Winterblossom, 1875. THE EUCHRE FAMILY. This family embraces four of the best known and most popular games in the world, each of which has been considered the national game in its own country: Écarté in France; Napoleon in England; Spoil Five in Ireland; and Euchre in America. It has always been the custom to trace the origin of Euchre to a variety of Triomphe, or French Ruff, probably introduced to America by the French of Louisiana; and to claim Écarté as its cousin, and the French survivor of the parent game. In the opinion of the author, both the game and its name go to show that Euchre is of mixed stock, and probably originated in an attempt to play the ancient Irish game of Spoil Five with a piquet pack. “Euchre” is not a French word, but the meaning of it is identical with “Spoil Five”; both names signifying that the object of the game is to prevent the maker of the trump from getting three tricks. In the one game he is “spoiled;” in the other he is “euchred.” In the old game of Triomphe, in Écarté, and in the black suits in Spoil Five, the order of the court cards in plain suits is the same, the ace ranking below the Jack. But in Euchre the Jack ranks above the ace when the suit is trumps, exactly as it does in Spoil Five. In the latter game the five is the best trump; but as there is no five in a piquet pack, that trump was probably disregarded, leaving the Jack the best.
It is seldom right to lead trumps if the dealer has taken up the trump of his own accord; but an exception is usually made when the eldest hand holds three trumps, and two aces in plain suits. The best chance for a euchre is to exhaust the trumps, so as to make the aces good for tricks. If the pone has ordered up the trump, the eldest hand should lead trumps to him immediately; but the pone should not lead trumps to his partner if the eldest hand has ordered up at the bridge. If a bower is turned, the dealer’s partner should lead a small trump at the first opportunity. In playing against a lone hand the best cards in plain suits should always be led, trumps never. In playing alone, it is best to lead winning trumps as long as they last, so as to force discards, which will often leave intermediate cards in plain suits good for tricks. _=Second Hand.=_ Play the best card you have second hand, and cover everything led if you can. With King and another or Queen and another, it is usually best to put up the honour second hand, on a small card led. _=Trumping.
Chinnup. Chinny-mumps. Chock or Chock-hole. Chow. Chuck-farthing. Chuck-hole. Chucks. Church and Mice. Click. Click, Clock, Cluck.
, a cross ruff. DRIVE WHIST. There are several methods of playing Drive Whist; the most popular being to fill as many tables as possible with the players that present themselves, regardless of any order further than that partners should sit opposite each other. The players may select their own partners, or they may be determined by lot, according to the decision of the hostess. Straight whist is played; the cards being shuffled and cut afresh for every hand. Each deal is a game in itself. _=Drawing for Partners.=_ If there is an equal number of ladies and gentlemen, and the number is less than fifty-two, a sufficient number of red and black cards should be sorted out, and the ladies asked to draw from the red, the men from the black; those getting the same denominations being partners. For instance: 16 couples present themselves for play. The thirteen Hearts and the A 2 3 of Diamonds should be put into one hat for the ladies; the thirteen Clubs, and A 2 3 of Spades being put into another for the men.
--_Folk-lore Journal_, vii. 233. See Chickidy Hand, Hunt the Staigie, King Cæsar, Whiddy. Lang Larence That is, Long Lawrence, an instrument marked with signs, a sort of teetotum. A Long Lawrence is about three inches long, something like a short ruler with eight sides; occasionally they have but four. On one side are ten x s, or crosses, forming a kind of lattice-work; on the next, to the left, three double cuts, or strokes, passing straight across in the direction of the breadth; on the third, a zig-zag of three strokes one way, and two or three the other, forming a W, with an additional stroke or a triple V; on the fourth, three single bars, one at each end and one in the middle, as in No. 2, where they are doubled; then the four devices are repeated in the same order. The game, formerly popular at Christmas, can be played by any number of persons. Each has a bank of pins or other small matters. A pool is formed; then in turn each rolls the Long Lawrence.
The Five of trumps, or any higher, will win the Left Pedro; but the Left Pedro will win the Four of trumps, or any lower. The winner of the trick gathers it in, turning it face down, and leads for the next trick, and so on, until all six tricks have been played. The tricks themselves have no value, and need not be kept separate. The last trick turned and quitted may be seen, but no other. _=Irregularities in Playing.=_ If, during the play of a hand, any person is found to have too many cards, his hand is foul, and neither he nor his partner can score any points for that deal, but they may play the hand out to prevent the adversaries from scoring everything. If he has too few cards there is no penalty. If a player leads out of turn, and the three others follow him, the trick stands good. If all have not followed the false lead, their cards must be taken back, but only the leader’s card is liable to be called. If it was the turn of the partner of the player in error to lead, the adversary on his right may call upon him to lead or not to lead a trump; but he cannot specify the plain suit.
| | 1st Round.| 2nd Round.| 3rd Round.| | A | B | C | +-----------+-----------+-----------+ +----+----+----+ | A won 33 | A lost 16 | C lost 36 | | +33| +40| +55| | C won 55 | B won 40 | B won 48 | | +17| +88| +67| | C won 12 | A lost 24 | C lost 12 | | -7| | +31| | | | | +----+ +----+ | | | | | | | +19| At the end of the second round a line was drawn under A’s account, which then contained three items; and after the first game in the third round a line was drawn under C’s account. If we suppose the game to be stopped at this point, the scores would be balanced as follows: We take the three scores and bring them down on one line. We draw a line under them, and proceed as follows: First we take A, who has lost 7 to B, and from whom B has also won 88. This gives us 95 minus for A and 95 plus for B. We then compare A and C, and find that A owes C 26; put down as minus for A, plus for C. We now compare B and C, and find that B wins the difference, which is 69 points; put down plus for B, minus for C. Then we add up to see that the scores balance.
Y. Evening Telegram, the N.Y. Globe, the N.Y. Evening Mail, and the Chicago Journal. A number of the weekly magazines offer similar competitions in England, but as a rule the problems in that country are of very poor quality. About 1910 it became the fashion not to play spades, it being considered a waste of time to play a hand for such a small amount as 2 points a trick, so the dealer was allowed to score 2 for the odd and 4 for honours, regardless of how the cards were distributed, the hand being abandoned. The objection to this practice was that many hands were worth much more than 2 points, and in some cases the spade make would have gone game at the score. This led to the practice of playing “royal spades,” which were played at 10 and then at 9 a trick, sometimes with a penalty of 20 if the declarer failed to make the odd.
He may, if he chooses, raise the ante any further amount within the betting limit. All those following him must meet the total sum put up by any individual player, increase it, or pass out. In this respect Brag is precisely similar to the betting after the draw at Poker. If no one will see the dealer’s ante, he must be paid one white counter by each of the other players, and the deal passes to the left. Should any player bet an amount which no other player will meet, he takes the pool without showing his hand. Should a call be made, all the hands must be shown, and the best brag hand wins. Pairs and triplets are the only combinations of any value, and of course three aces is the best hand; two aces and the club Jack being the next best. If none of the hands shown contains either a natural pair or a bragger, the highest card wins, the ace ranking above the King. In case of equal natural pairs, the highest card outside the pair wins. Should the pairs tied both be made with a bragger, the highest bragger wins.
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.:-- My Dame is sick and gonne to bed, And I le go mowld my cockle-bread. In Oxfordshire the maids, when they have put themselves into the fit posture, say thus:-- My granny is sick, and now is dead, And wee l goe mould some cockle-bread. Up with my heels, and down with my head, And this is the way to mould cocklebread. --Aubrey s _Remains_, pp. 43, 44. To make Barley bread (in other districts, Cockley bread ) this rhyme is used in West Cornwall:-- Mother has called, mother has said, Make haste home, and make barley bread.
Blue Peter, the ask for trumps. Blind, a bet made before seeing the cards. Blinden, G., a widow, an extra hand dealt at any game. Board’s the Play, a card once played cannot be taken back. Bobtail, a four-card flush or straight, which is accompanied by a worthless card. Bone-yard, the stock at dominoes. Book, the first six tricks taken by either side at Whist which do not count toward game. Both Ends against the Middle, a system of trimming cards for dealing a brace game of Faro. Brace Game, a conspiracy between the dealer and the case-keeper at Faro, so that cards improperly taken from the dealing box shall be properly marked by the case-keeper.
=_ Should the dealer give any player more or fewer cards than he asks for, and the player discover the error before taking them up or seeing any of them, the dealer must withdraw the surplus card, and place it on the top of the pack. Should the dealer give a player fewer cards than he asks for, he must supply the deficiency when his attention is called to it, without waiting to supply the other players. Should the dealer give cards to any player out of his proper turn, he may correct the error if none of the cards have been seen; not otherwise. _=26. The Last Card=_ of the pack must not be dealt. When only two cards remain, and more than one is asked for, they must be mixed with the discards and abandoned hands, and the whole shuffled together, and presented to the pone to be cut. Discards of those who have yet to draw must not be gathered. _=27.=_ After the cards have been delivered by the dealer, no player has the right to be informed how many cards any player drew; and any person, bystander or player, volunteering the information, except the player himself, may be called upon to pay to the player against whom he informs an amount equal to that then in the pool. Any player who has made good the ante and drawn cards may, before making a bet, ask how many cards the dealer drew, and the dealer must inform him.
The full number of tricks bid had to be made, and if they were not made, the adversaries scored in the honour column for penalties, the penalty being always the same, regardless of the trump suit. The great disparity in the values of the suits as then played practically confined the bidding to the hearts and royal spades. This soon brought about another change, which was to raise the values of all the suits except spades and to cut down the no-trumper. This was done in 1912, and made it possible for any suit to go game on the hand. All the well known writers on whist and bridge came out with text-books on auction, and the newspapers took up the subject in weekly articles. Although to many the game now seemed perfect, there were those that felt the helplessness of weak hands to offer any defence in the bidding against a run of no-trumpers or hearts and royals. To remedy this, F.C. Thwaites of the Milwaukee Whist Club suggested the introduction of the nullo. This was a bid to lose tricks, at no trump only, and its value was to be minus 10, that is, it was to be outranked only by a no-trumper to win.
[Illustration: N N N N +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ | 6 | | 3 | | f | | c | W|a 1 2|E W|d 2 8|E W|1 3 b|E W|4 4 h|E | g | | e | | 6 | | 5 | +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ S S S S ] One hand is dealt at each table, and overplayed at each of the others. A different point of the compass should deal at each table, in order to equalise the lead. _=Scoring.=_ The score of each four hands should be added up by each individual player, and the results tabulated at the end of every four hands, in the manner described for eight individuals. The winner is the player who loses the fewest tricks. This is the only known system for deciding whether or not a man can play whist better than his wife. _=PROGRESSIVE DUPLICATE WHIST=_ is the generic name by which those systems of duplicate are known in which the purpose is to have as many as possible of the players meet one another during the progress of the match. Most of the systems we have been describing belong to this class. * * * * * There are at present only two works on Duplicate Whist; but a number of articles on the subject may be found in “_Whist_.” Duplicate Whist; by John T.
If it is not the intention to return the suit at once, the lowest of the sequence should be played. _=PLAYING TO THE SCORE.=_ This is a most important element, and there is no surer indication of a careless or weak player than his inattention to the score. One cannot be too early impressed with the importance of saving the game before trying to win it; although great risks may be taken to win a game that cannot be lost that hand. Never risk a sure contract in the hope of making more; unless the two will win the game, and the odd trick will not win it. Never risk a trick that will save the game in the hope of winning more, and always set a contract while you can. _=DISCARDING.=_ This is one of the still unsettled questions of bridge tactics, some believing in discarding the weak suit always; others the strong suit always, and others one or the other according to the declaration. Against a trump declaration almost every one agrees that it is best to discard the best suit, so that if your partner gets in before you do, he may have something to guide him as to what your best chance is for any more tricks. Against no-trumpers, the majority of players hug every possible trick in their long suit and discard their weak suits, on the ground that it is folly to throw away cards that might win tricks.
This permits all sorts of complicated imitations of reality that are impossible to our parlour and playroom Little Wars. We can consider transport, supply, ammunition, and the moral effect of cavalry impact, and of uphill and downhill movements. We can also bring in the spade and entrenchment, and give scope to the Royal Engineers. But before I write anything of Colonel Sykes suggestions about these, let me say a word or two about Kriegspiel country. The country for Kriegspiel should be made up, I think, of heavy blocks or boxes of wood about 3 x 3 x 1/2 feet, and curved pieces (with a rounded outline and a chord of three feet, or shaped like right-angled triangles with an incurved hypotenuse and two straight sides of 3 feet) can easily be contrived to round off corners and salient angles. These blocks can be bored to take trees, etc., exactly as the boards in Little Wars are bored, and with them a very passable model of any particular country can be built up from a contoured Ordnance map. Houses may be made very cheaply by shaping a long piece of wood into a house-like section and sawing it up. There will always be someone who will touch up and paint and stick windows on to and generally adorn and individualise such houses, which are, of course, the stabler the heavier the wood used. The rest of the country as in Little Wars.
| -- | -- | -- | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ |No.| Enborne. | Cork. | Crockham Hill. | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ | 1.| -- | -- | -- | | 2.| -- | -- | -- | | 3.| -- | -- | -- | | 4.| -- | -- | -- | | 5.| -- |L.
B knows that if he wins the Ten of trumps, B and C can make only 59 points, because A will save his trump Ace. A, having failed to reach 61, loses a spade Solo without one; twice 11, or 22 points, which was the game he must have won to be as good as the offer of 18 which he refused. _=A GRAND.=_ B bids; both Vorhand and Hinterhand pass, and B announces a Grand, with the following cards:-- [Illustration: 🃛 🂫 🂻 🃑 🃁 🃊 🃎 🂡 🂭 🂩 ] The play is given in the margin. In a Grand the four Jacks are the only trumps. A has the first play, and as he leads through the player, he begins with his long suit, of which he knows that the Ace alone is out, and it may be in the skat. If the player has the Ace, C will probably trump it. If the player has not the Ace, it is just possible that he will not trump the Ten. C, leading up to the player, opens his short weak suit. At trick 3, C knows that A must have the Ten of hearts, or he would not fatten with the Ace.
If the dealer holds carte blanche, he does not declare it until the pone has discarded. _=DISCARDING.=_ The five cards on the top of the talon belong to the pone, and he may discard from his hand any number of cards from one to five, and replace them by an equal number from the top of the stock. 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.
_=20. Winning the Antes.=_ Should any player have put up an amount which no other player will equal, he takes whatever counters are then in the pool, without showing his hand, and the deal passes to the next player on the dealer’s left. Should only one player come in, and the age decline to make good his ante, the player who has come in wins the blind, unless jack pots are played. Should any player have straddled the blind, or raised the ante, there can be no jack pot. _=21. Making Jacks.=_ If no player will come in, it is a Natural Jack, and all the hands must be abandoned, each player putting up for the ensuing deal the amount agreed upon. If no one has straddled the blind, or raised the ante, and only one player has come in, the age may do one of four things: He may forfeit his blind; or he may make the ante good; or he may raise it; or he may demand that the single player who has come in shall take down his ante, the age putting up twice the amount agreed upon for jack pots; once for himself, and once for the player who came in. All the other players must then put up for the ensuing deal.
I. Draw a pail of water For my lady s daughter; My father s a king and my mother s a queen, My two little sisters are dressed in green, Stamping grass and parsley, Marigold leaves and daisies. One rush, two rush, Pray thee, fine lady, come under my bush. --Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, Games, cclxxxvii. II. Draw a pail of water, Send a lady a daughter; One o my rush, two o my rush, Please, young lady, creep under the briar bush. --Liphook, Hants (Miss Fowler). III. Draw, draw water, For my lady s daughter; One in a rush, Two in a bush, Pretty my lady, pop under the bush. --Berrington and Ellesmere (_Shropshire Folk-lore_, p.
Take the board and pieces, arrange them with the white men next you, and play over the following simple little game. Remember that the figures above the line are for the white men; those below for the black. P-K4 Kt-KB3 Kt-QB3 B-B4 1 ---- 2 ------ 3 ------ 4 ----- P-K4 P-Q3 P-KR3 B-Kt5 The third move made by Black accomplishes nothing, and is simply a waste of time. He should have continued by bringing his Knights into play. His fourth move is also a mistake; he should develop the Knights before the Bishops. KtxP BxKBP ch Kt-Q5 mate 5 ---- 6 -------- 7 ---------- BxQ K-K2 On his fifth move, Black jumps at the chance to win White’s Queen, but this is not of the slightest benefit to him, because the object of the game is not to win the Queen, but to mate the King. At the seventh move the beginner will see that the black King cannot move out of check, neither can he move into check by taking the Bishop. He has no piece that can capture the Knight that gives the check, and nothing can be interposed, so he is mated, and White wins. Here is another simple little game. Take the black pieces this time, but make the white men move first, of course.
_=10.=_ Misses may be given with the point or butt of the cue, and shall count one for each against the player; or if the player strike his ball with the cue more than once a penalty shall be enforced, and the non-striker may oblige him to play again, or may call on the marker to place the ball at the point it reached or would have reached when struck first. [The butt may also be used for playing a ball in hand up the table in order to strike a ball in baulk.] _=11.=_ Foul strokes do not score to the player, who must allow his opponent to follow on. They are made thus: By striking a ball twice with the cue; by touching with the hand, ball, or cue an opponent’s or the red ball; by playing with the wrong ball; by lifting both feet from the floor when playing; by playing at the striker’s own ball and displacing it ever so little (except while taking aim, when it shall be replaced, and he shall play again). _=12.=_ The penalty for a foul stroke is losing the lead, and, in case of a score, an opponent must have the red ball spotted, and himself break the balls, when the player who made the foul must follow suit, both playing from the D. If the foul is not claimed the player continues to score, if he can. _=13.
In reckoning the value of a game it is always safer to bid on playing “with” than “without” Matadores in a Solo or Tourné; because, although you may have a hand “without four,” you may find a Wenzel in the Skat, and if it is the club Jack you lose three multipliers at once. _=BIDDING.=_ The players must be familiar with the manner of computing the various games in order to bid with judgment, and without hesitation. Suppose you hold the three highest Matadores with an average hand, not strong enough in any one suit to play a Solo, but good enough for a Tourné. Your smallest possible game will be diamonds with three; which will be worth 5 multiplied by 4; 1 for the game, and 3 for the Matadores, 20 points. If you can get the game on any bid less than 20 you are absolutely safe, provided you can reach 61 in your tricks. But the opposition of another player may irritate you, [reizen,] and provoke you to bid 24, or even 28, in the hope of turning a heart or a spade. If you go beyond 20, and turn a diamond, you must either find the fourth Matadore in the Skat, or make your adversaries schneider, in order to secure another multiplier. If you fail, you lose 24, or 28, according to your bid. The great difficulty in Skat is to judge the value of a hand, so as neither to under nor overbid it, and also to get all out of it that it is worth.
J. W. Crombie says, The game of Hop-scotch was one of considerable antiquity, having been known in England for more than two centuries, and it was played all over Europe under different names. Signor Pitré s solar explanation of its origin appeared improbable to him, for not only was the evidence in its favour extremely weak, but it would require the original number of divisions in the figure to have been twelve instead of seven, which was the number indicated by a considerable body of evidence. It would seem more probable that the game at one time represented the progress of the soul from earth to heaven through various intermediate states, the name given to the last court being most frequently paradise or an equivalent, such as crown or glory, while the names of the other courts corresponded with the eschatological ideas prevalent in the early days of Christianity. Some such game existed before Christianity, and Mr. Crombie considered that it had been derived from several ancient games. Possibly the strange myths of the labyrinths might have had something to do with Hop-scotch, and a variety of the game played in England, under the name of Round Hop-scotch, was almost identical with a game described by Pliny as being played by the boys of his day. Mr. Crombie also said he believed that the early Christians adopted the general idea of the ancient game, but they not only converted it into an allegory of heaven, with Christian beliefs and Christian names; they Christianised the figure also; they abandoned the heathen labyrinth and replaced it by the form of the Basilicon, the early Christian church, dividing it into seven parts, as they believed heaven to be divided, and placing paradise, the inner sanctum of heaven, in the position of the altar, the inner sanctum of their earthly church.
--Roxton, St. Neots (Miss Lumley). VI. Walking up the green grass, A dust, a dust, a dust! We want a pretty maiden To walk along with us. We ll take this pretty maiden, We ll take her by the hand, She shall go to Derby, And Derby is the land! She shall have a duck, my dear, She shall have a drake, She shall have a nice young man A-fighting for her sake! Suppose this young man was to die, And leave the poor girl a widow; The bells would ring and we should sing, And all clap hands together! --Berrington (_Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 511). VII. Tripping up the green grass, Dusty, dusty, day, Come all ye pretty fair maids, Come and with me play. You shall have a duck, my dear, And you shall have a swan, And you shall have a nice young man A waiting for to come. Suppose he were to die And leave his wife a widow, Come all ye pretty fair maids, Come clap your hands together! Will you come? No! Naughty man, he won t come out, He won t come out, he won t come out, Naughty man, he won t come out, To help us in our dancing.