Judging from the rank of the cards, which is peculiar to German games, Bézique may have originated in an attempt to play Binocle with a piquet pack, for Binocle seems to have been originally played with a full pack of fifty-two cards. One German writer says the game is of Swiss origin, and that they probably got it from Spain. In one writer’s opinion, the name Binocle, is derived from _bis_, until, and _knochle_, the knuckle, which would imply that the original meaning was, until some one knuckled; _i.e._, stopped the game by knocking on the table with his knuckles. This interpretation seems far-fetched, but if correct, it would sustain the opinion that Binocle was derived from the old game of Cinq-Cents, in which the player knocked with his knuckles to announce that he had made enough points to win the game. In the opinion of the author, the word “binocle” is a German mispronunciation of the French word “binage,” which was the term used in Cinq Cents for the combination of spade Queen and diamond Jack, as will be seen if the description of Cinq Cents is referred to. Stopping the play is a prominent feature in Sixty-Six, another variation of Bézique, and the connecting link between Binocle and Skat. In Sixty-Six, the combination known as Bézique, or binocle, is omitted; so is the sequence in trumps. Sixty-four-card Binocle is simply Bézique, with a slight difference in the counting value of the various combinations.
When four or more play at the same table, the dealer takes no cards, but gives cards to the two sitting immediately on his left and to the one next him on his right. 15. When only three play, Hinterhand shall deal the cards. 16. The deal passes in regular order to the left. 17. After being thoroughly shuffled, the pack must be presented to the pone (the player sitting on the dealer’s right) to be cut, and at least three cards must be left in each packet. Any player may demand a right to shuffle the cards before they are dealt, but the dealer shall have the last shuffle before presenting the cards to be cut. If any card is exposed in cutting, there must be a new cut. 18.
| -- | -- | -- | |25.| -- | -- | -- | |26.| -- | -- |Mother, is it true? | | | | |What shall I do? | |27.| -- | -- | -- | |28.| -- | -- | -- | |29.| -- | -- | -- | |30.| -- | -- | -- | |31.| -- | -- | -- | |32.| -- | -- | -- | +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ +---+----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ |No.| Madeley.
I ve seen sharks with a pleasanter gape. Naturally, I didn t take his hand. Hi, Peno, I said. He jerked his hand back and straightened up. He snapped the hole in his face shut. My partner, he said, waving his hand at the dark-skinned gent standing over against one of the fumed oak desks. Sime, meet Lefty Bupp, the hottest TK artist with dice in the whole damned country! Simonetti leaned against the desk. He drew a zipper open in his fancy blouse, dragged out the Bull Durham and started to roll his own. They watch too much TV. It makes terrible hams of them all.
If the banker has 8 or 9, and neither of the others has so many, the bank wins everything on the table. If either player has more than the banker, all the bets on that side of the table must be paid. If either player has as many as the banker, all the bets on that side of the table are a stand-off. If either player has less than the banker, all the bets on that side of the table are lost. If a player wrongly announces 8 or 9, he cannot draw cards unless his point was 10 or 20. _=Drawing.=_ If none of the three can show 8 or 9, the banker must offer a card to the player on his right. The card must be slipped off the pack and offered face down. If the player on the right refuses, it is offered to the player on the left, and if he also refuses, the banker must take it himself. If the player on the right takes it, the player on the left may ask for a card also; but whether he does so or not, the banker is not obliged to draw unless he chooses, after the first card offered has been taken by either player.
If his partner has led trumps, the Second Hand should generally play his winning cards on his right hand opponent’s plain-suit leads, to stop them; and continue the trumps. These are about all the conventionalities necessary for the beginner. After at least a year’s practice with them, he will either discover that he has no aptitude for the game, or will be ready to go into further details. A beginner who attempts to handle the weapons of the expert simply plays with edged tools, which will probably cut no one but himself and his partner. * * * * * _=THE SIGNAL GAME.=_ Having become thoroughly familiar with the elementary conventionalities of the game, so that they can be used without the slightest hesitation at the whist table, the player may proceed to acquaint himself with the details of what is commonly known as the Signal Game, which comprises all the various methods of signalling up hands between partners, according to certain arbitrary and pre-arranged systems of play. Many players object to these methods as unfair; but they are now too deeply rooted to yield to protest; and the best thing for a player to do is to familiarise himself with his adversaries’ weapons. _=The Trump Signal.=_ A player anxious to have trumps led, but who has no immediate prospect of the lead, may call on his partner to lead trumps at the first opportunity, by playing any two cards of a suit led, the higher before the lower. Let us suppose him to hold five good trumps, with the Six and Two of a suit of which his partner leads King, then Jack.
This does not prevent a player from making two or more announcements at the same time, but he can score only one of them. A player cannot make a lower declaration with cards which form part of a higher one already made in the same class. For instance: Marriages and sequences belong to the same class. If the sequence has been declared, a player cannot take from it the King and Queen and score a marriage; neither can he add a new Queen to the King already in the sequence, and announce a marriage; because the higher combination was scored first. But if the marriage is first announced, the A 10 J may be added and the sequence scored, after winning another trick. Cards once used in combination cannot again be used in combinations of equal value of the same class. For instance: Four Kings have been declared, and one of them afterward used in the course of play. The player cannot add a new King to the three remaining, and announce four Kings again. A marriage in spades has been declared, and the King got rid of in play. A new King of spades will not make another marriage with the old Queen.
_=No. 1. 2nd Trick.=_ Z sees that with such a hand escape is impossible. As his chief danger is in being loaded with hearts at the end, he clears his hand as rapidly as possible. _=9th Trick.=_ The ♠A being held up, it looks as if A were safe in that suit with A 5 2. If Z now leads the ♡ 5, and A gets into the lead, returning the spade, Z must take every other trick. _=10th Trick.=_ If Z now leads ♠ 7, he loads A; but if his ♡ 5 should win the next trick he will take all the rest of the hearts, Y and B dividing the pool.
Three honours on one side and three Aces on the other would be a tie, and no honours to score. If the Aces are a tie, the side that wins the most tricks scores them. Suppose the bidder has three honours and two Aces. He scores five honours if he wins the odd trick; otherwise he scores one only, the Aces being a tie and he having only one more honour than his adversaries. In no-trump hands, the honours are worth 25 times the value of the tricks. If Aces are easy, neither side scores. If one has three Aces, they are all scored. Suppose the bid to have been “two at no-trumps,” then the Aces are worth 25 times 20, and three of them are worth 1,500 points. _=Coronets.=_ A sequence of three or more cards in any suit, trumps or plain, held by an individual player, is a coronet.
|L. B. is broken down. | | 6.| -- | -- | -- | | 7.| -- | -- | -- | | 8.| -- | -- | -- | | 9.|My fair lady. | -- |My fair lady. | |10.
Pray take one of my children in. [Spoken] What can your children do? [Sung] One can bake, one can brew, And one can bake a lily-white cake. One can sit in the parlour and sing, And this one can do everything. --Tong, Shropshire (Miss R. Harley). IV. Here comes a poor woman from Baby-land With three small children in her hand. One can brew, the other can bake, The other can make a pretty round cake. One can sit in the garden and spin, Another can make a fine bed for the king; Pray, ma am, will you take one in? --Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 72.
SEC. 2. If after the first trick has been turned and quitted on the overplay of a deal, a player is found to have less than his correct number of cards, and the others have their correct number, such player shall be answerable for the missing card or cards and for any revoke or revokes which he has made by reason of its or their absence. LAW VI.--PLAYING, TURNING AND QUITTING THE CARDS. SEC. 1. Each player when it is his turn to play, must place his card face up before him and towards the center of the table and allow it to remain in this position until all have played to the trick, when he must turn it over and place its face down and nearer to himself, placing each successive card as he turns it, so that it overlaps the last card played by him and with the ends towards the winners of the trick. After he has played his card and also after he has turned it, he must quit it by removing his hand. SEC.
When the banker loses, he pays the players in their order, right and left alternately, beginning with those who hold cards, until his capital is exhausted. Any further bets are disregarded. If any player bets on the opposite side of the table to that on which he is seated, his bet is not paid until all five of the players on that side have been settled with, because such a bet is regarded as that of an outsider, not belonging to that side of the table. If the player actually holding cards is not the one nearest the banker, he is still the first one to be paid, and then those beyond him in order. For instance: The third player holds cards; after him the fourth and fifth are paid, and then the first and second, each alternately with a player on the other side of the table. _=Banco.=_ Each player in turn, beginning with the one to whom cards will be dealt first, has the right to go banco; that is, to challenge the banker to play for his entire capital at a single coup. Such a proposition takes precedence of all others. If the bank loses such a coup, it must be put up to the highest bidder again, or offered to the next player on the list. If it wins, the same player, or any other player, may make a similar offer for the next coup, which will now be for double the first amount, of course; but no player is allowed to offer banco more than twice in succession.
SEVEN-HANDED EUCHRE. _=Cards.=_ Seven-handed Euchre is played with a full pack of fifty-three cards, including the Joker. The cards in plain suits rank as at Whist; but the Joker is always the best trump, the right and left bowers being the second and third-best respectively. _=Counters.=_ One white and four red counters are necessary. The white counter is passed to the left from player to player in turn, to indicate the position of the next deal. The red counters are placed in front of the maker of the trump and his partners, to distinguish them from their opponents. Markers are not used, the score being kept on a sheet of paper. The score is usually kept by a person who is not playing, in order that none of those in the game may know how the various scores stand.
--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. My little man is gone to sea, When he comes back he ll marry me. --Warwickshire (Northall s _Folk Rhymes_, p.
SEC. 1. If any one calls attention in any manner to the trick before his partner has played thereto, the adversary last to play to the trick may require the offender’s partner to play his highest or lowest of the suit led, and, if he has none of that suit, to trump or not to trump the trick. SEC 2. A player has the right to remind his partner that it is his privilege to enforce a penalty and also to inform him of the penalty he can enforce. SEC. 3. A player has the right to prevent his partner from committing any irregularity, and for that purpose, may ask his partner whether or not he has a card of a suit to which he has renounced on a trick which has not been turned and quitted. SEC. 4.
Step into No. 4. Hop, having one foot in No. 5 and the other in No. 6. Jump round. Go back as you came. Then with stone on shoe, walk through the figure, kick it up and catch at the close. Place stone on eyelid; walk through the same figure, dropping it off into hand at close. This is called jumping.
At Rubicon it is not always advisable to win the last trick. If your adversary is rubiconed in any case, you may add 100 points to your own score by giving him the 50 for the last trick, which may put him across the line into another hundred. TEXT BOOKS. Foster’s Complete Pinocle. 1906. Laws of Pinochle, by R.F. Foster. 1908. Bézique and Cribbage, by “Berkeley.