After he has won the first game, the odds against his winning the remaining nine are only 511 to 1, and so on, until it is an even thing that he wins the tenth, even if he has won the nine preceding it. In the statistics of 4000 coups at roulette at Monte Carlo it was found that if one colour had come five times in succession, it was an exactly even bet that it would come again; for in twenty runs of five times there were ten which went on to six. In the author’s examination of 500 consecutive deals of faro, there were 815 cards that either won or lost three times in succession, and of these 412 won or lost out. In a gambling house in Little Rock a roulette wheel with three zeros on it did not come up green for 115 rolls, and several gamblers lost all they had betting on the eagle and O’s. When the game closed the banker informed them that the green had come up more than twenty times earlier in the evening. They thought the maturity of the chances would compel the green to come; whereas the chances really were that it would not come, as it had over-run its average so much earlier in the evening. The pendulum swings as far one way as the other, but no method of catching it on the turn has ever yet been discovered. _=Compound Events.=_ In order to ascertain the probability of compound or concurrent events, we must find the product of their separate probability. For instance: The odds against your cutting an ace from a pack of 52 cards are 48 to 4, or 12 to 1; because there are 52 cards and only 4 of them are aces.
When he deals again he opens it entirely, and the third time he closes it; that being the third round, and the last deal of the game. [Illustration: FOURTH DEAL. EIGHTH DEAL.] _=POSITION OF THE PLAYERS.=_ The four players at Boston are distinguished by the letters A Y B Z. [Illustration: Y +-------+ | | A| |B | | +-------+ Z ] Z is the dealer, and A is known as the _=eldest hand=_. There are no partnerships in Boston, except that of three players combined against the fourth, who is always spoken of as _=the caller=_. The players having once taken their seats are not allowed to change them without the consent of all the others at the table. _=DEALING.=_ At the beginning of the game the two packs are thoroughly shuffled; after which they must not again be shuffled during the progress of the game.
|Dissy, dissy, duss. |Dossy, dossy, doss. |A dust, a dust, a | | | | |dust. | | 4.| -- | -- | -- | | 5.| -- | -- | -- | | 6.|Come all ye pretty |Come all ye pretty |We want a pretty | | |maids. |maids. |maiden. | | 7.
=_ The cards having been shuffled and presented to the pone to be cut, the dealer gives six cards to each player, three at a time, dealing first to his adversary. There are several ways of making the trump, one of which should be agreed upon before play begins. One way is for the pone to draw a card from the top, the middle, or the bottom of the talon, after the dealer has given each player his six cards. Another way is for the dealer to turn up the seventh card, after dealing the first round of three to each player. Another, and the one generally adopted in America, is for the dealer to turn up the thirteenth card for the trump, after giving six cards to each player. The trump card is left face upward on the table, and is usually placed under the remainder of the pack, which is slightly spread, face down, for the players to draw from. The general rules for irregularities in the deal are the same as in Binocle. A misdeal does not lose the deal. _=Objects of the Game.=_ The object of the game, as its name implies, is to count sixty-six.
* * * * * He grimaced. He had drawn a greedy old character, a tough old male whose mind was full of slobbering thoughts of food, veritable oceans full of half-spoiled fish. Father Moontree had once said that he burped cod liver oil for weeks after drawing that particular glutton, so strongly had the telepathic image of fish impressed itself upon his mind. Yet the glutton was a glutton for danger as well as for fish. He had killed sixty-three Dragons, more than any other Partner in the service, and was quite literally worth his weight in gold. The little girl West came next. She drew Captain Wow. When she saw who it was, she smiled. I _like_ him, she said. He s such fun to fight with.
Let the rules as to gun-fire be as they are now, but let a different projectile be used--a projectile that will drop down and stay where it falls. I find that one can buy in ironmongers shops small brass screws of various sizes and weights, but all capable of being put in the muzzle of the 4 7 guns without slipping down the barrel. If, with such a screw in the muzzle, the gun is loaded and fired, the wooden bolt remains in the gun and the screw flies and drops and stays near where it falls--its range being determined by the size and weight of screw selected by the gunner. Let us assume this is a shell, and it is quite easy to make a rule that will give the effect of its explosion. Half, or, in the case of an odd number, one more than half, of the men within three inches of this shell are dead, and if there is a gun completely within the circle of three inches radius from the shell, it is destroyed. If it is not completely within the circle, it is disabled for two moves. A supply waggon is completely destroyed if it falls wholly or partially within the radius. But if there is a wall, house, or entrenchment between any men and the shell, they are uninjured--they do not count in the reckoning of the effect of the shell. I think one can get a practical imitation of the effect of rifle-fire by deciding that for every five infantry-men who are roughly in a line, and who do not move in any particular move, there may be one (ordinary) shot taken with a 4 7 gun. It may be fired from any convenient position behind the row of five men, so long as the shot passes roughly over the head of the middle man of the five.
Buckey-how For this the boys divide into sides. One stops at home, the other goes off to a certain distance agreed on beforehand and shouts Buckey-how. The boys at home then give chase, and when they succeed in catching an adversary, they bring him home, and there he stays until all on his side are caught, when they in turn become the chasers.--Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 60). Buff 1st player, thumping the floor with a stick: Knock, knock! 2nd ditto: Who s there? 1st: Buff. 2nd: What says Buff? 1st: Buff says Buff to all his men, And I say Buff to you again! 2nd: Methinks Buff smiles? 1st: Buff neither laughs nor smiles, But looks in your face With a comical grace, And delivers the staff to you again (handing it over). --Shropshire (Burne s _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 526). Same verses as in Shropshire, except the last, which runs as follows:-- Buff neither laughs nor smiles, But strokes his face With a very good grace, And delivers his staff to you.
For winning a game, 1,000 points are added in the honour column. The side that first wins two games of 500 points each adds 2,000 rubber points in the honour column. _=Slams.=_ If a little slam, 12 tricks, is made, but has not been bid, it is worth 1,000 points in honours. If a little slam, “six tricks,” has been bid and is made, it is worth 5,000 more for bidding it, or 6,000 altogether. If a grand slam, 13 tricks, is made but not bid, it is worth 2,000 honour points. If a little slam is bid and a grand slam made, it is worth 7,000 altogether. If a grand slam is bid and made, it is worth 12,000 altogether. _=Lost Games.=_ If the bidder fails to make good, his adversaries score 100 times the value of the tricks as penalty, in the honour column; the scores for the tricks actually won standing at their regular value below the line.
=_ The cards dealt, each player takes up his twelve cards and sorts them into suits. If the pone finds himself without a K Q or J, he should immediately claim 10 points for carte blanche. 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.
How many miles to Babylon? Three score and ten. Can we get there by candle-light? Yes, and back again. Open your gates as wide as you can, And let King George and his family go through. Not without a back, not without a bow, Not without a curtsey, and then I ll let you through. --South Shields (Miss Blair). V. How many miles to Babylon? Three score and ten. Can I get there o candle-light? There and back again. Here s my black [raising one foot], And here s my blue [raising the other], Open the gates and let me through. --Annaverna, Ravendale, co.
9. The value of honours, slam, or little slam, is not affected by doubling or redoubling. 10. At the conclusion of a rubber the trick and honour scores of each side are added and 250 additional points added to the score of the winners of the rubber. The size of the rubber is the difference between the completed scores. If the score of the losers of the rubber exceed that of the winners, the losers win the amount of the excess. 11. When a rubber is started with the agreement that the play shall terminate (_i.e._, no new deal shall commence) at a specified time, and the rubber is unfinished at that hour, the score is made up as it stands, 125 being added to the score of the winners of a game.
I _don t_ want to die! Who s dying? I snapped. He s shooting me! she gasped. Shoot? With what? I had one terrified moment--what to lift? What was aimed at her? At the last possible moment I saw it. His crap-stick was a hollow tube, and he was raising it toward _me_, not toward Pheola. I d heard of things like that--a gas-powered dart gun. Silent, and shooting a tiny needle with a nerve poison in grooves cut in its tip. I lifted, but half in panic. Fowler Smythe squeezed his trigger and the tiny dart leaped unseen across the crap layout. My lift had been way off--it should have thrown the stick toward the ceiling, where no one would have been hurt. Instead it merely twitched the crap-stick, and the dart struck Pheola in the left hand.
This would obviously be a mere waste of trumps if these plain-suit cards did not count for anything. All Fours seems to have been popular with all classes of society at one time or another. Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” gives it among the principal games in his day, 1674. Daines Barrington, writing a hundred years later, speaks of All Fours in connection with Whist. “Whist,” he says, “seems never to have been played on principles until about fifty years ago; before that time [1735] it was confined chiefly to the servants’ hall, with All Fours and Put.” Another writer tells us that Ombre was the favourite game of the ladies, and Piquet of the gentlemen _par excellence_; clergymen and country squires preferring Whist, “while the lower orders shuffled away at All Fours, Put, Cribbage, and Lanterloo.” In 1754 a pamphlet was published containing: “Serious Reflections on the dangerous tendency of the common practice of Card-playing; especially the game of All Four.” For many years All Fours was looked upon as the American gambler’s game _par excellence_, and it is still the great standby of our coloured brother; who would sooner swallow a Jack than have it caught. ALL FOURS, SEVEN-UP, OR OLD SLEDGE. _=CARDS.
The dealer then distributes them to the players four at a time, until each has twelve, four remaining in the stock or talon, which is left upon the table face down. No trump is turned. The deal passes to the left. There are no misdeals. If the cards are not properly distributed, or four cards are not left in the talon, the same dealer must deal again, without penalty. _=Objects of the Game.=_ The chief objects of the game are to win the last trick, and to secure counting cards in the other tricks in the course of play. There are 35 points to be played for in every deal. The six highest cards in each suit, 3 2 A K Q J, have a counting value, the Ace being worth 3, and the others 1 each. The last trick counts 3.
The separated cards show those laid out for the crib, and the odd card is the starter. [Illustration: Pone;-- 🃗 🂧 🃆 🃔 🂳 🂣 Dealer;-- 🃖 🂶 🂦 🃒 🃓 ] The pone leads a Seven, and afterwards pairs the dealer’s Six, pegging to 58. The dealer pegs 6 for the pair royal, and is told to go. This enables the dealer to make a double pair royal and 31, pegging fourteen holes more. (The last card does not count when a go or 31 is pegged). On the show the pone has only a pair, which puts him to 60, within one of the game hole. The dealer shows 12 in hand and 17 in crib, making him 54 up. In the next deal the player who wanted one could not peg, his adversary securing a fifteen and a go, and showing out with a pair and a fifteen, 61 up and game. THREE-HANDED CRIBBAGE. Five cards are dealt to each player, and then another, face down, for the foundation of the crib.
[Illustration] [Illustration: 1st position] [Illustration: 2nd position] [Illustration: 3rd position] Football The modern game of Football is too well known to need description here, and, like Cricket, it has become no longer a children s game. As to its origin, there are many ball games, such as Camping, which have been suggested as the original form of Football. Every school almost had some peculiarity in the method of playing, and Eton, Winchester, Uppingham, and Rugby are well-known examples. It is not a little interesting to note, now that Football has settled down into a national game organised by county committees, that one of the forms of play officially recognised is the old Rugby game, the other form, known as the Association, being arrived at by agreement of those interested in the game. To illustrate the ancient origin of the game, and its serious import as a local contest rather than a sport, some examples may be given. It is still (1877) keenly contested at Workington on Easter Tuesday on the banks of, and not unfrequently in, the river Derwent (Dickinson s _Cumberland Glossary_). At Derby there was a football contest between the parishes of All Saints and St. Peter s. The ball was thrown into the market-place from the Town Hall. The moment it was thrown the war cries of the rival parishes began, and the contest, nominally that of a football match, was in reality a fight between the two sections of the town; and the victors were announced by the joyful ringing of their parish bells (Dyer s _Popular Customs_, p.