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WHIST OR BUMBLEPUPPY
Thirteen Lectures Addressed to Children.
by
PEMBRIDGE.
“Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollunt mores, nec sinuisse feros.”—_The Newcomes._
Revised and Enlarged Edition.
[Illustration]
London:
Frederick Warne & Co.,
Bedford Street, Strand.
Mudie & Sons,
15 Coventry Street, W.
1895.
London:
Printed by Geo. W. Jones,
35 St. Bride St., E.C.
·
WHIST; OR BUMBLEPUPPY?
———
“We have been rather lengthy in our remarks on this
book, as it is the best attempt we have ever seen to
shame very bad players into trying to improve, and also
because it abounds with most sensible maxims, dressed
up in a very amusing and palatable form.”—_The Field._
“‘Whist; or Bumblepuppy?’ is one of the most
entertaining and at the same time one of the soundest
books on Whist ever written. Its drollery may blind
some readers to the value of its advice; no man who
knows anything about Whist, however, will fail to read
it with interest, and few will fail to read it with
advantage. Upon the ordinary rules of Whist ‘Pembridge’
supplies much sensible and thoroughly amusing comment.
The best player in the world may gain from his
observations, and a mediocre player can scarcely find
a better counsellor. There is scarcely an opinion
expressed with which we do not coincide.”—_Sunday
Times._
“Lectures on the points most essential to the
acquisition of a complete knowledge of the game. The
lessons here given will well repay perusal.”—_Bell’s
Life._
“All true lovers of Whist will give a hearty welcome
to this work. It is a small book, but full of weighty
matter. We have not space to analyse the positive rules
laid down by ‘Pembridge’ for the guidance of those
who wish to qualify as Whist players. Suffice it to
say that they are all sound, and most of them worth
committing to memory.”—_Sportsman._
“It would be very easy to write at greater length than
we have done in praise of ‘Pembridge’s’ little book.
But we have said enough to indicate its nature and
scope; and we feel sure that any of our readers who may
meet with it will endorse our verdict that it is a real
addition to the literature of Whist.”—_Australasian._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
LECTURE I.—INTRODUCTORY 1
LECTURE II.—THE LEAD 11
LECTURE III.—THE PLAY OF THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH HAND 26
LECTURE IV.—DISCARDING, AND ITS DIFFICULTIES 32
LECTURE V.—THE DISCARD FROM THE _STRONGEST_ SUIT
(Part I.; Part II.) 46
LECTURE VI.—THE ELEVEN RULE 55
LECTURE VII.—THE PETER AND ITS PECULIARITIES 59
LECTURE VIII.—FALSE CARDS, LOGIC, LUCK 69
LECTURE IX.—WHIST AS AN INVESTMENT 74
LECTURE X.—ON THINGS IN GENERAL 81
LECTURE XI.—THINKING 93
LECTURE XII.—TEMPER 99
LECTURE XIII.—DETERIORATION OF WHIST, ITS CAUSES AND CURE 105
BUMBLEPUPPY IN EXCELSIS 111
THE DOMESTIC RUBBER, DOUBLE DUMMY 113
EPILOGUE I. 115
EPILOGUE II. 117
PREFACE.
——
THESE remarks are addressed to the young, in the hope that when they
arrive at man’s estate they will use their best endeavours to do away
with Law 91.
To the present generation, already acquainted with “the Game,” I should
no more presume to offer advice than I should presume to teach my
lamented Grandmother to suck eggs, if she were still alive.
“To instruct them, no art could ever reach,
No care improve them and no wisdom teach.”
PROVERBS, _chap. 27, v. 22._
[Illustration]
LECTURE I.
——
INTRODUCTORY.
——
“Vacuis committere venis
Nil nisi lene decet.”—_Eton Grammar._
“Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.”—_Shakespeare._
AS, humanly speaking, you will probably play something for the next
fifty years, should you select either Whist or Bumblepuppy,[1] it will
be as well for your own comfort—the comfort of others is a minor
consideration[2]—to have some idea of their general principles; but
first you must decide which of these two games you intend to play, for
though they are often confounded together, and are both supposed to be
governed by the same ninety-one laws and a chapter on etiquette, they
differ much more distinctly than the chalk and cheese of the present
day. Professor Pole in his “Theory of Whist,” Appendix B, has made a
very skilful attempt (by modifying the maxims of Whist) to make the two
games into a kind of emulsion. I was rather taken with this, and having
been informed that the most incongruous materials will mix, if you only
shake them together long enough, I have given this plan a fair trial,
and failed.
It may be that I had not sufficient patience and perseverance, but the
principal cause of failure I found to be this: the Bumblepuppist, like
Artemus Ward’s bear, “can be taught many interesting things but is
unreliable;” he only admires his own eccentricities, and if a person of
respectable antecedents gets up a little pyrotechnic display of false
cards for his own private delectation, the Bumblepuppist utterly misses
the point of the joke, he fails even to see that it is clever: if such
a comparison may be drawn without offence, he doesn’t consider that
what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
In the face of this difficulty, I should recommend you to treat them as
separate games: as you go down in one scale and up in the other they
closely approximate; that extremes meet is a law of nature, and between
the worst Whist and the best Bumblepuppy it is almost impossible to
draw the line.
Other elementary forms, protozoa for instance, are often so much alike
that it is difficult to decide whether they are plants or animals; but
representative specimens of each game, beyond being found at the same
table, (in scientific slang, having the same habitat,) have scarcely
one point in common, you might just as reasonably mistake horse-radish
for beef.
If you elect Whist (I shall refer to the laws later on) begin by
learning the leads, and the ordinary play of the second, third and
fourth hand, which you will find in any Whist Book;[3] this can be done
in a few days; then after cutting for partners (see note to Law 14) as
soon as the cards are dealt, _not before_ (see note to Law 45),
(1) Take up your hand;
(2) Count your cards (see notes to Laws 42 & 46);
(3) Sort them into suits;
(4) Look them over carefully;
(5) Fix firmly in your memory not only the trump suit
but the trump card, then
(6) Give your undivided attention to the table, _it is
there and not in your hand the game is played_;
(7) _See every card played in the order it is
played_;[4]
(8) When you deal, place the trump card apart from the
rest of the suit, that you may know at once which it
is.
N.B.—Knowing is always better than the very best thinking, and
generally much more easy: by these simple means you get rid at once
and for ever of all such childish interruptions as “draw your card!”
“who led?” “what are trumps?” “show me the last trick!” and so _ad
infinitum_, which, by their constant repetition, not merely worry and
annoy the rest of the table, but tend to destroy any clue to the game
that you yourself might otherwise possess.
It is a good plan to sit clear of the table, and then if you are
constrained to drop a few cards, they at any rate fall on the floor,
where they cannot be called.
So far, I have assumed your object to be Whist; if your end and aim is
Bumblepuppy, you need do none of these things; you can learn the leads
and the recognised play—more or less imperfectly—in a few years by
practice, or you can leave them unlearned;
“Build by whatever plan caprice decrees,
With what materials, on what ground you please.”
_Cowper._
ignorance imparts variety to the game, and variety is charming. You
can set all laws at defiance, and if any one objects—after much
wrangling—you can refer the matter in dispute to the Westminster
Papers,[5] and hang it up for a month certain: (this is a better plan
than writing to the _Field_, for there you only get a week’s respite).
Should you be in any doubt whether Whist or the other game is your
vocation, the first half-dozen times you play make it a rule never to
look at the last trick—
“Things that are past are done with.”—_Shakespeare._
and if at the end of that time you find the difficulty insuperable,
give up, as hopeless, all idea of becoming a Whist player.
_Notes on some of the Laws._
“Vir bonus est quis?
Qui consulta patrum, qui leges jaraque servat.”—_Eton Grammar._
I have mentioned that there are ninety-one laws. The wording of
the first is not strictly accurate; it ought to be “The rubber is
_generally_ the best of three games,” for though I myself have never
seen more than four, it may consist of any number, as the following
decisions show:
DECISION A.—The rubber is over when one side has won two games and
remembers it has done so: this memory must be brought to bear before
the other side has won two games and remembers it has done so.
DECISION B.—If a game is forgotten, it is no part of the losers’ duty
to remind the winners of the fact.
LAW 5.—This law is clear enough; still the first time you revoke and
are found out, if your opponents hold honours and you have nothing
scored—however many you have made by cards—they will claim a treble:
you should be prepared for this. The claim is wrong, but in spite of
that—possibly because of it—“they all do it.”
LAW 7.—DECISION.—You must call your honours audibly, but you are not
obliged to yell because your adversaries are quarrelling.
LAW 14.—Always get hold of the cards before cutting, and place a high
card at one end of the pack and a low one at the other, then cut last
and take either card you prefer: by this means you select your partner,
this is an admirable coup and tends to the greatest happiness of the
greatest number (Note A, page 2) but it must be executed with judgment,
for if you are detected your happiness will not be increased, rather
the reverse. Some purists, anxious to be on the safe side, only keep an
eye on the bottom card, and take it when it suits them.
LAW 34.—Until the last few years, after you had cut the cards into two
distinct packets, if the dealer thought fit to knock one of them over,
leave a card on the table, or drop half-a-dozen or so about, it was a
mis-deal on the ground that these proceedings were opposed to one or
other of the next two laws, 35 and 36, but the latest decision is that
the dealer can maltreat the pack in any way he likes and as often as he
likes, and compel you to keep on cutting _de die in diem_.
OLD DECISION.—“You cannot make your adversary cut a second time; when
you left a card on the table it could not be said that there was a
confusion in the cutting, it is a mis-deal.”
NEW DECISION.—“There is nothing in the laws to make this a mis-deal.
The play comes under the term ‘Confusion of the cards,’ and there must
be a fresh deal.”
If you see a potent, grave, and reverend seignior carefully
lubricating his thumb with saliva, don’t imagine he is preparing it
for deglutition, he is only about to deal. Even if he should swallow
it, why interfere? he will not hurt you; it is not your thumb. Should
you suffer from acute hyperæsthesis you can follow the example of
an old friend of mine, who once rose from the table in his terror,
and returned armed with a large pair of black kid gloves which he
wore during the remainder of the _seance_: though the effect was
funereal—not to say ghastly—it was attended with the best results
in this case, but it is just as likely to lead to ill-feeling, and
therefore to be deprecated. Leave the matter to time! Apart from the
cards being glazed with lead, a single pack has been found to contain a
fifth of an ounce of arsenic, and there is no known antidote. Even if
not immediately fatal, the practice must be very deleterious. A whist
enthusiast with a greater turn for mathematics than I can lay claim
to, has counted from six to seven thousand bacteria on each square
centimetre of a playing card, and makes this ghastly deduction: “it is
really dreadful to reflect upon the colony of microbes which a person
who moistens his thumb before dealing may convey into his mouth, and
thence into his system.”—_Standard_, Nov. 2nd, 1893. “Everything comes
to the man who can wait,” and while you are waiting _always sit on the
dealer’s right_.
LAW 37.—An incorrect or imperfect pack is a pack containing duplicates
or more or less than fifty-two cards, but it is neither incorrect nor
imperfect because you think fit to place any number of your own cards
in the other pack, or to supplement them with one from it. _Vide_ Laws
42, 46.
LAW 42.—If you take _one_ card from the other pack, it is clear that
you subject yourself to a penalty; if you take more than one the matter
is not so clear; possibly you may gain by it; should you wish to have
the point settled, any time you have a bad hand add the other pack to
it; then complain that you have sixty-five cards, throw them up, claim
a new deal under Rule 37, and see what comes of it.
LAW 45.—Taking up your cards during the deal has one advantage, that
if you can get your hand sorted and begin to play without waiting
for the dealer, you save time, and time is reported to be money.
To counter-balance this there are two attendant disadvantages, you
prevent the possibility of a mis-deal, and any card exposed by your
officiousness gives the dealer the option of a new deal.
LAW 46.—Under this law it is manifest that—the other hands being
correct—your hand may consist of any number of cards from one to
thirteen, and if you once play to a trick—however many you may be
short—you will have to find them or be responsible for them. See Law 70.
LAW 91.—If this law, which is the main cause of inattention and
innumerable improper intimations, were abolished, Whist would be
greatly improved; and I have never met with a good Whist player who was
not of the same opinion.
The chapter on etiquette is good sense and good English, and is worthy
of much more attention than is usually given to it.
In addition to their ambiguity and sins of commission, there is also a
sin of omission; there is no limit as to time, and it seems desirable
there should be; I would suggest—as allowing the hesitating player
reasonable latitude—one of those sand glasses, supposed to be useful
for boiling an egg; there is no sense in giving him time enough to
addle his egg.
Though these laws appear more difficult of access than I had imagined,
they are not the laws of which the only copy was destroyed by Moses;
I have seen them myself in Clay, Cavendish, and the “Art of Practical
Whist,” and if you are unable to get any of these works from Mudie’s,
there are copies of each in the British Museum, Great Russell Street,
Bloomsbury.
Before or immediately after breakfast is the best time to play; then,
if ever, the intellect is clear, the attention undistracted; in the
afternoon you are exhausted by the labours of the day, and your
evenings should be devoted to the morrow’s lessons or a quiet nap (not
the round game of that ilk).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “That there are a large number of players who think they
play Whist, and yet do not reason, is too true, but such play
may be Bumblepuppy, or some other game; it certainly is not
Whist.”—_Westminster Papers._
DEFINITIONS OF BUMBLEPUPPY.
Bumblepuppy is persisting to play Whist, either in utter ignorance of
all its known principles, or in defiance of them, or both.
Hudibras has given another definition—
“A lib’ral art that costs no pains
Of study, industry, or brains.”
“Bumblepuppy was played in low public houses.”
“Here and there were Bumblepuppy grounds, a game in which the players
rolled iron balls into holes marked with numbers.”—_Chronicles of
Newgate._
From which I infer that in the good old times this game first drove its
votaries to drinking, and then landed them in a felon’s cell.
[2] In all well regulated society, your aim should be the greatest
happiness of the greatest number, and that number is notoriously number
one.
[3] “Do not attempt to practise until you have acquired a competent
knowledge of the theory.”—_Mathews_, A.D. 1800.
[4] “The first Whist lesson should be to keep your eye on the table and
not on your own cards.”
“We cannot all have genius, but we can all have attention;
the absence of intelligence we cannot help, inattention is
unpardonable.”—_Westminster Papers._
[5] Since these words were written the “Westminster Papers” is no more.
“Sit tibi terra levis!”
[Illustration]
LECTURE II.
——
THE LEAD.
——
“Dux nobis opus est.”—_Eton Grammar._
“I pray thee now lead.”—_Shakespeare._
THE play of the entire hand often depends upon the very first card led,
and the confidence your partner has that your lead is correct; whatever
then your original lead may be, let it be a true and—as far as you can
make it so—a simple lead: never lead an equivocal card—that is one
which may denote either strength or weakness—if you can, lead a card
about which no mistake is possible.[6] With the original lead, follow
the books and lead your strongest suit; if you have nothing at all, do
as little mischief as you can; in this pitiable condition the head of a
short suit—as a knave or a ten—is better than the lowest or lowest but
one of five to the nine; your partner, when he sees the high card led,
knows at once (assuming he knows anything) that he will have to save
the game himself if it can be saved, and will take the necessary steps
to that end. Though there is ancient and modern authority for this,[7]
I am perfectly aware that (according to the latest theory) it is
heresy; I am also aware, and the reflection gives me quite as much pain
as the heresy does, that leading a long weak suit _with a bad hand_ and
no cards of re-entry is a losing game:
“Such courses are in vain
Unless we can get in again.”
to lead your longest suit when you are neither likely to get the lead
again, nor to make a trick in it if you do, is a “short and easily
remembered rule,” but is apt to bring its followers to grief; if I
do so, I know perfectly well that after the game is over I shall
probably be left with the two long cards of that suit, or I may have
an opportunity of discarding one or both of them before that crisis
arrives, but this is not the slightest consolation to me.
While on the subject of heresy, I may as well refer to another lead
which has a special orthodoxy of its own. In all suits of four or more,
containing no sequence, unless headed by the ace, you either lead the
lowest, or, if you wish particularly to exhibit your knowledge of the
game, the lowest but one; but from king, knave, ten, &c., you lead the
ten, and if your object is a quiet life, you will continue to do so;
if you want to make tricks the advantage of the lead is not so clear:
if the second player holds ace, queen, &c., or queen and another, you
drive him into playing the queen, and so lose a trick, which if you had
led your lowest in the usual way, you might not have done.[8]
Against this you have the set off that by leading the ten you insure
having the king-card of the suit in the third round, but it is scarcely
worth your while to go through so much to get so little; for such a
lead pre-supposes your partner to have neither ace, queen, nor nine,
and it is two to one that he holds one of them; if your partner’s best
card is below the nine, the tricks you will make will be like angels’
visits, few and far between, whatever you lead; and why you should
take such a desponding view of an unplayed suit I am not aware. The
advantage of opening a suit in which you hold tenace is not so great
as to oblige you to handicap it by sending the town-crier round with a
bell to proclaim what that tenace is; _late in the hand_ it is often
advisable to lead the knave.
With ace and four small cards and a bad hand, when weak in trumps, I
have found, from long experience, the ace to be a losing lead, and
being distinctly of the impression that for the ordinary purposes of
life, 13/4 = 2, as I am not always anxious to proclaim the exact number
of my suit, I generally lead a small one.
I am aware that the suit does not always go twice, or even once; but
that is the fault of the cards, not of the equation.
Of course, if, for any wise purpose, you feel you must have one trick,
take it at the first opportunity, irrespective of Cocker or any other
authority.
N.B.—When you, second, third, or fourth player have won the first
trick, whatever you may think, you are _not_ the original leader, and
your lead then should be guided by your own hand; if it is a bad one
you are under no compulsion to open a suit at all, one suit is already
open, go on with that; if it also is a bad one, one bad suit is a less
evil than two bad suits, or opening a doubtful one in the dark; return
through strength up to declared weakness, or if it was your partner
who led, why should you show a suit unless you hold a good sequence or
strong trumps? Return his suit, yours will be led sometime; whatever
you won the trick with, he is in a better position to defend himself as
third player than if he had to lead it again himself.
In returning your partner’s lead, if you had originally three, you
return the higher of the two remaining cards; in returning through your
adversary’s lead, if you hold the third best and another, play the
small one, for your partner may hold the second best single and they
would fall together.
Whenever you hold a suit with one honour in it, to lead that suit, if
you can avoid it, is about the worst use you can make of it. Should you
fail to see this, devote ten minutes—not when you are playing whist,
but on some wet half-holiday or quiet Sunday afternoon—to thinking the
matter over; even if you have a suit of king, queen to three, why not
be quiet? If anybody else opens the suit you will probably make two
tricks, if you open it yourself, probably one; there is no hurry about
it, you can always do that, but why you should go out of your way to
lead a suit in which you hold four to the knave or five to the ten is
incomprehensible.
It is not generally known (or if it is, it is never acted on, which
comes to the same thing) that neither in the ninety-one laws of whist,
nor in any of its numerous maxims, are you forbidden to play the third
round of a suit, even though the best card is notoriously held by
your opponent. It is a common delusion to fancy that when a suit is
declared against you, you can prevent it making by leading something
else, whereas you merely postpone the evil day, and do mischief in the
interval. Many feeble whist-players are unwilling ever to let their
opponents make a single trick; now this is unnecessarily greedy; under
no circumstances, at short whist, is it imperative to make more than
eleven. Allow your adversary to have two, it amuses him and does not
hurt you.
“It is less mischievous, generally, to lead a certain
losing card, than to open a fresh suit in which you are
very weak.”—_What to Lead_, by Cam.
With trumps declared against you be particularly careful how you open
new suits; surely when you have just succeeded in knocking your partner
on the head in one suit, you might give him till the next hand to
recover himself, instead of trying to assault him again the very next
time you get the lead.[9]
Changing suits is one of the most constant annoyances you will have
to contend against; queer temper, grumbling, logic, and so on, if
sometimes a nuisance, are sometimes altogether absent, but the
determination to open new suits for no apparent reason—unless a feeble
desire on the part of the leader to see how far the proceeding will
injure his partner can be called a reason—is chronic.
Never[10] lead a singleton unless you are strong enough in trumps to
defeat any attempt either of your adversaries or your partner to get
them out, in which case it might be as well to lead them yourself;
whether you lead a sneaker or wait for others to play the suit, the
chance of ruffing is much the same, and the certainty of making a false
lead, and the nearly equal certainty of deceiving your partner are
avoided.
When a singleton comes off it may be nice, it is certainly naughty;
when on the other hand you have killed your partner’s king, and he has
afterwards got the lead, drawn the trumps, and returned your suit,
should the adversaries make four or five suits in it, you must not be
surprised if he gives vent to a few cursory remarks. To succeed with a
singleton, (1) your partner must win the first trick in the suit, (2)
he must return it at once, (3) on your next opening another unknown
suit, he must again win the trick, and the odds against these combined
events coming off are something considerable. Per contra, he will
probably be beaten on the very first round, and even if he is not, it
is extremely likely that he will either lead trumps—unless he is aware
of your idiosyncracy, when he will never know what to do—for what he
naturally imagines is your strong suit, or open his own; at the same
time, just as there are fagots and fagots, so there are singletons
and singletons, and a queen or knave is by no means such a villainous
card as anything below a seven. “The very worst singleton is the
king.”—_Cam._
With five trumps and no cards, lead a trump: you have made a true lead,
you have led not merely your strongest suit, but a very strong suit,
and if your partner has nothing, you will lose the game whatever you
play, but you will lose it on that account, and not because you led a
trump; if you open any of the plain suits you will make a false lead,
and it is two to one that the adversaries hold any of them against your
partner. You will often be told by the very people who will tell you
to lead from five small cards in a plain suit, that to lead a trump
from five is too dangerous, but if you inquire in what way it is too
dangerous, and receive any satisfactory reply, you will succeed in
doing what I have never done.
With five trumps and other cards, _a fortiori_ lead a trump.
Towards the end of the game, you will find it laid down by some
authorities that if you hold nothing and have an original lead, you
should lead your best trump; now if that trump is of sufficient size to
warn your partner that it is your best, this lead may not, under the
circumstances, be much more injurious than any other; but an original
trump lead is usually supposed to indicate great strength either in
trumps, or in plain suits, and if your partner infers from the size
of your trump that your lead is from strength, and acting on that
inference returns it, it is about the most murderous lead that can
be made; having been two or three times the victim of such a lead is
almost as good a reason for not returning trumps as sudden illness or
not having one.
If he holds seven tricks in his own hand he can make them at any time,
and any attempt of yours, however able, to deceive him at the outset
will (to say the least of it) not assist him in doing so.
Why add an additional element of confusion to the game? Why should
your partner have to say to himself as well as “Strong cards or strong
trumps?” “Perhaps nothing at all.” He is compelled to wait about to see
what is the meaning of this lead, time is lost, and an opportunity let
slip which may never recur. The Bumblepuppist will here observe that
time was made for slaves; but the apophthegms on this subject are more
numerous and contradictory than he is aware of.
As a general principle, with the original lead and a very bad hand, it
is advisable to efface yourself as much as possible. In such a case, I
always have a strong desire to get under the table—I don’t know that it
is contrary to either the laws or the etiquette of whist to do so—and I
firmly believe it is a better course than leading the trey of trumps;
at any rate it is not for the weak hand to dictate how the game should
be played; and to step boldly to the front and lead a small trump
from two, without a trick behind it, is in my opinion the height of
impertinence.
At certain states of the score it may be imperative, in order to save
the game, that you should place all the remaining cards, but that is
another matter altogether, and if you want to go into it, read Clay
on the subject (page 85), though he nowhere suggests that you should
commence operations by placing thirty-eight unknown cards.
If your partner has led you a trump, and you—holding ace, queen, to
four or more—have made the queen, return the ace; if you are playing
Bumblepuppy return a small one, your partner thinking the ace is
against him, is almost certain to finesse and lose a trick—then call
him names. The reason assigned by the perpetrator of this return is
that as he originally held four he is _compelled_ to play the lowest,
and it curiously exemplifies his inability to apply even the little
knowledge he is possessed of.
With ace, king only, it is customary to lead first the ace and then
the king; there is no authority for such a lead,[11] and nothing to be
gained by it, except that by leading in this way you probably prevent
your partner from signalling in the suit, but if you like to burden
yourself with a useless anomaly, you can make a note of it. We started
with the hypothesis, that, in the ordinary course of nature, you have
fifty years before you, and if you wish to embitter and shorten those
years, you will invariably lead the lowest but one of five—it may be,
and I am informed is, useful among a few assorted players, “chock-full
of science,” but it is caviare to the general[12] and (unlike
Wordsworth’s Creature)—
“Too bright and good
For human nature’s daily food.”[13]
For my part I only think it expedient to show five when, with
reasonable strength on the part of my partner, I have a fair prospect
of bringing in the suit.[14]
It is often better to keep the knowledge of mere length of suit
religiously to yourself. Length and strength are not always the same
thing; why are giants generally so weak about the knees? Length is
often only one element of strength and a very poor one at that,
though it may be of use indirectly. With four or five low cards and
an observant opponent, it is occasionally a good plan to bottle up
the smallest. I have known this missing link so to prey upon that
opponent’s mind as to cause him to forget matters of much greater
importance.
In bumblepuppy all this is entirely different, you can lead anything
you like, in any way you like; here the safest lead is a long weak
suit, the longer and weaker it is, the less is your partner able to do
you a mischief. _With a weak partner_, strengthening cards are either
futile or dangerous: as he will in all probability at once disembowel
himself, the result of leading them is on all fours with the Japanese
Hari Kari; whereas if you lead him a small card he will finesse into
his boots.
You should also be very particular to lead the lowest but one of
five,[15] it creates confusion, and under cover of that confusion you
may make a trick or two. From this point of view you will often find
the lead of the middle card of your suit extremely effective.
As to play false cards for the purpose of deceiving your partner is
considered clever, a very little practice will enable you to play them
with facility. With all deference to Bret Harte, for ways that are
dark, the Heathen Chinee is _not_ particular, and for tricks that are
vain, the Caucasian can give him points.
“For when he’d got himself a name
For fraud and tricks, he spoil’d his game;
And when he chanced to escape, mistook,
For art and subtlety, his luck.”
The ability to play false cards is not a proof of intelligence.
(“Cunning is often associated with a low type of intellect.”—_Report of
Inspector-General of Military Prisons._)[16]
If you read your Natural History, you will find it is the weaker
animals which betake themselves to anomalous modes of defence; though
the cuttle-fish and the skunk may be much looked up to in their
respective domestic circles, they are quite out of place at the
whist-table.
It is also usual with ace to five or more trumps to lead the ace, and
if you see—by killing your partner’s king, or by his failing to play
one—that he has no more, to try something else, for you can change the
suit as often as you please. It is a fine mental exercise for your
partner to recollect the remaining cards of four unfinished suits, all
going simultaneously.
I often think, when I see this game in full blast, that whist-players
are not sufficiently grateful to Charles the Sixth, or whatever other
lunatic invented playing cards, for having limited himself to four
suits; he might have devised six—but the idea is too horrible. “In the
time of Charles the Sixth there were five suits.”—_Field._ This not
only proves my ignorance but my position, for if five suits have been
tried and found too much for human endurance, then six would manifestly
have been quite too awful! Q.E.D.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[6] “It is highly necessary to be correct in leads.” “Never lead a card
without a reason, though a wrong one.” “Be particularly cautious not to
deceive your partner in his or your own leads.”—_Mathews._
[7] “According to the play that we see, with great weakness the rule
is rather to lead strengthening cards. For our own part we should
be inclined to say, “Lead from your long suit only when you are
sufficiently strong to bring in that suit with the aid of reasonable
strength on the part of your partner.”—_Westminster Papers._
“When you have a moderate hand yourself sacrifice it to your
partner.”—_Mathews._
“With a bad hand lead that suit which is least likely to injure your
partner. Do not, therefore, lead from four or five small cards.”—_Major
A._
“A lead from a queen or knave and one small card is not objectionable
if you have a miserably weak hand; your queen or knave may be valuable
to your partner.”—_Clay._
“The rule of always leading from the longest, as distinct from the
strongest suit, is a rule which, more frequently than any other,
sacrifices a partner’s cards without any benefit to the leader, and is
in direct opposition to the true principles of combination.”—_Mogul._
Even Cavendish, unless “generally” is synonymous with “always,” admits
the expediency of occasionally leading a short suit; “the hand, however
weak, must hold one suit of four cards, and this should _generally_ be
chosen.”
[8] “The lead is quite exceptional, and many good judges have doubted
whether a small one should not be led.”—_The Field._
[9] As intelligent children you will, perhaps, be tempted to observe
that all this is so self-evident it is scarcely worth mentioning: at
your immature time of life such a mistake is pardonable, but as you
grow older you will find that a determination to open ragged suits
in season and out of season—especially out—is one of the strongest
impulses of our imperfect nature.
[10] As defined by Captain Corcoran, R.N. In all treatises on Whist
“never” is invariably used in this sense. Perhaps in presence of the
New Whist which is now raging violently in America, it would be more
correct here to substitute “was” for “is.”
[11] Peccavi! the lead is given in _What to Lead_, by Cam.
[12] Never give “the general” an opportunity for thinking if you can
avoid it; this is a rule of _universal application_. “How oft the sight
of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!”
[13] It was introduced as “a proposed extension of principle,” but you
had better stick to the old adage, “first catch your principle,” and
leave the extension of it to some future time. Theoretical advantages
of this lead, and also the echo of the signal, you will find fully set
forth in “Cavendish.” In a letter to the _Field_, September 27th, 1879,
he appears to advocate varying its monotony by occasionally leading the
lowest but _two_. Cam, the original patentee of this invention, and
one of the finest players of his day, directs you to lead the lowest
but one only when you hold no honour in the suit. By this plan you can
not only count your partner’s hand—the apparent end of most modern
Whist—but after you have made the queen and lost your king on the
return, you have the additional gratification of knowing to a certainty
that he does not even hold the knave.
With regard to the echo, I have no head for intricate mathematical
calculations, and therefore am unable to tell you at about what trick
everything would be ready, but speaking roughly, I should be afraid
that for all practical purposes the hand would occasionally be over
before the signaller and the echoer had completed their operations. In
the “Art of Practical Whist” you are recommended to lead the lowest
but two of six. (The advice of _Punch_ to those about to marry is
applicable here.)
Mr. F. H. Lewis, in the _Field_, January, 1880, has propounded a
scheme for sub-dividing the echo into categories, and it has recently
been pointed out to me that by leading trumps in some irregular
way—understood, I presume, by the inventor of the process—you can
explain to your partner that you originally held four. “Is there
anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new? it hath been already
of old time, which was before us.” When all these improvements are in
use, this is clear, the elect will return to that fine old practice
known as “piping at whisk”; the rest of us to primæval chaos.
[14] “These refinements of artifice are utterly opposed to the essence
of scientific Whist.”—_Westminster Papers._
[15] “What with the if’s and the mystification that would occur
from playing the cards in this erratic manner, we should do more
to injure than improve the play _in the present state of Whist
science_.”—_Westminster Papers._ [The italics are mine.]
[16] “It puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many that perhaps
would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man walk almost alone
to his own ends.”—_Bacon._
[Illustration]
LECTURE III.
——
THE PLAY OF THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH HAND.
——
“The play is the thing.”—_Shakespeare._
SECOND hand with king and another, or queen and another, never play the
honour either in trumps or plain suits, unless you particularly want
the lead, and then you will probably not get it, and throw away a trick.
By not playing the honour,
(1) The chance of trick-making in the suit is greater
(this has been proved to demonstration by Mogul).[17]
(2) The possible weakness of the third hand is
exposed—a very important point.
(3) Your own weakness is concealed from the leader, and
he is able to finesse against your partner; these
three reasons ought to be tolerably conclusive, but
if a high card is led, head it!
If, holding knave, ten, and another, you are afraid of trumps being
led, and your partner is devoid of common sense, don’t play the ten,
or it will be taken for a signal (that it neither is one, nor at all
like one, does not affect the petrolater in the least); it is almost
equally dangerous with queen, knave, and another to play the knave. A
high card second hand has exactly the same effect on many players as a
red rag has on a bull; and if you have an objection to being gored, you
should keep it out of their sight as long as possible—subject to this
important qualification—“Put an honour on an honour, with only three of
a suit; with four or more you should not do it.”—_Mathews._
Except to save or win the game, whether you are weak in trumps, or
strong, don’t ruff a doubtful card unless you have a distinct idea what
to do next; if you are only going to open a weak suit, let it go.
Don’t ruff a suit of which your partner clearly holds the best, in
order to announce, _urbi et orbi_, that you are weak in trumps; depend
upon it _urbis_ and _orbis_ will take advantage of this, not to mention
that you take the lead out of your partner’s hand at a critical
moment, and prevent him from developing any game that he may have.
“Why for the momentary trick be perdurably fined?”
_Shakespeare._
In bumblepuppy, with ace, king, and others, or king, queen, and
others, the trick is often passed, and with knave led, if the second
player holds ace, queen, etc., he usually plays the queen;[18]
holding the same cards, if instead of the knave a small card is
led, he occasionally produces the ace. These proceedings may be the
eccentricities of genius; if they are not, the only other explanation I
can suggest for them, is a desire to lose a trick.
Third hand.—Don’t finesse against your partner, unless you have reason
to believe you are stronger in his own suit than he is, or that he has
led from weakness.
Don’t finesse against yourself. If you have led from ace, knave, etc.,
and your partner has made the queen, the king is certainly not on your
right. If, on the other hand, you have led from king, and your partner
again has made the queen, it can be of no use to put on the king, the
ace must be over you. Though Clay described the finesse obligatory
before you were thought of, I am afraid that after you are forgotten,
these two simple cases will continue to be reversed—that people will
finesse against, and not for, themselves. In bumblepuppy this is _de
rigueur_; also at this game, with king, queen, and another in your
partner’s lead, it is customary to play the king, and, if it wins, to
open a new suit.
Ruff a winning card of the adversaries! What possible benefit can you
derive from allowing your opponent to discard, and by that discard show
his partner the suit he wishes led? If you are too stingy to use a high
trump, surely you might play a little one just to keep the trick going.
“It is much better to play a small trump with the certainty it will be
overtrumped than to let the trick go.”—_Westminster Papers._
When your partner has opened a suit with the ace, and on the third
round eleven are out, he holds the other two, and whenever he leads one
of them—whether it is the queen or the four—it is a winning card; but
if you fail to grasp this, and feel disposed to play the thirteenth
trump on it, don’t waste time either in invoking the immortal gods,
inspecting the last trick, or looking præternaturally intelligent—trump
it at once, and put him out of his misery. The idea is not new, for it
occurred to Macbeth when about to perpetrate the very same coup:
“If ’twere done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.”
My only claim is to have expressed myself without such an involved use
of auxiliary verbs.
If you have more than two of the suit, don’t play the ace on your
partner’s knave; it may be a short suit, or the head of a sequence,
and you throw away the power of passing the ten second round, even if
it is from king, queen, knave to five, there is nothing to be gained
by covering; with ace and another win the trick and return it at once,
unless you lead trumps.
Though frequently done, it is not good whist to decline to win a trick,
either on the ground that you want a guard for your king of trumps, or
because you hold six. In the other game both these proceedings would be
correct.
Fourth hand.—Win the trick, and endeavour, if possible, to do so
without playing a false card. Like all things that are difficult at
first, you will find it become comparatively easy by practice. You
might suppose that the exponent of bumblepuppy—who always considers a
trick of his own making worth at least two made by his partner—would
get into no difficulty here; but he does. He has a firmly-rooted
belief that his strong suits are under the protection of a special
Providence which will never allow them to be ruffed, and uttering his
wretched shibboleth, “Part with my ace, sir? never!” he contrives to
lose any number of tricks by keeping up his winning cards to the last
possible moment and a shade longer. I imagine he is under the erroneous
impression that this in some way compensates for cutting in with a
small trump when he is not wanted.
“It is a good plan when you have the thirteenth trump to pass winning
cards. The reason of this is not apparent, but in practice I know
several players who do so, and in the multitude of counsellors there is
wisdom.”—_Westminster Papers._
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] I have worked it out myself in more than four thousand cases by
rule of thumb (_Field_, October 1882), and obtained the same result; if
in the teeth of this, _early in the hand_, a decent Whist-player plays
the king second on a small card led, it is an unnecessarily high card;
and as unnecessarily high cards are not played without an object, that
object is presumably a call for trumps.
[18] “With ace, queen, etc., of a suit of which your right hand
adversary leads the knave, put on the ace invariably. No good player,
with king, knave, ten, will begin with the knave: of course, it is
finessing against yourself to put on the queen, and, as the king is
certainly behind you, you give away at least the lead, without any
possible advantage.”—_Mathews._ This advice as a rule is sound, but you
must bear in mind that towards the end of a hand the knave is often led
from king, knave, ten, or king, knave alone, and if you, holding ace,
queen, are obliged to make two tricks in the suit, in order to win, or
save the game, you will have to play the queen. If the king is held by
your left-hand adversary, you will lose the game whatever you play.
When you play the queen under these circumstances, and it comes off,
don’t imagine that you are inspired, or præternaturally intelligent;
you are only playing to the score; and you will find that most
instances of irregular play, which at first sight suggest inspiration,
resolve themselves into this.
[Illustration]
LECTURE IV.
——
DISCARDING, AND ITS DIFFICULTIES.
——
“This the vain purpose of his life to try,
Still to explore what still eludes his eye.”
DISCARDS are of two distinct kinds:—
(1) Ordinary.
(2) Forced.
(1) When your partner; (2) When your adversary shows strength.
In the first case, you naturally point out to your partner which is
your strong suit by discarding from your weak suits, your object
being to win the game, and there is an end of that matter.[19] In the
second case it is just the reverse. You have to save the game, and you
discard from your _best guarded suit_, by no means necessarily your
strongest, with a view, as far as you can, of blocking every suit, and
so preventing the adversary from establishing his long cards.
These two kinds of discards are, or ought to be, of importance to three
very different classes of players:—
(1) The Scientific.
(2) The Commonly Decent.
(3) The Exponents of Bumblepuppy.
(1) The Scientific.—Here, with trumps declared against you, you
discard, as already said, from your best guarded suit. Your partner
knows this is probable, but he does not know how strong you are in
that suit; he also knows it may very possibly be a suit in which you
hold three small cards, and a second discard of it only gives him the
further information that you had either three or five—_he must infer
which from his own hand_—he assumes you did not originally hold two,
for you would not have left yourself entirely bare of the suit. It is
not everybody who is in the proud position which I once occupied, when
a trump being led by the adversary, I found myself with no trump, the
best nine cards of one suit, and two other aces.
Among good players, then, the forced discard amounts to this: that
though you are aware your partner is discarding with the best possible
motives, and he is aware that you are doing the same, neither can
depend upon the other’s discard as showing anything for certain. With
trumps declared against you, you must place unknown cards to the best
of your ability, and in such an unpleasant conjuncture, if you are
exceptionally fortunate, you may sometimes save the game, and the
skill displayed in doing so may be a joy for ever:—
“Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.”
Observe the discretion of the poet in his choice of the word “_forsan_.”