nearer to them than the Hob is; in failure of this, the other player tries. In pitching up, one Cast may rest on another, and if the boy whose stone is underneath can lift it up to knock the other Cast away, it has to remain at the place to which it has been struck; if he does not succeed in doing this, the second player may lift off his Cast and place it by the first. Whoever knocks off the stakes, they go to the boy whose Cast is nearest to them. The Hob and Scop are usually three yards apart. The Cot was a button off the waistcoat or trousers, the Twy one off the coat, and, as its name implies, was equal to two Cots.
141) suggests that this incident was introduced for the purpose of beginning the game again, but this seems extremely doubtful, in consideration of the Liphook variant, in which Miss Fowler says, It is no uncommon thing for Jenny Jones to be swung into life again; and the still more significant Southampton version, where Jenny Jones appears in the character of the Ghost, and scatters and pursues the surrounding mourners. This detail is also used by the Northants and Barnes children, the version of whose game is very like the Southampton one. On the whole, the analysis would suggest that there has been a game played by the children of both England and Scotland, the leading incidents of which have been varied in accordance with the conditions of life. Mr. Napier (_Folk-lore Record_, iv. 474), in his description of the West Scotland example, evidently considered the game to be thoroughly representative of Scottish life, and this, indeed, seems to be the most striking feature of the game in all the variants. The domestic economy which they reveal is in no case out of keeping with the known facts of everyday peasant life, and many a mother has denied to her child s friends the companionship they desired because of the work to be done. In most cases the burden of the song rests upon the question of health, but in two cases, namely, Colchester and Deptford, the question is put as to where Jenny Jones is at the time of the visit. It is curious that the refrain of Farewell, ladies, should appear in such widely separated districts as Scotland, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Middlesex, Hants, Lincoln, and Barnes. With reference to the colours for mourning, there is an obvious addition of crape introduced into the Deptford version which is very suggestive of the decadence going on.
9. FIRST SYSTEM. [Illustration: No. 8. +-.-+---+-.-+---+-.-+---+-.-+---+ | . | | .
By trumping winning cards played by the adversaries. This Y will do if Clubs are led a second time, or A will do if Diamonds are led twice. 4th. By being able to take tricks with cards which are not the best of the suit, the player who holds better cards having already played smaller. This B will do with the ♡10 if A leads trumps, and Y does not play either Q or J. If B leads trumps he will lose this advantage. These four methods of winning tricks suggest four systems of play, which are those in common use by experts at the present day: 1st. Playing high cards to the best advantage, so as to secure the best results from such combinations as may be held. This is the basis of all _=systems of leading=_. 2nd.
The number discarded and drawn, if any, must be distinctly announced by each player, including the dealer; and the fresh cards must be given face down from the top of the pack, without any further shuffling or cutting. Each player must receive the entire number he asks for before the next player is helped. No player shall receive from the dealer more or fewer than he discards; so that if he is playing with a short hand, such as four cards only, he will still have four cards after the draw; and if his hand was originally foul, it will so remain. _=23. Exposed Cards.=_ In dealing for the draw, should any card be found faced in the pack, or should any card be exposed by the dealer in giving out the cards, or be blown over by the wind before the player has touched it, such cards must be placed on the table with the discards. The player whose card has been exposed does not receive another in its place until all the other players, including the dealer, have been helped. _=24. Incorrect Draws.=_ Should any player ask for an incorrect number of cards, he must take them; unless he discovers the error before the next player has been helped.
J. The seed lay for a time gathering strength, and then began to germinate with another friend, Mr W. To Mr W. was broached the idea: I believe that if one set up a few obstacles on the floor, volumes of the British Encyclopedia and so forth, to make a Country, and moved these soldiers and guns about, one could have rather a good game, a kind of kriegspiel. ... Primitive attempts to realise the dream were interrupted by a great rustle and chattering of lady visitors. 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.
See Hide and Seek. King Cæsar One player is chosen to be King Cæsar by lot or naming. All the others stand in two rows, one row at each end of the ground. A line is drawn on the ground in front of them to mark dens. All the players must keep within this line. King Cæsar stands in the middle of the ground. Any number of the players can then rush across the ground from one den to another. King Cæsar tries to catch one as they run. When he catches a boy he must count from one to ten in succession before he leaves hold of the boy, that boy in the meantime trying to get away. If King Cæsar succeeds in holding a boy, this boy stays in the centre with him and assists in catching the other players (always counting ten before a captive is secured).
So successively into Nos. 2, 3, 4, &c. Walk into No. 1 with stone on foot, and out at No. 8. Kick it up and catch it. The same with stone on thumb. Toss it up and catch. Again with stone on your back. Straighten up, let it slide into your hand.
The top stock is then ready for the draw, and the judicious player should at once cash his chips and retire from the game. Never play with a man who continually holds his cards very close to his body, or who completely conceals his hand before the draw, or who takes great care to put his discard among previous discards, so that the exact number of cards put out cannot be counted. He is probably working a vest or sleeve hold-out. Some clumsy or audacious sharpers will go so far as to hold out cards in their lap, or stick them in a “bug” under the table. One of the most successful poker sharps ever known, “Eat-um-up Jake” Blackburn, who had a hand like a ham, could hold out five cards in his palm while he carried on all the operations of shuffling, dealing, and playing his hand. Such men require great dexterity and nerve to get rid of their “deadwood,” or surplus cards, without detection. _=Holding out=_ is regarded by the professional as a most dangerous experiment, but it is very common. Never play with a man who keeps his eyes rivetted on the cards as he deals, and who deals comparatively slowly. He is probably using marked cards, or has marked the important ones himself during the play. Poker sharps who mark cards by scratching them with a sharp point concealed in a ring are obliged to hold the cards at a certain angle to the light in order to see the scratches.
In the beginning of each game they are allowed to raise the ball a little above the level of the ground, that they may have the advantage of a surer stroke. This is called the deil-chap, perhaps as a contraction of devil, in reference to the force expended on the stroke. It may, however, be dule-chap, the blow given at the dule or goal.--Jamieson. See Hockey. Chuck-farthing Strutt says this game was played by boys at the commencement of the last century, and probably bore some analogy to Pitch and Hustle. He saw the game thus denominated played with halfpence, every one of the competitors having a like number, either two or four; a hole being made in the ground, with a mark at a given distance for the players to stand, they pitch their halfpence singly in succession towards the hole, and he whose halfpenny lies the nearest to it has the privilege of coming first to a second mark much nearer than the former, and all the halfpence are given to him; these he pitches in a mass toward the hole, and as many of them as remain therein are his due; if any fall short or jump out of it, the second player--that is, he whose halfpenny in pitching lay nearest to the first goer s--takes them and performs in like manner; he is followed by the others as long as any of the halfpence remain (_Sports_, pp. 386, 387). There is a letter in the _Spectator_, supposed to be from the father of a romp, who, among other complaints of her conduct, says, I have catched her once at eleven years old at Chuck-farthing among the boys. Chuck-hole, Chuck-penny Same game as Chuck-farthing, with this difference, that if the pennies roll outside the ring it is a dead heat, and each boy reclaims his penny.
See Who goes round my Stone Wall? Level-coil Nares, in his _Glossary_, says this is a game of which we seem to know no more than that the loser in it was to give up his place to be occupied by another. Minshew gives it thus: To play at _levell coil_, G. jouer à cul levé: _i.e._, to play and lift up your taile when you have lost the game, and let another sit down in your place. Coles, in his _English Dictionary_, seems to derive it from the Italian _leva il culo_, and calls it also Pitch-buttock. In his _Latin Dictionary_ he has _level-coil_, alternation, cession; and to play at _level coil_, vices ludendi præbere. Skinner is a little more particular and says, Vox tesseris globulosis ludentium propria: an expression belonging to a game played with little round tesseræ. He also derives it from French and Italian. It is mentioned by Jonson, _Tale of a Tub_, iii.
Success depended on catching the ball dexterously when dealt, and conveying it away through all the opposition of the adverse party, or, if that was impossible, to throw it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, was to exert his utmost efforts to convey it to his own goal, which was often three or four miles distant from that of his adversaries. T. Durfey s _Collin s Walk through London_, 1690, p. 192, says: Hurling is an ancient sport us d to this day in the countys of Cornwall and Devon, when once a year the hardy young fellows of each county meet; and a cork ball thinly plated with silver being thrown up between em, they run, bustle, and fight for it, to the witty dislocating of many a shrew d neck, or for the sport of telling how bravely their arms or legs came to be broke, when they got home. It is fully described by Carew in his _Survey of Cornwall_, 1602, p. 73. It is also a very ancient Irish game, and Mr. Kinahan says: Many places are called after it: such as, Killahurla, the hurlers church; Gortnahurla, the field of the hurlers; Greenanahurla, the sunny place of the hurlers; this, however, is now generally corrupted into hurling-green. The hurling-green where the famous match was played by the people of Wexford against those of Cather (now divided into the counties of Carlow and Wicklow), and where the former got the name of yellow bellies, from the colour of the scarfs they wore round their waist, is a sunny flat on the western side of North Wicklow Gap, on the road from Gorey to Trinnahely. There are also many other different names that record the game.
If he calls, the player holding the ace names the trump suit; but the suit so named must not be the suit of the called ace. Forcée in clubs is worth double, 8 counters. _=Playing.=_ The trump named, the eldest hand leads any card he pleases, and the others must follow suit if they can. The highest card played, if of the suit led, wins the trick, and trumps win all other suits. The hands are abandoned as soon as the bidder takes five tricks, if he is playing anything but a tout. If he goes on he must win all eight tricks, or lose the value of a tout. _=Payments.=_ A solo player wins from or loses to each of his adversaries individually the amount of the game in counters. Two partners pay or receive each from one adversary.
He must take at least one card, and he must take from the talon in the natural order of the cards. If he has elected to let a deal stand in which he has been given thirteen cards, he is entitled to four cards only from the talon, and must in all cases leave himself with twelve cards after his discard and draw are completed. If he does not take all five cards, he must announce distinctly how many he leaves, for if he fails to do so the dealer is not liable for having too many cards. The dealer then discards, first declaring carte blanche if he holds it. In England, he need not draw at all, in France he must draw at least one card. Besides the three cards which belong to him, he is entitled to take as many as he pleases of those left by the pone, and in drawing from the talon he must take the cards in the order in which they come. If two cards are left by the pone, for instance, and the dealer wants three only, he must take the two left by the pone and one of his own three, leaving the two others face down on the table. The number of cards in hand after the discard and draw must be exactly twelve. Only one discard is allowed, and having been made it cannot be changed after the stock has been touched. If the pone does not take all the cards to which he is entitled, he is allowed to look at those that remain of the first five that were on the talon; but on no account may he look at any of the dealer’s three.
=_ Should either dummy or his partner lead out of turn, the adversaries may call a suit from the one that should have led. It should be noticed that if it was not the turn of either to lead, there is no penalty; for neither can have gained any advantage from knowing what suit the other wished to lead, or from the exposed card. Should all have played to the erroneous lead, the error cannot be corrected, and no penalty remains. 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.
Minshew gives it thus: To play at _levell coil_, G. jouer à cul levé: _i.e._, to play and lift up your taile when you have lost the game, and let another sit down in your place. Coles, in his _English Dictionary_, seems to derive it from the Italian _leva il culo_, and calls it also Pitch-buttock. In his _Latin Dictionary_ he has _level-coil_, alternation, cession; and to play at _level coil_, vices ludendi præbere. Skinner is a little more particular and says, Vox tesseris globulosis ludentium propria: an expression belonging to a game played with little round tesseræ. He also derives it from French and Italian. It is mentioned by Jonson, _Tale of a Tub_, iii. 2:-- Young Justice Bramble has kept _level-coyl_ Here in our quarters, stole away our daughter.