The first thing is to secure your own or your adversary’s five point, or both, and if you succeed in that you should play a very forward game, and endeavour to gammon your opponent. After the five-points, secure your bar point, so as to prevent your opponent from “running” with double sixes. Some players think the bar point better than the five point, but it must be remembered that points in the home table are usually better than any outside. If you get the five and bar points made up, try for the four point, and after that you may take some risks to get your men home, and do not take up your opponent’s men if you are ahead of him, because they may give you trouble when they re-enter in your home table. _=The American Game.=_ When a gammon or backgammon counts you nothing more if you win it, and costs you nothing more if you lose it, the tactics of the game are entirely changed. It is folly to take any risks for the sake of a gammon, and any plays which leave unnecessary blots are very bad; for which reason the three throws shown in the foregoing diagram would be absurd in the American game. On the other hand, you may risk being gammoned, or even backgammoned, if it is the only way to save the game. An Englishman cannot take this risk, for he might lose a triple game in attempting to save a single. Secure the five point in your own and your adversary’s home table as soon as possible, and then the bar and four points.
If the suit of the exposed card is led, whether trump or not, the adversary may demand that the card be played or not played; or that the highest or lowest of the suit be played. If the owner of the exposed card has no other of the suit, the penalty is paid. Penalties must be exacted by players in their proper turn, or the right to exact them is lost. For instance: In Solo Whist, A is the proposer, B the acceptor, and B has an exposed card in front of him. When Y plays he should say whether or not he wishes to call the exposed card. If he says nothing, B must await Z’s decision. 22. If a player leads a card better than any his adversaries hold of the suit, and then leads one or more other cards without waiting for his partner to play, the latter may be called upon by either adversary to take the first trick, and the other cards thus improperly played are liable to be called; it makes no difference whether he plays them one after the other, or throws them all on the table together, after the first card is played, the others are liable to be called. 23. A player having a card liable to be called must not play another until the adversaries have stated whether or not they wish to call the card liable to the penalty.
The Witch will not admit her, and says-- Your boots are too dirty. I ll take my boots off. Your stockings are too dirty. I ll take them off. Your feet are dirty. I ll cut them off. The blood will run over the threshold. I ll wrap them up in a blanket. The blood will run through. This enrages the Mother, and she pushes her way into the supposed house, and looks about, and calls her children.
526. See Wadds. Fox Fox, a fox, a brummalary How many miles to Lummaflary? Lummabary? Eight and eight and a hundred and eight. How shall I get home to-night? Spin your legs and run fast. Halliwell gives this rhyme as No. ccclvii. of his _Nursery Rhymes_, but without any description of the game beyond the words, A game of the fox. It is probably the same game as Fox and Goose. Fox and Goose (1) In Dorsetshire one of the party, called the Fox, takes one end of the room or corner of a field (for the game was equally played indoors or out); all the rest of the children arrange themselves in a line or string, according to size, one behind the other, the smallest last, behind the tallest one, called Mother Goose, with their arms securely round the waist of the one in front of them, or sometimes by grasping the dress. The game commences by a parley between the Fox and Goose to this effect, the Goose beginning.
And it was clearly necessary to provide for the replacement of disturbed objects by chalking out the outlines of boards and houses upon the floor or boards upon which they stood. And while we thus perfected the Country, we were also eliminating all sorts of tediums, disputable possibilities, and deadlocks from the game. We decided that every man should be as brave and skilful as every other man, and that when two men of opposite sides came into contact they would inevitably kill each other. This restored strategy to its predominance over chance. We then began to humanise that wild and fearful fowl, the gun. We decided that a gun could not be fired if there were not six--afterwards we reduced the number to four--men within six inches of it. And we ruled that a gun could not both fire and move in the same general move: it could either be fired or moved (or left alone). If there were less than six men within six inches of a gun, then we tried letting it fire as many shots as there were men, and we permitted a single man to move a gun, and move with it as far as he could go by the rules--a foot, that is, if he was an infantry-man, and two feet if he was a cavalry-man. We abolished altogether that magical freedom of an unassisted gun to move two feet. And on such rules as these we fought a number of battles.
| -- | -- | -- | | 22.| -- | -- | -- | | 23.| -- | -- | -- | |[8.]| -- | -- | -- | | 24.|You shall have a nice |You shall have a young|She shall have a nice | | |young man. |man. |young man. | | 25.| -- | -- | -- | | 26.| -- | -- | -- | | 27.
Either the dealer or his partner may elect to play without a trump, if he has sufficient strength in all the suits to do so. _=IRREGULARITIES IN DECLARING.=_ If the dealer’s partner makes a declaration before being asked to do so, either adversary may demand that the declaration shall stand, or that there shall be a new deal. In England, only the eldest hand, A, may exact the penalty. If the dealer’s partner passes the declaration to the dealer, either adversary may claim a new deal or may insist that the player in error shall make the declaration. In England, the eldest hand exacts this penalty. Should an adversary of the dealer make a declaration, the dealer may, after looking at his own hand, either have a new deal or proceed as if nothing had been said. _=SETTLING THE VALUE OF THE TRICKS.=_ The trump suit having been announced, the first hand or leader, A, before he plays a card, has the privilege of doubling the value of the tricks if he thinks the opponents cannot win the odd trick with the trump named. To do this, he simply says: “I double.
-+---+-.-+---+-.-+---+-.-+ | | . | | . | | . | | . | +---+-.-+---+-.-+---+-.
| -- |Betsy kissing her | -- | | | |young man. | | |21.| -- | -- |Choose the fairest | | | | |daughter. | |22.| -- | -- | -- | |23.|I ve sent letter to |[He sent letter to | -- | | |turn your head. |turn back your head.] | | | | |(After No. 25.) | | |24.
Beginners should be careful to preserve cards of re-entry, even if they have to discard from their good suit in order to do so. When the adversaries have shown strength in trumps, or are leading them, there is little use in keeping a long suit together. It is much better to keep guard on the suits in which they are probably strong, letting your own and your partner’s go. A player having full command of a suit, may show it to his partner by discarding the best card of it. Discarding the second-best is an indication that the player has not the best; and in general, the discard of any small card shows weakness in that suit. _=Forcing.=_ We have already observed that a player who is weak himself should not force his partner. An exception may be made in cases where he has shown weakness, or has had a chance to lead trumps and has not done so. On the contrary, an adversary should not be forced unless he has shown strength, or the player forcing him is weak. The hope of a player with a good suit is to defend it by leading and exhausting the trumps.