He then places a red counter in front of him, and chooses his partners, passing a red counter to each of them. These counters must be placed in front of the players to distinguish them as belonging to the bidder’s side; but the players make no changes in their respective positions at the table. Each player should bid on the possibilities of his hand, however small, so as to guide the others in their selection of partners. _=Partners.=_ If the bidder has proposed to take not more than _=five=_ tricks out of the seven possible, he chooses two partners, and these three play against the remaining four. If he has bid to make _=six=_ or _=seven=_ tricks he chooses three partners, and these four play against the remaining three. Partners cannot refuse to play. _=Playing Alone.=_ Should a player think he can take all seven tricks without any partners, he may bid _=ten=_, which would outrank a bid of seven; but such a bid must be made before seeing the widow. If a player thinks he can win all seven tricks without either widow or partners, he may bid _=twenty=_, which is the highest bid possible.
A player about to adjust a man must give due notice by saying, “J’adoube.” A man having been properly played to a certain point and quitted, must remain there. _=12.=_ The numbers on both dice must be played if possible. If there are two ways to play, one of which will employ the numbers on both dice, the other only one of them, the former must be played. If either, but only one, of the two numbers thrown can be played, the larger of the two must be selected. _=13.=_ If a player throws off men before all his men are at home, the men so thrown off must be placed on the bar, and re-entered in the adversary’s home table, just as if they had been captured in the course of play. The same penalty attaches to throwing off men while one is on the bar. RUSSIAN BACKGAMMON.
The cards he does not take, if any, are turned down again, and are placed with his discards, forming a stock of four cards, which must not be seen or touched until the last card is played, when it becomes the property of the side that wins the last trick, and any counting cards it may contain are reckoned for that side. _=Playing.=_ The discards settled, the eldest hand leads any card he pleases, and the others must follow suit if they can, but no one is obliged to win a trick if he has a smaller card of the suit led, and does not want the lead. The two adversaries of the single player do their best to get him between them, and combine their forces to prevent him from winning tricks that contain counting cards, especially Aces. Whatever tricks they win are placed together, and the counting cards contained in them reckon for their joint account. The tricks have no value as such, except the last. _=Showing.=_ The winner of the last trick takes the stock, and each side then turns over its cards and counts the total value of the points won. The lower score is deducted from the higher, and the difference is the value of the game. If all 35 points are won by either side, they count double, 70.
If it were ranked, like other poker hands, by the difficulty of getting it, a blaze should beat a full hand. All these hands are improperly placed in the scale of poker values, as will be seen by comparing the odds against them. In any games to which these eccentric hands are admitted, the rank of all the combinations would be as follows, if poker principles were followed throughout:-- DENOMINATION. ODDS AGAINST. One pair 1¼ to 1 Two pairs 20 to 1 Three of a kind 46 to 1 Sequence or straight 254 to 1 Skip or Dutch straight 423 to 1 Flush 508 to 1 Tiger [Big or Little Dog] 636 to 1 Full hand 693 to 1 Round-the-corner straight 848 to 1 Blaze 3008 to 1 Four of a kind 4164 to 1 Straight flush 72192 to 1 Royal Flush [Ace high] 649739 to 1 When the true rank of these eccentric hands is not allowed, local custom must decide what they will beat. _=JOKER POKER=_, or _=MISTIGRIS=_. It is not uncommon to leave the joker, or blank card, in the pack. The player to whom this card is dealt may call it anything he pleases. If he has a pair of aces, and the joker, he may call them three aces. If he has four clubs, and the joker, he may call it a flush; or he may make the joker fill out a straight.
Accordingly, partly to get cover from our two central guns and partly to outflank us, he sent the whole of his left wing to the left of Firely Church, where, except for the gun, it became almost a negligible quantity. The gun came out between the church and the wood into a position from which it did a considerable amount of mischief to the infantry on our right, and nearly drove our rightmost gun in upon its supports. Meanwhile, Red s two guns on his right came forward to Hook s Farm, rather badly supported by his infantry. Once they got into position there I perceived that we should be done for, and accordingly I rushed every available man forward in a vigorous counter attack, and my own two guns came lumbering up to the farmhouse corners, and got into the wedge of shelter close behind the house before his could open fire. His fire met my advance, littering the gentle grass slope with dead, and then, hot behind the storm of shell, and even as my cavalry gathered to charge his guns, he charged mine. I was amazed beyond measure at that rush, knowing his sabres to be slightly outnumbered by mine. In another moment all the level space round the farmhouse was a whirling storm of slashing cavalry, and then we found ourselves still holding on, with half a dozen prisoners, and the farmyard a perfect shambles of horses and men. The melee was over. His charge had failed, and, after a brief breathing--space for my shot--torn infantry to come up, I led on the counter attack. It was brilliantly successful; a hard five minutes with bayonet and sabre, and his right gun was in our hands and his central one in jeopardy.
The Witch tries to catch one, and if successful that child becomes Witch next time.--A. B. Gomme. A probable explanation of this game is that it illustrates some of the practices and customs connected with fire-worship and the worship of the hearth, and that the pot is a magical one, and would only boil over when something wrong had occurred and the Mother s presence was necessary. The pot boils over directly a child is taken away, and appears to cease doing this when the Mother comes in. It is remarkable, too, that the Witch should want to borrow a light from the fire; the objection to the giving of fire out of the house is a well-known and widely-diffused superstition, the possession of a brand from the house-fire giving power to the possessor over the inmates of a house. The mention of the spitting on the hearth in the Sheffield version, and dirtying the hearth in the London version, give confirmation to the theory that the desecration of the fire or hearth is the cause of the pot boiling over, and that the spirit of the hearth or fire is offended at the sacrilege. The Witch, too, may be unable to get possession of a child until she has something belonging to the house. The journey of the Mother to the Witch s house in search of her children, the obstacles put in her path, and the mention of the spilling of blood on the threshold, are incidents which have great significance.
The pawns are designated by the pieces in front of which they stand; King’s Pawn; Queen’s Knight’s Pawn, etc. The comparative _=value of the pieces=_ changes a little in the course of play, the Rooks especially not being so valuable early in the game. Authorities differ a little as to the exact value of the pieces, but if we take the Pawn as a unit, the fighting value of the others will be about as follows:-- A Knight is worth 3½ Pawns. A Bishop is worth 5¼ Pawns. A Rook is worth 9½ Pawns. A Queen is worth 15 Pawns. A King is worth 4½ Pawns. _=THE MOVES.=_ Each piece has a movement peculiar to itself, and, with the exception of the Pawns, any piece can capture and remove from the board any opposing piece which it finds in its line of movement. The captured piece is not jumped over, but the capturing piece simply occupies the square on which the captured piece stood.
--Robinson s _Glossary_. Blind Palmie or Pawmie One of the names given to the game of Blindman s Buff. --Jamieson. Blind Sim Suffolk name for Blind Man s Buff. --Forby s _Vocabulary of East Anglia_. Block, Haimmer (Hammer), and Nail This is a boys game, and requires seven players. One boy, the Block, goes down on all fours; another, the Nail, does the same behind the Block, with his head close to his _a posteriori_ part. A third boy, the Hammer, lies down on his back behind the two. Of the remaining four boys one stations himself at each leg and one at each arm of the Hammer, and he is thus lifted. He is swung backwards and forwards three times in this position by the four, who keep repeating Once, twice, thrice.
Any number of boys may play in the game. After the last player has taken his leap over all the frogs successively, frog No. 1 has his turn and leaps over his companions, taking his place as the last in the line of frogs. Then No. 2 follows suit, and so on, the whole line of players in course of time covering a good distance.--London (G. L. Gomme). Leap-frog is known in Cornwall as Leap the Long-mare (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 60), and in Antrim and Down as Leap the Bullock (Patterson s _Glossary_).
_=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ In the six-card game the hand is more valuable than the crib, because you know what it contains, whereas the crib is largely speculative. In the five-card game, in which there are only three cards in the hand and four in the crib, it is usual to sacrifice the hand very largely for the possibilities of the crib, because of the much larger scores that can be made with five cards, the starter and four in the crib. _=Baulking.=_ In both games it is the duty of the pone to baulk the dealer’s crib as much as possible, by laying out cards which are very unlikely to be worth anything, either in making fifteens or in filling up sequences. Pairs it is impossible to provide against, and the chance of making a flush is remote, but should be avoided if there is any choice. The best baulk is a King and Nine; tenth cards and Aces are also very good cards to lay out. Cards which are at least two pips apart, called _=wide cards=_, are better than _=close cards=_, as the latter may form sequences. Fives are very bad discards, and so are any cards that form a five or a fifteen. _=The Crib.
-+---+-.-+---+-.-+ ] In order to ascertain if you have the move when it is your turn to play, add together all the men, both black and white, in one of the systems, taking no notice of those in the other system, and if the number is _=odd=_, you have the move. In Diagram No. 10, for instance, if you have the black men, and it is your turn to play, you will find three men on your own system, and therefore you have the move, and must win by playing 10-15. When White moves, there will again be an odd number of men on your system, and you will still have the move, and he must sacrifice both his men. [Illustration: No. 10. +-.-+---+-.
It s not TK that s robbing you. Oh, ridiculous, Rose said, showing his teeth. Gambling is our business, Lefty. Don t you think we could spot any of the ordinary kinds of cross-roading? This is TK, and it has real voltage. We can t spot it. We ve got to have Psi power do it for us. Maybe, I agreed. But no TK can do it if Smythe can t. Have you tried a PC? Simonetti grabbed a piece of the heavens in rage. No! he yelled in his loud whisper.
--Barnes (_Dorset Glossary_). Magic Whistle All the players but three sit on chairs, or stand in two long rows facing each other. One player sits at one end of the two rows as president; another player is then introduced into the room by the third player, who leads him up between the two rows. He is then told to kneel before the one sitting at the end of the row of players. When he kneels any ridiculous words or formula can be said by the presiding boy, and then he and those players who are nearest to the kneeling boy rub his back with their hands for two or three minutes. While they are doing this the boy who led the victim up to the president fastens a string, to which is attached a small whistle, to the victim s coat or jacket. It must be fastened in such a way that the whistle hangs loosely, and will not knock against his back. The whistle is then blown by the player who attached it, and the kneeling boy is told to rise and search for the Magic Whistle. The players who are seated in the chairs must all hold their hands in such a way that the victim suspects it is in their possession, and proceeds to search. The whistle must be blown as often as possible, and in all directions, by those players only who can do so without the victim being able to either see or feel that he is carrying the whistle with him.
In some versions (Shropshire and London) the player who is selected for Nuts is always captured by the one sent to fetch her. Some Barnes children also say that this is the proper way to play. When boys and girls play the boys are always sent to fetch away the girls. In Sheffield (a version collected by Mr. S. O. Addy) a boy is chosen to fetch the girl away; and in the Earls Heaton version the line runs, We ll have a girl for nuts in May. (_e_) There is some analogy in the game to marriage by capture, and to the marriage customs practised at May Day festivals and gatherings. For the evidence for marriage by capture in the game there is no element of love or courtship, though there is the obtaining possession of a member of an opposing party. But it differs from ordinary contest-games in the fact that one party does not wage war against another party for possession of a particular piece of ground, but individual against individual for the possession of an individual.
” By then playing his double ace, B would have made certain of domino next time by playing the 6-3, for even if A could play to the 3, he could not shut B out of the ace, and B’s 5-1 would make, him domino, winning 17 points. The Block Game is sometimes played 50 or 100 points up, and at the end the winner takes the stakes, if any, or settles at so much a point for the difference between the scores. In the _=Four-handed Block Game=_ the players cut for partners, the two lowest playing against the two highest, and the lowest cut having the first set. Each player draws four bones, and the play goes round from right to left. When any player is blocked, and says “go,” the one on his left must play or say “go,” also. The game is at an end when one player gets rid of all his dominoes, or all four players are blocked. The pips remaining in the hands of the partners are then reckoned, and the side having the lower number wins the difference. Another variation is for each to play for himself, but instead of playing only one domino at a time in each round, a player may go on as long as he can follow suit to either end of the line. _=DRAW GAME.=_ In this variation of the Block Game, each player has the option of drawing any number of dominoes from the bone-yard except the last two, which must always remain in stock.
MORELLES, OR NINE MEN’S MORRIS. This game, sometimes called _=The Mill=_, is played on a board ruled off into compartments, as follows: [Illustration: +----------+----------+ | | | | +------+------+ | | | | | | | | +--+--+ | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +---+---+ | | | | | | | | +--+--+ | | | | | | | | +------+------+ | | | | +----------+----------+ ] Each player has nine men, of distinguishable colours. They draw for first move, and each in turn places a man on any one of the corners or intersections of the lines. As soon as either player gets three men in line, he can remove from the board any one of his adversaries’ pieces that he pleases, provided the piece is not one of three that are already in a line. If there are no other men on the board, he can remove one of a line. After entering all nine of his men, the player can shift them about, one at a time, but no man can be moved farther than to the adjoining corner or intersection, and that must be vacant. As soon as a new line is formed in this way, an adverse man can be lifted. It is possible for one man to move back and forth in such a manner as to continually form and reform a line of three. When one player has only three men left, he can jump any of them to any vacant space on the board, no matter how far off. As soon as either player is reduced to two men, the game is over and he has lost.
Emslie says the game is known at Beddgelert as Horses, Wild Horses, he believes, but is not quite certain. Northall (_Rhymes_, p. 401) describes a game very similar to this under Buck, in which the rhyme and method of play is the same as in that game. He continues, This is closely allied to a game called in Warwickshire Jack upon the Mopstick. But in this there is no guessing. The leaping party must maintain their position whilst their leader says-- Jack upon the mopstick, One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Count em off again. Bunting Name for Tip-cat. --Cole s _S. W. Lincolnshire_ Glossary.
” The player holding the third King would say: “There’s the best of all the three,” and the holder of the fourth would then triumphantly exclaim: “And there’s the Earl of Coventry.” The fortunate holder of the Earl of Coventry in each round has the privilege of leading a card for the next trick, and the first player to get rid of all his cards wins one counter from the others for every card they hold. The words, “Snip, Snap, Snorem,” may be substituted for the foregoing rhymes if time is short. _=Jig=_ is a variation of Earl of Coventry in which the next higher in sequence and suit must be played, if the player has it, until four cards are shown. The one who lays down the last of the sequence of four cards starts a fresh sequence, and the winner is the one who can first get rid of all the cards originally dealt him. All the others then pay him a counter for each card they have left. COMMIT. The etymology of this word has been quite overlooked by those who have described the game. The word is from the French, cométe, a comet; but instead of being an equivalent in English, it is simply a phonetic equivalent; Commit, instead of Comet. Tenac informs us that the game was invented during the appearance of Halley’s comet; and the idea of the game is that of a string of cards forming a tail to the one first played, a feature which is common to quite a number of the older games of cards.
Never bid a hand twice, unless its strength is greater than indicated by the first bid. Having bid a club on ace king alone, that is the end of it. If you have an outside ace, which the club bid did not show, you can assist your partner once on that trick, but no more. Having assisted your partner’s suit bid with three tricks, do not bid again unless you have a fourth trick in hand, but if he rebids his suit without waiting for you, you may assist on one trick, especially a high honour in trumps. Do not double unless you have a certainty and are not afraid of a shift. Do not give up a fair chance for going game yourself just to double an adversary, unless you are sure of 200 in penalties at least, and do not give up the rubber game for less than 300. Always remember that a double may enable an adversary to go game, and will often show the declarer which hand to finesse against. _=Free Doubles=_ are opportunities to double when the declarer will go game anyhow if he makes his contract, but they should never be made if there is any chance that he may shift. _=Free Bids=_ are anything better than a spade by the dealer, or anything that over-calls a previous bid, because no one is forced to bid on the first round. A _=Shout=_ is a bid that is a trick more than necessary to over-call the previous bid.
SOLO WHIST FOR THREE PLAYERS. The best arrangement is to play with a pack of forty cards, deleting the 2, 3, and 4 of each suit. The last card is turned up to determine the trump, but it is not used in play. There is no proposal and acceptance, solo being the lowest call. If all three players pass, the trump card is turned down, and each player in turn has the option of calling a six-trick abundance, naming his own trump suit. In some places it is the custom to allow the players to over-call each other, after the trump is turned down, each increasing the number of tricks he proposes to take. A misère over-calls eight tricks. _=Kimberly Solo=_ is for four players, without any proposal and acceptance, solo being the lowest call. If all pass, a six-trick solo with a different trump is allowed. TEXT BOOKS.
It sometimes happens that the player after having touched his ball gives a second stroke, then the balls remain where they stop, or are replaced as nearly as possible in their former position at the option of his opponent. _=8.=_ When the cue-ball is very near another, the player shall not play without warning his adversary that they do not touch, and giving him sufficient time to satisfy himself on that point. _=9.=_ When the cue-ball is in contact with another, the balls are spotted and the player plays with his ball in hand. _=10.=_ Playing with the wrong ball is foul. However, should the player using the wrong ball play more than one shot with it, he shall be entitled to his score just the same as if he had played with his own; as soon as his hand is out, the white balls must change places, and the game proceed as usual. ON FOUL STROKES.--It is a foul, and no count can be made: _=1.
He would neither abandon his lost gun nor adequately attack it. He sent forward a feeble little infantry attack, that we cut up with the utmost ease, taking several prisoners, made a disastrous demonstration from the church, and then fell back altogether from the gentle hill on which Hook Farm is situated to a position beside and behind an exposed cottage on the level. I at once opened out into a long crescent, with a gun at either horn, whose crossfire completely destroyed his chances of retreat from this ill-chosen last stand, and there presently we disabled his second gun. I now turned my attention to his still largely unbroken right, from which a gun had maintained a galling fire on us throughout the fight. I might still have had some stiff work getting an attack home to the church, but Red had had enough of it, and now decided to relieve me of any further exertion by a precipitate retreat. My gun to the right of Hook s Farm killed three of his flying men, but my cavalry were too badly cut up for an effective pursuit, and he got away to the extreme left of his original positions with about 6 infantry-men, 4 cavalry, and 1 gun. He went none too soon. Had he stayed, it would have been only a question of time before we shot him to pieces and finished him altogether. So far, and a little vaingloriously, the general. Let me now shrug my shoulders and shake him off, and go over this battle he describes a little more exactly with the help of the photographs.
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_=Safford’s System=_ for arranging the players is to have indicator cards on the tables:-- [Illustration: N N +---------+ +---------+ | 4 | | 3 | W|8 7|E W|1 5|E | 6 | | 2 | +---------+ +---------+ S S ] The players take their seats in any order for the first set; after which they go to the next higher number; 8 keeping his seat, and 7 going to 1. _=Scoring.=_ Each individual must keep his own score, adding up the total tricks taken in each set of four hands. These totals must then be compared with those of the player occupying the same position, N, S, E, or W, at the other table in the set; and it will save time in the end if these are tabulated at once, on a sheet prepared for the purpose. For instance: Let this be the arrangement of eight players in the first set:-- b f a 1 c Hands 1 to 4. e 2 g d h If _=a=_ and _=c=_ take 34 tricks E & W; _=e=_ and _=g=_ taking only 30 with the same cards, either _=a=_ and _=c=_ must have gained them, or _=e=_ and _=g=_ must have lost them. It is a waste of time to put down both losses and gains, and all that is necessary is to call the top score zero, and charge all players with the loss of as many tricks as their total is short of the top score. In this case we charge _=e=_ and _=g=_ with a loss of 4 each. It must be obvious that _=f=_ and _=h=_ have also made 4 more tricks than _=b=_ and _=d=_; and that the latter must be charged with a loss of 4 on the same hands that _=e=_ and _=g=_ lose on. We give as an illustration a sheet balanced in this way, showing the losses of the various players.
|garter. | | | 6.| -- | -- | -- | | 7.| -- | -- | -- | | 8.| -- | -- | -- | | 9.| -- | -- | -- | |10.| -- | -- | -- | |11.| -- | -- | -- | |12.| -- |One in a rush and two |One we go rush, two we| | | |in a bush. |go push.
Every brisque taken in should be scored at once by the player winning the trick; 10 points for an ace or Ten; 20 points if there are two such cards in the same trick. A player holding or drawing the _=Seven of trumps=_ has the privilege of exchanging it for the turn-up trump, and scoring 10 points at the same time; but he must make the exchange immediately after winning a trick, and before drawing his card from the stock. Should the turn-up card be a Seven, or one exchange have already been made, the exchange can still be made and scored. He cannot score the Seven and make a declaration at the same time. _=DECLARATIONS.=_ The combinations which may be announced and scored during the play of the hand are divided into three classes: Marriages and Sequences; Béziques; and Fours of a kind. Only one combination can be scored at a time, and it must be announced immediately after the player holding it has won a trick, and before he draws his card from the talon. If he draws without announcing, it is equivalent to saying he has no declaration to make. Having drawn his card, even if he has not looked at it, he cannot score any declaration until he wins another trick. The combinations and their values are as follows:-- CLASS A King and Queen of any plain suit, _=Marriage=_ 20 King and Queen of trumps, _=Royal Marriage=_ 40 Sequence of five highest trumps, _=Sequence=_ 250 CLASS B.
Hey Wully wine, and How Wully wine, I hope for hame ye ll no incline; Ye ll better light, and stay a night, And I ll gie thee a lady fine. Wha will ye gie, if I wi ye bide, To be my bonny blooming bride, And lie down lovely by my side? I ll gie thee Kate o Dinglebell, A bonny body like yersell. I ll stick her up in the pear-tree Sweet and meek, and sae is she: I lo ed her ance, but she s no for me, Yet I thank ye for your courtesy. I ll gie thee Rozie o the Cleugh, I m sure she ll please thee weel eneugh. Up wi her on the bane dyke, She ll be rotten or I ll be ripe: She s made for some ither, and no me, Yet I thank ye for your courtesy. Then I ll gie ye Nell o sweet Sprinkell, Owre Galloway she bears the bell. I ll set her up in my bed-head, And feed her wi milk and bread; She s for nae ither, but jist for me, Sae I thank ye for your courtesy. --Mactaggart s _Gallovidian Encyclopædia_. II. I maun ride hame, I maun gang hame, And bide nae langer here; The road is lang, the mirk soon on, And howlets mak me fear.
_=OBJECT OF THE GAME.=_ As in all members of the whist family, the object in Bridge is to win tricks, the highest card played of the suit led winning, and trumps, if any, winning against all other suits. At the end of each hand the side that has won any tricks in excess of the book, scores them, after multiplying their number by the unit of value settled upon by the doubling, if any took place. As soon as either side reaches or passes 30, they win the game; but the hand must be played out, and all tricks taken must be counted. The total is written on the score-sheet; the score of the losers standing to their credit until the final accounting at the end of the rubber. _=RUBBERS.=_ Three games, of 30 points each, constitute a rubber; but if the first two are won by the same players, the third is not played. The side winning the majority of the games adds 100 (rubber) points to its score. _=SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAY.=_ The points which the beginner may profitably study in Bridge are chiefly in making the trump, and in the methods by which the hands of the partners are combined, so as to work together.