=_ This is almost three-card Whiskey Poker. Each player is provided with three counters only, which are of no value, and three cards are dealt to each player and to the widow, face down, and one at a time. The widow is turned face up immediately, and the dealer has the first say. Before he looks at the cards he has dealt to himself, he may exchange his whole hand for the widow, otherwise the eldest hand has the first draw. No other player may exchange his whole hand, but each in turn may draw one card until some player knocks. The moment any player knocks, all drawing must cease, and the hands are shown at once. Triplets, straight flushes, and points determine the value of the hands, as already described, and the best hand takes the pool. The dealer makes no extra payments, as he has no perquisites. The first player to lose his three counters pays for the whiskey; and if two or more are frozen out at the same time, the one with the worst hand pays. The game is sometimes varied by playing freeze-out, a value being attached to the three counters, and players who are decavé retiring from the game until all the counters have been won by a single player.
Players should be aware of this trap, and never cover a misère player’s own lead if they can help it, unless the card led is below a 4. _=ABUNDANCE.=_ Very few persons will risk calling an abundance which they are not pretty certain of; but a player may be forced to the call on a doubtful hand, especially if he is over-called on his original proposal to play a solo. The lead is a great advantage, because trumps can be exhausted immediately, and the suits protected. If the caller has not the lead he must calculate in advance for trumping in, and if his plain suits are not quite established, he will require more trumps than would otherwise be necessary. The greatest danger to an abundance player who has not the original lead, is that his best suit will be led through him, and trumped, either on the first or second round. The caller is often trapped into unnecessarily high trumping when suits are led through him a second or third time. _=The Adversaries=_ have little chance to defeat an abundance unless they can over-trump the caller, or ruff his good cards before he can exhaust the trumps. It is best for the Right to lead his longest suit, and for the Left to lead his shortest. A guarded King suit should not be led under any circumstances; nor a short suit Ace high.
Right arms in, right arms out, Shake yourselves a little, and little, And turn yourselves about. --Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. p. 49). XIV. I love Antimacassar, Antimacassar loves me. Put your left foot in, Put your right foot out, Shake it a little, a little, a little, And turn yourself about. --Dorsetshire (Miss M. Kimber). (_b_) A ring is formed and the children dance round, singing the first verse.
Almonds and Reasons. Angel and Devil. Auntieloomie. BABBITY Bowster. Bad. Baddin. Badger the Bear. Bag o Malt. Ball. Ball and Bonnets.
Every player must cut from the same pack. 16. Should a player expose more than one card, the highest is his cut. FORMING TABLES. 17. Those first in the room have the prior right to play. Candidates of equal standing decide their order by cutting; those who cut lowest play first. 18. Six players constitute a complete table. 19.
Fourchette, the two cards immediately above and below the one led, such as K J in the second hand on a Q led. Four Signal, a method of showing four trumps, without asking for them; usually made by playing three small cards, such as 4 6 2, in that order. Fourth-best, the fourth card of a suit, counting from the top. The modern substitute for the terms penultimate, and antepenultimate. Front Stall, one who makes acquaintances for gamblers to fleece. Frozen, balls touching at billiards. Frozen Out, a player who has lost his original stake, and cannot continue in the game. Fuzzing, milking the cards instead of shuffling them. Gallery, the spectators who are betting on the game. Gambling, risking more than one can well afford to lose on any game of chance.
If it is impossible for him to succeed, as when he bids four and the adversaries have won two tricks, the hands are thrown up, because nothing is paid for under or over-tricks. Players should show the remainder of their hands to the board, as evidence that no revoke has been made. _=IRREGULARITIES IN HANDS.=_ If a player, before he makes a bid or passes, discovers that he holds too many or too few cards, he must immediately claim a misdeal. If he has either made a bid or passed, the deal stands good, and the hand must be played out. If the bidder has his right number of cards and succeeds, he must be paid. If he fails, he neither wins nor loses; because he is playing against a foul hand. If the bidder has more than his right number of cards he must pay if he loses; but wins nothing if he succeeds. If he has less than his right number of cards, he is simply supposed to have lost the trick for which he has no card to play. _=PLAYING OUT OF TURN.
_=DRAWING CARDS.=_ All those who have made the ante good have the privilege of discarding, face downward, as many cards as they please, in the place of which they may draw others. The age has the first draw, and can take any number of cards from one to five, or he may _=stand pat=_, refusing to draw any. A player cannot receive from the dealer more or less cards than he discards; so that if a person is allowed to play with a short hand, of four cards only, he will still have only four cards after the draw. If his hand was foul, it will remain so after the draw. In drawing, a player may keep or discard what cards he pleases. There is no rule to prevent his throwing away a pair of aces and keeping three clubs if he is so inclined; but the general practice is for the player to retain whatever pairs or triplets he may have, and to draw to them. Four cards of a straight or a flush may be drawn to in the same way, and some make a practice of drawing to one or two high cards, such as an ace and a king, when they have no other chance. Some hands offer opportunities to vary the draw. For instance: A player has dealt to him a small pair; but finds he has also four cards of a straight.
Pick it up. Hop, not touching lines, from No. 1 to No. 4, and out. Throw stone into No. 2. Do as before. And so successively into Nos. 3 and 4. Next balance stone on shoe, then on the palm of hand, then on the back of hand, then on the head, then on the shoulder, then on the eye (tilt head back to keep it from falling).
2.] Cockertie-hooie This game consists simply of one boy mounting on the neck of another, putting a leg over each shoulder and down his breast. The boy that carries takes firm hold of the legs of the one on his neck, and sets off at a trot, and runs hither and thither till he becomes tired of his burden. The bigger the one is who carries, the more is in the enjoyment to the one carried.--Keith (Rev. W. Gregor). See Cock s-headling. Cockle-bread Young wenches have a wanton sport, which they call moulding of Cocklebread; viz. they gett upon a Table-board, and then gather-up their knees and their coates with their hands as high as they can, and then they wabble to and fro with their Buttocks as if the[y] were kneading of Dowgh, and say these words, viz.
The exceptions are when he has nothing in the next suit, but has at least two certain tricks in the cross suit, and a probable trick in a plain suit. It is safer to make it next with a weak hand than to cross it on moderate strength, for the presumption is that neither the dealer nor his partner had a bower in the turn-down suit, and therefore have none in the next suit. Such being the case, it is very likely that one or both may be strong in the cross suits, and it is not considered good policy to cross the suit unless so strong in it as to be reasonably certain of three tricks. Some players invariably make it next, regardless of their hands, unless they can play alone in the cross suit. Such a habit exposes them to the common artifice of the dealer’s turning it down for a euchre. A dealer holding a bower and three cards of the next suit, will often turn it down, and trust to the eldest hand making it next, which will give the dealer four trumps instead of two. The eldest hand should be on his guard against this when the dealer’s side has 3 scored. The dealer’s partner, on the other hand, should cross the suit almost as invariably as the eldest hand should make it next; for if his partner cannot take up the trump, and the eldest hand cannot make it next, their hands must be weak, and if it is passed to the pone, he will probably turn out to have a lone hand. The best chance is to cross the suit, unless the player has three certain tricks in his own hand by making it next, such as five trumps to the ace, or four trumps and a plain-suit ace. With such cards he should play alone.
The number of favourable events is 1, which is our numerator, and the fraction is therefore ½, which always represents equality. Now for the successive events. Your man wins the first game, and they proceed to play another. What are the odds on Smith’s winning the second game? It is evident that they are exactly the same as if the first game had never been played, because there are still only two possible events, and one of them will be favourable to him. Suppose he wins that game, and the next, and the next, and so on until he has won nine games in succession, what are the odds against his winning the tenth also? Still exactly an even thing. But, says a spectator, Smith’s luck must change; because it is very improbable that he will win ten games in succession. The odds against such a thing are 1023 to 1, and the more he wins the more probable it is that he will lose the next game. This is what gamblers call the _=maturity of the chances=_, and it is one of the greatest fallacies ever entertained by intelligent men. Curiously enough, the men who believe that luck must change in some circumstances, also believe in betting on it to continue in others. When they are _=in the vein=_ they will “follow their luck” in perfect confidence that it will continue.
Bumper, a rubber of eight points at English Whist. Burnt Cards, cards which are turned face upward on the bottom of the pack, usually in banking games. Calling for Trumps, the ask for trumps. Cannon, (Am. carrom,) a count made at billiards by causing the cue ball to touch two object balls. Capot, F., winning all the tricks. Cards, the number of tricks over six at Whist, such as “two by cards.” The majority of cards at Cassino. Carrer, (se) to straddle the blind.
A miss counts one for the adversary; but if the player who makes a miss runs into a pocket or jumps off the table, his adversary counts 3. The secret of success in the English game is not in gathering shots or rail nursing, but in repeated position; that is, playing shots so that the object ball returns to its position, the cue ball falling into a pocket and being played again from an advantageous position in the D. If the red ball is left in a good position for a losing hazard in either of the side pockets, the player should place his own ball in such a position in the D that he can drive the red to the bottom cushion and back again, leaving himself another easy hazard in the side pockets. If the red is near a bottom pocket, and the player’s ball is in hands, the beginner will invariably leave the red ball in baulk, even if he makes the hazard. The reason is that he strikes with just force enough to reach the red and go into the pocket, and this force is just enough to drive the red about the same distance in the opposite direction, leaving it where the cue ball came from--in baulk. The English do not understand gathering shots, nursing, and cushion carroms so well as the Americans, and play chiefly for the winning and losing hazards. The objective point of the expert is the _=spot stroke=_, which consists in getting exactly behind the red ball when it is on its spot, and then driving it into the corner pocket, returning the cue ball to its position with a light draw shot. If the cue ball fails to come back exactly behind the red the position may be recovered in several ways, some of which are shown in the diagrams. [Illustration] No. 1 is the perfect position for the spot stroke; the dotted lines in the others show the course that must be followed by the cue ball to recover the initial position.
If you hit Barney s eyes like that, he s a Blind Tom for fair. Hardly, I sniffed. You ought to know that no respectable TK would lay a lift on a retina. I just squeezed off a couple of small arteries. He s back in business already, I d say. Had I mentioned the rustic _decor_ of the Sky Hi Club? When Las Vegas had deteriorated to the point where it would turn most stomachs, the better clubs migrated up among the tall pines, along the shores of Lake Tahoe. And in place of the dated chromium glitter of Vegas, they had reached way back to the Good old days for styling. The Sky Hi Club was typical. The outside was all hand-hewn logs. The inside had a low, rough-beamed ceiling, and a sure-enough genuine wood floor.
Thinking about them, they really added up to no more than hysterical sniffles, not enough to eat, and the pathetic evidence that there hadn t been any money for orthodonture. Fatten her up, straighten her teeth and--Talk about _religious_ rationalization! I snapped out of it. Maybe she could call the turn of dice. But I d be damned if she could call the turn of people. Let her try _me_. I sat up on the parapet, swinging to put my feet on the gravel of the root. So tonight you found the husband God s been going to give you? I asked. Yes, she said softly. And I m the one? Yes! Not that again! I growled, grabbing her thin shoulders and shaking her. Her glasses bobbled on her nose.
Clarke, in his _Travels in Russia_, 1810, p. 106, says: In all the villages and towns from Moscow to Woronetz, as in other parts of Russia, are seen boys, girls, and sometimes even old men, playing with the joint-bones of sheep. This game is called Dibbs by the English. It is of very remote antiquity; for I have seen it very beautifully represented on Grecian vases; particularly on a vase in the collection of the late Sir William Hamilton, where a female figure appeared most gracefully delineated kneeling upon one knee, with her right arm extended, the palm downwards, and the bones ranged along the back of her hand and arm. In this manner the Russians play the game. See Dalies, Fivestones. Hummie The game otherwise called Shinty. The shinty or hummie is played by a set of boys in two divisions who attempt to drive with curved sticks a ball, or what is more common, part of the vertebral bone of a sheep, in opposite directions (_Blackwood s Magazine_, August 1821, p. 36). If one of the adverse party happens to stand or run among his opponents, they call out Hummie, keep on your own side.
F. Foster. x Foster’s Common Sense in Whist, by R.F. Foster. * Foster’s Self-Playing Cards, by R.F. Foster. x Foster’s Duplicate Whist, by R.F.
_=37. The Antes.=_ There is neither age nor straddle in jack pots. Every one at the table must ante an equal amount. Any player may decline to ante, by saying: “I pass this jack;” and the dealer will give him no cards. _=38. Opening.=_ After the cards are dealt, each player in turn, beginning on the dealer’s left, may open the pot for any amount he pleases within the betting limit, provided he holds a pair of Jacks, or some hand better than a pair of Jacks. If he does not hold openers, or does not wish to open the pot with them, he must say: “I pass;” but must not abandon his hand, under penalty of paying five counters to the pool. _=39.