=_ If either player is able to reach 30 by successive declarations, beginning with the point, all of which are admitted by his adversary to be good, he adds 60 to his score, making it 90 instead of 30, and this is irrespective of what his adversary may have in minor or inferior combinations. The important thing to remember in repic is that declarations always count in regular order, carte blanche taking precedence of everything; then the point, sequences, and quatorze or trio. Suppose elder hand to hold the following cards:-- ♡ K Q J 10 9; ♣ A K Q; ♢ A Q 9; ♠ Q. If the quinte to the King is admitted good for the point, it must be good for the sequence also. That is 20. The four Queens must be good, as the adversary cannot have any quatorze. This makes the total 34, and 60 added for repic, 94 altogether, to which he will add one for leading the first card, if it is above a Nine. Suppose the elder hand had the following cards:-- ♡ A K Q J 8; ♣ A K; ♢ A K; ♠ A K 10. If his point is good, that and his four Aces and Kings will make him 33 altogether; but his sequence is not good, because the dealer holds five diamonds to the Queen, which comes in order before the score for quatorze, and so saves the repic. Suppose that with the foregoing cards the elder hand was told that even his point was not good.
Each player has three throws with three dice, and the highest die in each throw is laid aside. If two are equally high, only one is retained. The others are returned to the box and thrown again. The higher of these two is retained, and the third die is thrown again. The final total of the three dice is the player’s score, and the highest wins. In the colonies the ace counts as seven. The game is usually played for a pool. ACE IN THE POT. Any number can play, and two dice are used. The game is for a pool, which is won by the final possessor of a single counter.
| | |40.| -- |If the cock should | -- | | | |meet a hen. | | |41.| -- | -- |How many pounds will | | | | |set him free? | |42.| -- | -- |Three hundred pounds | | | | |will set him free. | |43.| -- | -- |The half of that I | | | | |have not got. | |44.| -- | -- |Then off to prison he | | | | |must go. | |45.
_=37.=_ Should either adversary lead or play out of turn, the lone player may abandon the hand, and score the points. _=38.=_ _=MISCELLANEOUS.=_ No player is allowed to see any trick that has once been turned and quitted, under penalty of having a suit called from him or his partner. _=39.=_ Any player may ask the others to indicate the cards played by them to the current trick. _=40.=_ A player calling attention in any manner to the trick or to the score, may be called upon to play his highest or lowest of the suit led; or to trump or not to trump the trick during the play of which the remark was made. ÉCARTÉ.
The adversary giving the card asked for must receive a card in exchange from the hand of the single player, but this card must not be shown to the other adversary. _=Discarding.=_ Having given a card in exchange for the 3 asked for, the single player must discard at least one more card, face downward on the table, and he may discard as many as four. The four cards remaining in the stock are then turned face up, and the single player may select from them as many cards as he has discarded; but he is not allowed to amend his discard in any way. 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.
A small ring is put upon the string, the ends of which are then tied. Then one of the players gets up from his chair and stands in the centre. The players sitting on the chairs take the string into their hands and pass the ring round from one to another, singing the lines. If the person standing in the centre can find out in whose hand the ring is, he sits down, and his place is taken by the one who had the ring. The game is sometimes played round a haycock in the hayfield. Miss Dendy sends a similar rhyme from Monton, Lancashire, where it is known simply as a marching game. For similar rhymes, see Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 3. See Paddy from Home, Tip it. Fippeny Morrell Twice three stones, set in a crossed square, where he wins the game that can set his three along in a row, and that is fippeny morrell I trow.
The child who is thus addressed must guess who has the ring, and the servant performs the same ceremony with each of the party. They who guess right escape, but the rest forfeit. Should any one in the ring exclaim I have it! she also forfeits; nor must the servant make known who has the ring until all have guessed under the same penalty. The forfeits are afterwards cried as usual.--Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 223. (_b_) This game was a general favourite at juvenile parties years ago. The hands were held in the posture described by Halliwell, but any child was pitched upon for the first finder, and afterwards the child in whose hands the ring was found had to be finder. There was no guessing; the closed hands were looked into (A. B.
His adversary sits next him on the left for the first deal, and leads for the first trick before the Dummies are exposed. There is no doubling. On the next deal, the adversary must sort his Dummy’s hand and must lead from it, before looking at his own. If the declaration is passed, Dummy must make it on the lines laid down for passed makes in Bridge for Three, which has already been described. There is no penalty for a revoke made by either Dummy; but otherwise the laws of bridge govern. _=DRAW BRIDGE.=_ This is double Dummy; but instead of laying Dummy’s cards face up on the table, each player is provided with a holder in which he places his partner’s cards in such a manner that his adversary cannot see them. As it comes to Dummy’s turn to play to each trick, a card is drawn from the holder. All four hands are responsible for revokes. _=KING’S BRIDGE.
_=The Force Shot.=_ The beginner at billiards should strike his ball always exactly in the centre, until he learns the angles. With moderate strength the effect of the stroke is to cause the ball to roll naturally along the cloth until it reaches the object ball, after which it will be deflected from its original course according to the angle at which the object ball is struck. If the cue ball is struck very hard, however, and very slightly below the centre, it will slide for a certain distance before beginning to roll, and if it reaches the object ball before this sliding motion ceases it will simply come to a stop, or go off at a right angle if the object ball is not struck exactly in the centre. This method of forcing a ball to go off at a right angle is called “screwing” in England. [Illustration] _=The Follow Shot.=_ If the cue ball is struck above the centre, the rolling motion is set up at once, no matter how hard the ball is struck, and the effect of contact with the object ball is simply to check the motion for a moment, after which the cue ball rolls forward again, deflected only by the angle at which the object ball was struck. The great art in making follow shots is to let the cue follow the ball, the tip passing at least three inches beyond where the ball stood, as shown by the dotted lines in the diagram. When the balls are very close together the cue must be lifted, and the ball struck very much on one side, the cue being behind the centre, as shown in the third position in the diagram of pinch shots. [Illustration] _=The Draw Shot.
If you have three or more small cards, do not play the King, for either partner or the declarer must be short in the suit. So if Dummy leads Jack from J 10 and others, play the King with a short suit. If partner has Queen you establish it; if not, you cannot make a trick in the suit. With short suits it is usually best to cover an honour with an honour; but with several small cards, such as K x x x, Dummy leading a singleton Queen, you should pass. With K 10 x, Dummy having J and others, play honour on honour; small card on small card, whichever Dummy leads. It is often important for the second hand to cover with what is called an _=imperfect fourchette=_. A true fourchette is the card immediately above and below the one led; such as K J over the Q, or Q 10 over the J. An imperfect fourchette is the card above the one led, and another next but one below it; such as K 10 over a Q led, or Q 9 over a J led. Covering forces the opponents to play two honours to win one trick, and will often make an intermediate card good in your partner’s hand. _=THIRD HAND PLAY.
Red has now to move. The nature of his position is becoming apparent to him. His right gun is ineffective, his left and his centre guns cannot kill more than seven or eight men between them; and at the next move, unless he can silence them, Blue s guns will be mowing his exposed cavalry down from the security of the farm. He is in a fix. How is he to get out of it? His cavalry are slightly outnumbered, but he decides to do as much execution as he can with his own guns, charge the Blue guns before him, and then bring up his infantry to save the situation. Figure 5a shows the result of Red s move. His two effective guns have between them bowled over two cavalry and six infantry in the gap between the farm and Blue s right gun; and then, following up the effect of his gunfire, his cavalry charges home over the Blue guns. One oversight he makes, to which Blue at once calls his attention at the end of his move. Red has reckoned on twenty cavalry for his charge, forgetting that by the rules he must put two men at the tail of his middle gun. His infantry are just not able to come up for this duty, and consequently two cavalry-men have to be set there.
Other irregularities are governed by the same laws as in Boston. The deal passes to the right, and the next dealer is indicated by the position of the tray containing the pool, which the dealer always passes to the player on his right, after putting in his ten or twenty counters. Forty deals is a game; the first thirty-two of which are called “simples,” and the last eight “doubles.” In the doubles, all stakes and contributions to the pool are doubled. If anything remains in the pool at the end, it is divided equally, unless a player demands that it shall be played for until won. Such extra deals are simples. _=RANK OF THE SUITS.=_ The suit turned on the first deal is called “belle” for that game. The suit turned on each succeeding deal is called “petite.” If belle turns up again, there is no petite for that deal.
Hardy), which is printed _ante_. A version played at Barnes is almost identical with the Southampton version, and another collected by Miss Thoyts in Berkshire (_Antiquary_, vol. xxvii. p. 193) is similar to the Hanbury version. The first lines run--Choose your lover; Open the gates; Go to church, love; Kneel down, love; Say your prayers, love; Put on the ring; Stand up, love; In the ring, love; Kiss together, love. (_d_) The words of all the versions are sufficiently similar to analyse without a special form. The game appears to be purely a love and marriage game, and has probably had its origin in a ballad, and this idea is strengthened by the fact that only one version (London) has the marriage formula sung at the end, and this is probably an arbitrary addition. The lover is represented as lonely and disconsolate, and the remedy suggested is to choose a sweetheart. The marriage ceremony is of the simplest description--the clasping of hands and the kissing within the circle probably implying the betrothal at a spot sacred to such functions, similar to the Standing Stones of Stenness.
In the long-suit game this element is entirely wanting. _=IN CONCLUSION.=_ The first-class whist-player is usually developed gradually. If he possess the faculty of paying close attention to the game while he is playing, nothing should prevent his rapid progress. At first he may care little or nothing for “book” whist, but after some experience with book players, he is rather in danger of running to the other extreme, and putting more book into his game than it will carry. Having passed that stage, his next step is usually to invent some system of his own, and to experiment with every hand he plays. By degrees he finds that all special systems of play have some serious defects which over-balance their advantages, and this discovery gradually brings him back to first principles. If he gets so far safely, his game for all future time will probably be sound, common-sense whist, without any American leads, plain-suit echoes, or four-signals, and free from any attempts to take fourteen tricks with thirteen cards. When a whist-player reaches that point, he is probably as near the first class as the natural limitations of his mental abilities will ever permit him to go. _=THE LAWS=_ will be found at the end of the Whist Family of Games.
=_ Each deal is a complete game in itself, and the winner is the player who has scored the most points for carte blanche, combinations, and the last trick. The brisques are not counted, unless they are necessary to decide a tie, or save a rubicon. The value of the game is determined by deducting the lesser score from the higher, and then adding 500 points to the remainder. In this deduction all fractions of a hundred are disregarded. For instance: A’s score is 1830; while B’s is 1260. A wins 1800, less the 1200 scored by B, which leaves 600; to this must be added the 500 points for game, making the total value of A’s game 1100 points. If the scores are very nearly equal, being within one or two hundred points of each other, the tricks taken in by each player are turned over, and the brisques are counted, each player adding to his score ten points for every brisque he has won. Suppose that after the last trick had been played and scored, A’s total was 1260, and B’s 1140. This is close enough to justify B in demanding a count of the brisques. It is found that A has seven only, while B has twenty-five.
Such a bid over-calls one of the same number in diamonds. If the eldest hand has no proposal to make, he says, “I pass,” and the others in turn have an opportunity to bid. The bids outrank one another according to their order in the foregoing table, and the rank of the suits in which they are made. The players bid against one another, until all but one declare to pass, he then becomes the single player against the three others. A player having once passed cannot come into the bidding again, even to call a misère. In this respect the game differs from Boston. A player is not compelled to bid the full value of his hand, but it is to his interest to do so, and he should make the full announcement the first time he bids, because if he has had a good hand for ten tricks, and begins with a bid of seven, he cannot increase his proposal unless some player bids over him. _=PARTNERS.=_ Before playing, the successful bidder may call for a partner if he chooses to do so. The player accepting him undertakes that the two together shall win three tricks more than the number bid.
Such slip must be shown to an adversary, then turned face down and placed in the tray, if one is used. SEC. 2. The dealer must leave the trump card face up until it is his turn to play to the first trick; he must take the trump card into his hand and turn down the trump slip before the second trick is turned and quitted. SEC. 3. When a deal is taken up for overplay, the dealer must show the trump slip to an adversary, and thereafter the trump slip and trump card shall be treated as in the case of an original deal. SEC. 4. After the trump card has been lawfully taken into the hand and the trump slip turned face down, the trump card must not be named nor the trump slip examined during the play of the deal; a player may, however, ask what the trump suit is.
In such matches, the penalty for a revoke shall not increase the score of the opponents of the revoking players above the maximum, as made at the other tables, on the deal in which the revoke occurs; provided, however, that if the opponents win more tricks than such maximum, independently of the revoke penalty, their score shall stand as made. Nor shall the score of the revoking players be reduced, by the infliction of the revoke penalty, below the minimum so made at the other tables until the averages for the match and the relative scores of the other players have been determined; the score of the revoking players shall then, if necessary, be further reduced, so that in all cases they shall suffer the full penalty as provided in the first paragraph of this section. SEC. 5. A revoke cannot be claimed if the claimant or his partner has played to the following deal, or if both have left the table at which the revoke occurred. If the revoke is discovered in season, the penalty must be enforced and cannot be waived. SEC. 6. At the end of the play of a deal the claimants of a revoke can examine all of the cards; if any hand has been shuffled the claim may be urged and proved if possible; but no proof is necessary and the revoke is established if, after it has been claimed, the accused player or his partner disturbs the order of the cards before they have been examined to the satisfaction of the adversaries. LAW XI.
See Mount the Tin. Nine Holes Nine round holes are made in the ground, and a ball aimed at them from a certain distance; or the holes are made in a board with a number over each, through one of which the ball has to pass.--Forby s _Vocabulary_. A rural game, says Nares, played by making nine holes in the ground, in the angles and sides of a square, and placing stones and other things upon, according to certain rules. Moor (_Suffolk Words and Phrases_) says: This is, I believe, accurate as far as it goes, of our Suffolk game. A hole in the middle is necessary. In Norfolk, Holloway (_Dict. Prov._) says that nine round holes are made in the ground, and a ball aimed at them from a certain distance. A second game is played with a board having nine holes, through one of which the ball must pass.