INDOOR AMUSEMENTS. 



WHIST. 



This, which is by far the best of card-games, 

 is believed to be of English origin. Probably it 

 is a development of the game of trump (or, more 

 properly, triumph), which was played in England 

 at least as early as the time of Henry VIII., and 

 is mentioned in a sermon delivered by Latimer on 

 the Sunday before Christmas 1529. The game of 

 trump is also mentioned by Shakspeare punning 

 on the word triumph (see Douce's Illustrations, 

 and Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. scene 12). The 

 game of whist is not mentioned by Shakspeare, 

 nor by any writer of the Elizabethan era. 



The earliest mention of whist (or, more properly, 

 whisk) is in the poems of Taylor the Water-poet 

 (j62i). In the first edition of Cotton's Compleat 

 Gamester (1674), whist has no place; but it is 

 added in the second edition (1680) as a game 

 ' commonly known in England.' Cotton says that 

 'the game of whist is so called from the silence 

 that is to be observed in the play ; ' and this 

 derivation of the word has been generally accepted, 

 and was adopted by Dr Johnson, to the extent of 

 explaining whist to be a game requiring silence. 

 But if the original name of the game was whisk, 

 Cotton's derivation fails. The derivation from an 

 interjection signifying silence seems to have been 

 taken for granted somewhat hastily. 



The game was formerly played nine-up (that is, 

 a score of nine made game). A change to ten-up 

 took place apparently in the first quarter of the 

 1 8th century. Whist played ten-up is called long 

 whist. About 1785, the experiment of dividing 

 the game into half was tried, and short whist (in 

 which five makes game) was the result. The short 

 game soon came into favour; and in 1864, the 

 supremacy of short whist was acknowledged by 

 nearly all the London and by many country clubs, 

 the clubs adopting as their standard the laws of 

 short whist as framed by committees of the 

 Arlington and Portland clubs. 



The game of whist is played by four persons, 

 two being partners against the other two. The 

 partners sit opposite to each other. The partner- 

 ship is determined by cutting. The lowest two 

 are partners against the highest two, arid the 

 lowest has. the deal and the choice of seats and 

 cards. In cutting, the ace is reckoned lowest. 

 The players must all cut from the same pack. 

 Should a player expose more than one card, he 

 must cut again. Each player has a right to shuffle 

 the pack once before each deal, the dealer having 

 the privilege of a final shuffle. The shuffling being 

 concluded, the player to the dealer's right cuts 

 the pack. The dealer having reunited the packets, 

 is bound to deal the cards one at a time, to the 

 players in rotation, beginning with the player to 

 his left. He turns up the bottom card (called the 

 trump card). If a misdeal takes place, the deal 

 passes. The deal being completed, the players 

 sort their cards, and the player to the dealer's left 

 (or leader) plays a card face upwards on the table. 

 The other players follow in rotation, being bound 

 to follow suit if they can. When all have played, 

 the trick is complete. It is then gathered and 

 turned over by the winning side. The highest 

 card wins the trick. The ace is highest in play- 

 ing ; and the other cards reckon in the order, 

 king, queen, knave, ten, &c. down to the deuce, 



or two, which is lowest. If any player cannot 

 follow suit (i. e., has none of the suit led), he may 

 play any card he pleases. If he plays a card of 

 the suit turned up (called trumps), he wins the 

 trick, unless another player also, having none of 

 the suit led, plays a higher trump. The player 

 who wins the trick becomes the leader for the 

 next trick, and so on till the whole hand (consist- 

 ing of 13 tricks) is played out. The turn-up card 

 is left on the table till it is the dealer's turn to 

 play to the first trick, when he should take it up. 

 The player should be extremely careful to follow 

 suit when he can, as not doing so involves a seri- 

 ous penalty. To play a card of a different suit 

 while the player has a card of the suit led, is 

 called a revoke. Any player may demand to see 

 the last trick played, and no more. 



After scoring, the mode of which will be pres- 

 ently described, the player to the last dealer's left 

 deals in his turn ; and in subsequent deals, each 

 player deals in turn, the rotation going to the left. 



After the hand is played put, the scoring is thus 

 performed : the side who win more than six tricks 

 reckon one for each trick above six; and the 

 side who either separately or conjointly hold more 

 than two of the following cards, ace, king, queen, 

 and knave of trumps (called honours), reckon as 

 follow : If they hold any three honours, they score 

 two (that being the excess of their honours over 

 their opponents') ; and similarly, if they hold four 

 honours, they score four. At short whist, players 

 who have in previous deals scored four, cannot 

 score honours. . The same at long whist with 

 players who are at nine. The side who thus in 

 one hand or in a succession of hands first reach 

 five at short whist, or ten at long, score the game. 

 In scoring, the penalty of a revoke takes prece- 

 dence of all other scores ; tricks score next ; 

 honours last. Honours cannot be scored unless 

 claimed before the trump card of the following 

 deal is turned up ; if called at the end of the 

 hand, they can be scored at any time during the 

 game. For a revoke, the adversaries may either 

 take three tricks from the revoking player, and 

 add them to their own, or deduct three points 

 from his score,' or add three to their own score. 

 And in no case can a revoking player win the 

 game by the result of the hand during which he 

 revoked ; the utmost he can score is four. 



A game at short whist is called a single, if the 

 adversaries have already scored three or four ; a 

 double, if they have scored one or two ; a treble, 

 if they have scored nothing. A game at long 

 whist is a single, if the opponents have scored 

 five or more ; a double, if they have scored less. 

 There is no treble at long whist. 



A rubber consists of the best of two games out of 

 three. If the same players win two consecutive 

 games, the third is not played. The winners of 

 the rubber win in points the value of the games 

 they have won, and where the rubber has con- 

 sisted of three games, the value of the loser's game 

 is deducted. And whether two or three games 

 are played, two points are added for the rubber 

 at short whist ; one point for the rubber at long. 

 Thus, if at short whist A B (partners) win a single 

 and a double, they win three points on the games, 

 and they add two for the rubber, making five 

 points. Had A B won the same, but C D (their 

 opponents) won a treble, they would have to 

 deduct three points, the value of the opponents' 



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