Every button cost a crown, Every lady turn around. Alligoshi, alligoshee, Turn the bridle over my knee. --Middleton (Burne s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 523). II. Barbara, Barbara, dressed in black, Silver buttons all up your back. Allee-go-shee, allee-go-shee, Turn the bridle over me. --Shepscombe, Gloucestershire (Miss Mendham). III. All-i-go-shee, alligoshee, Turn the bridle over my knee.
Earth had fallen so far away that he groped for several milliseconds before he found the Sun in the upper rear right-hand corner of his telepathic mind. That was a good jump, he thought. This way we ll get there in four or five skips. A few hundred miles outside the ship, the Lady May thought back at him, O warm, O generous, O gigantic man! O brave, O friendly, O tender and huge Partner! O wonderful with you, with you so good, good, good, warm, warm, now to fight, now to go, good with you.... He knew that she was not thinking words, that his mind took the clear amiable babble of her cat intellect and translated it into images which his own thinking could record and understand. Neither one of them was absorbed in the game of mutual greetings. He reached out far beyond her range of perception to see if there was anything near the ship.
For instance: there are six players. [Illustration: First cut is:-- 🂥 🃘 🃋 🂷 🃞 🃈 Second cut is:-- 🂴 🃒 ] The 5 and 7 have the first and second choice of seats; the 2 and 4 the third and fourth choice. _=PLAYERS’ POSITIONS.=_ There are only three distinctive positions at the poker table: the _=dealer=_; the _=pone=_; and the _=age=_. The pone is the player on the dealer’s right, and the age is the one on his left. _=STAKES.=_ Before play begins, or a card is dealt, the value of the counters must be decided, and a _=limit=_ must be agreed upon. There are four limitations in Draw Poker, and they govern or fix the maximum of the four principal stakes: the blind; the straddle; the ante; and the bet or raise. The _=blind=_ is the amount put up by the age before he sees anything, and should be limited to one white counter, as the blind is the smallest stake in the game. In some places it is permissible for the age to make the blind any amount he pleases within half the betting limit; but such a practice is a direct violation of the principles of the game, which require that the amount of the blind shall bear a fixed proportion to the limit of the betting.
In keeping a counting hand, much depends on whether it is good in itself, or needs a starter. In reckoning on the possibilities of the starter, it must never be forgotten that there are sixteen tenth cards in the pack, and that they are therefore the most probable starters of all. It is better to keep sequences open at both ends than those open in the middle. With two Sevens and two Eights, either a Six or a Nine will make your hand worth 24; but with two Eights and two Sixes, nothing but a Seven will improve your hand more than 4 points. Sequences are the best to keep, especially those of three cards with a duplicate. After them pairs royal are valuable, and next to them cards which will make a number of fives in various combinations, such as two Threes and two deuces. _=Leading.=_ There are two systems of playing, known as _=playing off=_, and _=playing on=_, and they are selected according to the player’s position in the score. Long experience has shown that in six-card Cribbage the average expectation of the non-dealer for his hand and play is 12 points; and for the dealer, in hand, crib, and play, is 17. This being so, each player having had a deal, their scores should be about 29.
Any pins knocked down through the dead wood remaining on the alleys cannot be placed to the credit of the player. Ten innings constitute a game. The maximum is 20. FOUR BACK. [Illustration: 4 3 2 1 O O O O ] The pins are spotted as above. Three balls (not exceeding 6 inches in size) are allotted to each inning. Each pin counts as spotted, and only one pin can be made at a time; if more than one pin is made with one ball, it is termed a break, and the player loses that inning and scores nothing. There are no penalties. The dead wood must be removed. Any pins knocked down through the dead wood remaining on the alley cannot be placed to the credit of the players.
His adversary then counts everything in his hand, whether his combinations were inferior or not. He also counts for what he wins in the tricks. If the elder hand’s declaration is admitted by the dealer to be good, it is good, even if the dealer afterward proves to have a better point, sequence, quatorze or trio. If any combination named by the elder hand is not actually his best, he cannot amend his declaration after the dealer has replied to it. This is in order to prevent a player from getting information to which he is not entitled. If he holds three Kings and three Tens, for instance, and announces the Tens in order to find out whether or not his adversary has three Queens or Jacks, and the dealer says: “Not good,” the three Kings are lost, and the dealer scores his own trios. It sometimes happens that in order to keep a good point or sequence, a player will discard one card of a quatorze originally dealt him; or one of a trio, of which he afterward draws the fourth. He can score only the trio, of course; but his adversary, having none of that denomination either in his hand or discards, knows that four were possible, and after playing a card he has a right to ask the suit of the card which was discarded. _=METHOD OF PLAYING.=_ The elder hand can lead any card he pleases, announcing the suit at the same time.
VIII. Pray, mother, pray, May I go out to play? No, daughter, no, daughter, Not every fine day. Why, mother, why? I shan t be gone long. Make a fine curtsey And glad git you gone.-- Wait for your sister. --Hurstmonceux, Sussex (Miss Chase). IX. Please, mother, please, mother, may I go out to play? No, child, no, child, tis such a cold day. Why, mother, why, mother, I won t stay long. Make three pretty curtseys and off you run.
_=PLAYERS.=_ Bézique is played by two persons, one of whom is known as the _=dealer=_, and the other as the _=pone=_. They cut for choice of seats and deal, the player cutting the highest card having the first choice, and electing whether or not to deal himself. In cutting, the cards rank as in play, and the ace is the highest. If a player exposes more than one card, he must cut again. _=DEALING.=_ The cards are thoroughly shuffled, and presented to the pone to be cut. At least five cards must be left in each packet. The cards are then dealt three at a time for the first round, two for the next, and three for the last, each player receiving eight cards. The seventeenth is then turned up for the trump.
That was what people called them. To ordinary people, there was nothing, nothing except the shiver of planoforming and the hammer blow of sudden death or the dark spastic note of lunacy descending into their minds. But to the telepaths, they were Dragons. In the fraction of a second between the telepaths awareness of a hostile something out in the black, hollow nothingness of space and the impact of a ferocious, ruinous psychic blow against all living things within the ship, the telepaths had sensed entities something like the Dragons of ancient human lore, beasts more clever than beasts, demons more tangible than demons, hungry vortices of aliveness and hate compounded by unknown means out of the thin tenuous matter between the stars. It took a surviving ship to bring back the news--a ship in which, by sheer chance, a telepath had a light beam ready, turning it out at the innocent dust so that, within the panorama of his mind, the Dragon dissolved into nothing at all and the other passengers, themselves non-telepathic, went about their way not realizing that their own immediate deaths had been averted. From then on, it was easy--almost. * * * * * Planoforming ships always carried telepaths. Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind. The pin-sets in turn were electronically geared into small dirigible light bombs. Light did it.
Fifty or a hundred points is the game. In counting out, the order of precedence is: High, Low, Jack, Ten (Game), Three, Five, Nine, Snoozer. CINCH, DOUBLE PEDRO, OR HIGH FIVE. This is now regarded as the most important variety of All Fours, and bids fair to supplant the parent game altogether. Properly speaking, Cinch is one of the pedro variations of Auction Pitch, the difference being that no one sells, and that there is added the always popular American feature of a draw to improve the hand. The derivation and meaning of the name, Cinch, seems to be very much misunderstood. Many persons assume it is simply a name for the Left Pedro, but such is not the case. Cinch is a Mexican word for a strong saddle-girth, and when used as a verb it refers to the manner of adjusting the girth on a bucking broncho so that no amount of kicking will get him free. The word is used in this sense to describe one of the principal tactics of the card game, which is to “cinch” certain tricks, so that the adversary cannot possibly get either of the Pedroes free. _=CARDS.
This distinction is important, and may be remembered by observing that the number of letters in the words _=in=_ and _=out=_ are two and three respectively. In setting up the men the inner table is always placed _=toward the light=_, whether it be a window or the gas. Each player must always have the majority of his men, five and three, on the side nearer him; and the minority, five and two, on the side farther from him. The side of the _=inner table=_ which is nearer the player will always be his _=home table=_. In all the illustrations in this work you are supposed to be playing with the black side next you, and with your inner or home table on your _=left=_ hand. The raised portion or hinge of the board, which divides the inner from the outer tables, is known as the _bar_, and the points, or flèches, in each player’s home table are numbered from 1 to 6, reckoning from the outer edge toward the bar. These six points are spoken of as the Ace, Deuce, Trey, Four, Five and Six points respectively, and they correspond to the six faces on a single die. The points in the outer tables have no numbers, but the one next the bar on each side is called the _=bar point=_. In giving the moves of the men in a game, the names of the six points in the home tables are disregarded, and each player, Black and White, numbers the board from 1 to 24, starting from the square on which he has only two men. The notation for the black moves would be as shown in the margin; that for white being exactly opposite, of course.
If either of the adversaries also has more or less than his correct number, there must be a new deal. If any player has a surplus card by reason of an omission to play to a trick, his adversaries can exercise the foregoing privilege only after he has played to the trick following the one in which such omission occurred. In _=Boston=_, if at any time it is discovered that a player opposed to the bidder has _=less=_ than his proper number of cards, whether through the fault of the dealer, or through having played more than one card to a trick, he and his partners must each pay the bidder for his bid and all over-tricks. If the bidder has _=less=_ than his proper number of cards, he is put in for one trick at least, and his adversaries may demand the hand to be played out to put him in for over-tricks. In Misère Partout, any player having _=less=_ than his proper number of cards forfeits five red counters to each of the other players, and the hands are abandoned. If any player has _=more=_ than the proper number of cards, it is a misdeal, and the misdealer deals again, after forfeiting one red counter to the pool. In _=Solo Whist=_, the deal stands good. Should the player with the incorrect number of cards be the caller or his partner, the hand must be played out. Should the caller make good his proposition, he neither receives nor pays on that hand. If he fails, he must pay.
See Hunt the Staigie, Whiddy. Hornie Holes A game in which four play, a principal and an assistant on each side. A. stands with his assistant at one hole, and throws what is called a Cat (a piece of stick, and frequently a sheep s horn), with the design of making it alight in another hole at some distance, at which B. and his assistant stand ready to drive it aside. The bat or driver is a rod resembling a walking-stick. The following unintelligible rhyme is repeated by a player on the one side, while they on the other are gathering in the Cats, and is attested by old people as of great antiquity:-- Jock, Speak, and Sandy, W a their lousy train Round about by Errinborra, We ll never meet again. Gae head im, gae hang im, Gae lay im in the sea; A the birds o the air Will bear him companee. With a nig-nag, widdy- [_or_ worry-] bag, And an e endown trail, trail; Quoth he. --Jamieson.
317). Blind Bucky-Davy In Somersetshire the game of Blind Man s Buff. Also in Cornwall (see Couch s _Polperro_, p. 173). Pulman says this means Blind buck and have ye (Elworthy s _Dialect_). Blind Harie A name for Blind Man s Buff. --Jamieson. Blind Hob The Suffolk name for Blind Man s Buff. --Halliwell s _Dictionary_; Moor s _Suffolk Glossary_. Blind Man s Buff I.
=_ When a player cannot follow suit, and does not wish to trump, his safest play is to discard whatever seems of least use to him. It is not considered good play to unguard a King or to leave an Ace alone; but this may be done if the partner is leading trumps, and there is a good established suit to keep. 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.
If a player throws _=doublets=_, that is, the same number on each die, he plays the throw twice over. If a player throws double fours, for instance, he can either move one man four points four times; or one man four points once, and another man four points three times; or two men four points twice; or two men four points each, and then two other men four points, always provided that the points moved to at the end of each four are not covered by the enemy. If there is only one of the adversary’s men on any point which can be reached by a throw of the dice, the blot may be hit, a man being moved to that point, and the adverse man taken from the board and placed upon the bar. In the diagram in the margin, for instance, it is White’s play, and he has thrown six-four. Black has left a blot on White’s four-point, and the single white man in the outer table can reach this with the six throw, taking up the black man, and placing it upon the bar. White now has a blot on his four point, which he should cover by playing in a man four points from the outer table, it being better to leave a blot there than at home. [Illustration: +-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | |⛀|⛂|⛀|⛀||⛀|⛀| |⛀| |⛂| | | |⛀| |⛀|⛀||⛀|⛀| | | |⛂| | | | | | | ||⛀| | | | | | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | |⛂| | |⛂|| | | | | | | |⛂| |⛂| | |⛂||⛂|⛂| | | |⛀| |⛂| |⛂| | |⛂||⛂|⛂| | |⛀|⛀| +-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+ ] When a player has a man that has been hit, and placed upon the bar by the adversary, he must re-enter that man before he moves any others. He may choose for the purpose either of the numbers on the next throw of the dice, and must place his man on the point in the adversary’s home table which agrees with the number selected. Suppose that in the foregoing example, Black’s next throw is five-deuce. He cannot enter the man on the five-point, because it is covered by the enemy: so he must enter upon the deuce point, which is not covered, and must move some other man five points for the throw upon the other die.
If the Jack was the starter, the combination would be worth 30 to the dealer, but his heels would have to be counted before a card was played. _=Flushes.=_ In addition to the foregoing combinations, if all four cards in the hand are of the same suit the player can peg four points for the flush; if the starter is also the same suit, five points. A flush does not count in the crib unless the starter is the same suit, and then it counts five points. Flushes are never made in play. _=Laying Out for the Crib.=_ With this knowledge of the objects of game, and the various counting combinations, it will be seen that each player should keep the cards which count the most for him, or which are most likely to form good combinations with different starters. Suppose the non-dealer holds these cards:-- [Illustration: 🃖 🂧 🂨 🂸 🂩 🃚 ] If he puts the two Eights in his adversary’s crib, he not only gives him two very good cards, which go to form a great many valuable combinations, but he leaves himself absolutely nothing but 2 points for a single fifteen, formed by the 9 and 6. It would be a little better, but still very bad play, for him to discard the 8 and 6, leaving himself a sequence of four cards and a fifteen, 6 points altogether. He might do a little better by discarding the 10 and 8, leaving himself a run of four, and two fifteens, 8 points altogether.