coming off, when you reflect that your partner has occasionally given
you two discards, and that you, in the exercise of that right of
private judgment inherent in every Protestant, led one of those very
suits, and by so doing lost the game; when you recall what then took
place, the _epea pteroenta_, the mutual—but the subject is too painful;
let us leave it, and pass on to Class 2.[20] This class has two
divisions, they both see your discards, but—without any reference to
their own hands or anything that has been played—one division assumes
your discard is invariably from weakness, and at once knocks on the
head the very suit you have sedulously been attempting to guard; the
other has got hold of the pernicious axiom that the original discard is
necessarily your _strongest_ suit, and always leads that.
Here we have again a pretty considerable element of confusion.
Class 3.—These, with an unerring instinct that might almost be mistaken
for genius,[21] will put you in a hole, whatever you do. The safest
plan is, under all circumstances, to discard from your weakest suit;
you cannot be cut to pieces there, and, whatever happens, you have the
letter of the law on your side. When you have not followed suit to the
second round of the opponent’s trumps, when, as a rule, your discard
(being forced) is not to be depended on and is of no importance to
them, this is the only time they ever see it; for having no winning
cards in their own hands to attract their attention, they are able
to devote a little more time to seeing the cards on the table. The
number of times they will have that wretched trick turned, and their
anxiety to be quite sure of the suit, are painful to the sensitive mind
(especially if that sensitive mind is sitting opposite to them and
happens to belong to yourself). Well might Sophocles observe, “Many
things are dreadful, but nothing is more dreadful than man.”
That the first discard is from the weakest suit is one of those
half-dozen cast-iron rules—three of them wrong, and the remainder
invariably misapplied—which make up their stock-in-trade;[22] but
if they hold ace, king, queen to five trumps—say clubs—you see them
come well up to the table with an air of triumph, and begin to lead.
Again you don’t follow suit; what do they care? they drive gaily on,
but, as they finish the third round, the idea just begins to dawn upon
them—perhaps you have discarded something.[23] A careful inspection of
the last trick affords them the pleasing intelligence that somebody has
discarded a diamond and somebody else a spade; the light fades from
their eye, their jaw drops, and they are such a picture of hopeless
misery, that if they were not in the habit of informing you—scores of
times a day—that they play whist only for amusement, you might almost
doubt the fact.[24]
After prolonged contemplation of the chandelier and a farewell look at
the spade and diamond, they eventually produce a heart—your original
discard!—have their remaining trumps drawn, and lose the game.
Ordinary discards are simple in the extreme, and might be very useful;
unfortunately (as the general public will persist in confining its
attention to its own hand, as long as there is anything in it), the
only discard usually seen is the last, and this detracts from their
utility. Forced discards are always difficult (not to the discarder,
but to his partner), and to a duffer, unintelligible, for this reason,
they require common-sense—far be it from me to teach it—it is like
poetry, “_nascitur non fit_,” and these remarks have not been made with
any such intention, but to endeavour to accentuate that Cavendish in
his treatise on Whist, and a letter which I append, has said everything
on the subject likely to be of use.
_The Principles of Discarding._
“The old system of discarding, though unscientific, had at least the
merit of extreme simplicity. It was just this: when not able to follow
suit, let your first discard be from your weakest suit. Your partner
in his subsequent leads is thus directed to your strong suit, and will
refrain from leading the suit in which, by your original discard, you
have told him you are weak.[25]
Several years ago some whist enthusiasts, amongst whom were Mogul and
myself, played a number of experimental rubbers, the cards of each hand
being recorded as they were played, and the play being fully discussed
afterwards.
In the course of the discussion it was observed first, I think, by
Mogul, that in several hands the discard from a weak suit, when the
adversaries evidently had in their hands the command of trumps, had
resulted very disastrously.[26] This caused us to consider whether the
weak suit should not be protected under these circumstances, and we
finally came to the conclusion that discards should be divided into two
classes, viz., ordinary discards and forced discards. These I proceed
to distinguish.
The reason a weak suit is chosen for the discard is, that when a
strong suit is broken into, the number of long cards which might be
brought in, if the suit is ever established, are lessened, and so many
potential tricks are thus consequently lost.
But little harm, certainly none of this kind of harm, is done by
throwing away from a weak suit, in other words, from a suit that can
never be brought in. But when the adversaries have declared great
strength in trumps, the chance of bringing in a suit is reduced to a
minimum. On the assumption that you can never bring it in, the small
cards of your long suit are valueless to you. That suit will protect
itself so far as its high cards are concerned, but the weak suits
require protection.
Thus, by guarding honours, or by keeping four cards to a ten or nine, a
trick is often won, or the establishment of an adverse suit prevented.
It was this point, indeed, which first led us to condemn the
invariable discard of the weak suit; the remark was frequently made, “I
was obliged to deceive you then, partner, and to throw my long suit in
order to keep my king guarded in another suit.” This, of course, when
the game was in danger.
Honours in weak suits may be freely unguarded by the players who have
strong trump hands, but the guards should be religiously preserved by
those who are weak. Our discussions resulted in our laying down the
following rules for our own guidance, viz., _when you see from the
fall of the cards that there is no probability of bringing in your
own or your partner’s long suit, discard originally from your best
protected suit_. This I may call the foundation of the modern system of
discarding; it has been adopted by all the best players with whom I am
acquainted.
For the sake of having a short and easily remembered rule, however,
it is the fashion to say, “Discard originally from your strong suit
when the adversaries lead trumps.”[27] “No doubt you will be right in
your discard in most cases, but this aphorism does not truly express
the conditions.” (Query, then why use it?).... “The conclusion I
have arrived at is that the modern system of discarding requires so
much judgment in its application as to be rather a stumbling-block
than an assistance to the ordinary run of players,”—rough on the
neophyte!—“This is a pity, as there can be no doubt but that the
classing of discards into ordinary and forced is sound in principle,
and adds beauty to the game. I have been prompted to write this letter
in the hopes of seeing this classification more generally adopted, and
its limitations more distinctly observed and acted on.”—_Cavendish._
I have met with the same conclusion and the same regret in a metrical
form: it is short, and may be useful to any of you troubled with bad
memories:
“If seven maids, with seven mops,
Swept it for half-a-year,
Do you suppose,” the walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“_I doubt it_,” said the carpenter,
_And shed a bitter tear_.
_Resumption of Note C, page 36._
——
PLAYING FOR AMUSEMENT.
If this principle were carried out to its logical result, and everybody
played for amusement in the ludicrous sense in which this word is
generally understood, it is manifest that—as no one would ever see
either a card led or played, or know what suit was trumps—it would be
useless continuing to ask each other for information on those abstruse
points; and unless, by some alteration in the laws of whist, an
intelligence department outside the table were provided to supplement
the precarious knowledge acquired by looking at the last trick, the
game would shortly collapse from its innate absurdity; unfortunately we
seldom arrive at this point; what usually takes place is this:
Four people sit down nominally to play whist, when suddenly one of
them announces, to the consternation of his partner, that he is not
there with any such intention, but solely for his own amusement; he
altogether ignores the possibility of the others wishing to play whist
for their amusement, and lays down his stale proposition with such an
air of originality that he often deludes the unwary bystander into
the belief that he is somehow superhuman, and much superior to the
other three, who are consequently looked down upon as mean and sordid
individuals; this is not the case. If yelling when he is trodden upon,
and crying if he loses, are proofs of humanity, he is essentially human.
Now, no one has the slightest objection to your amusing yourself as
long as you do not annoy anybody else. I go further than this, and
admit your abstract right to amuse yourself at your partner’s expense,
but I protest against your expecting him to rejoice with you in his own
discomfiture.
Because eels are accustomed to being skinned, it does not at all follow
that they should like it—at any rate, whether they do so or not, it is
not expected of them.
Again, the practice of vivisection may be both amusing and instructive
to the vivisector, while it may be neither the one nor the other
to his victim. Though I have no practical acquaintance with this
pursuit, I have often seen large portraits of the vivisectee pasted on
hoardings, and judging from the expression of his countenance, and the
uncomfortable position in which he is always depicted, I should imagine
that the entire proceedings were supremely distasteful to him.
From the time when Cain was short-coated, and tipcats, pea-shooters,
catapults, and other instruments of torture appeared on the scene,
there have been peculiar ideas of amusement. Fortunately—with the
exception of your doting mammas—public opinion has been against you.
A gentleman found in the street with a tipcat embedded in his eye is
usually conducted to the nearest chemist, and the malefactor given
in charge. (The crafty Ulysses, before he performed a very similar
operation on Polyphemus, made every preparation to escape from the room
as soon as it was over, and took uncommonly good care not to originate
the now trite witticism, “there you go with your eye out,” till he
was well beyond his reach. He was far too intelligent a man to expect
the Cyclops to take it pleasantly.) But if this occurs at Whist, and
the victim even hints an objection, he is looked upon as a bear, and
sometimes the verdict is “served him right,” while at other times he
seems to be expected to “rub it in.” There I draw the line; annoy your
partner as much as you like, but don’t expect that! It is contrary to
nature; still, while fully and freely admitting your right of annoying,
and also your right to throw away your own property if you please,
you are not privileged to treat your partner’s in the same way. This
borders closely on theft, and before taking such a liberty, in order to
be on the safe side, I think you ought first to obtain his consent in
writing. It is all very well for Shakespeare to call his purse trash
(he knew the contents of it, and his description may have been most
accurate), but whether things are trash or not, if they don’t belong to
you, you must not make away with them (as the poet himself experienced
when he took to deer-stealing), and unless you wish, like him, to fall
into the clutches of the criminal law, you had better take Captain
Cuttle’s advice, and overhaul your catechism, with special reference to
your duty to your neighbour. You will find it a safer guide.
I ought to apologise for the length of this note, but I have suffered
myself, and although I never killed an albatross, and am by nature most
inoffensive,
“Since then at an uncertain hour
That agony returns,
And till my ghastly tale is told
The heart within me burns.”
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[19] In ordinary discarding, your strong suit is your long suit: except
to deceive your partner, and get your king prematurely cut off, it can
be no use to discard from four or five small cards in one suit, in
order to keep king to three in another.
[20] If there are a “few words” going about, and you are not concerned,
don’t put your oar in—
“They who in quarrels interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.”
[21] Genius has been defined to be “an unlimited capacity for taking
pains,” and the pains they will take to circumvent you are assuredly
unlimited, but their capacity for anything is so doubtful, that their
claim to genius on this score must be left in abeyance.
[22] The excitement of the moment has led me into exaggeration here;
let me give the bumblepuppist his due, the exact number is ten, as you
will find later on.
[23] “The strong hand is leading trumps, and he gets them all out,
and has the lead; nine times out of ten he will have forgotten his
partner’s first discard, and play on the assumption his last discard is
his first, and so certain is this to come about that, we believe, with
some players, it is best to endeavour to calculate how many discards we
shall get, and let the last discard be our weakest suit.”—_Westminster
Papers._
[24] If they were slightly to vary this statement, and say, “They
pitched thirteen cards about only for their own amusement,” the
position would be much more inexpugnable.
Unless my memory deceives me, in “The Whist Player,” by Col. Blyth,
they are recommended to confine themselves to playing “Beggar my
Neighbour” with their grandmothers;—as most of those ladies must in the
ordinary course of nature have gone over to the majority, this would
be hard on them—but they might adopt a middle course, and play that
fascinating game with each other; they could pitch the cards about
equally well, and would have more cards to pitch. I shall resume this
topic at the close of this lecture.
[25] Will he?
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
And you can hope anything you like, if you don’t mind the subsequent
disappointment: First, he has to see it, and after you have got over
that difficulty, if he only holds two small cards in that suit, and has
a tenace in the other—according to my experience—he will lead his own.
With king singly guarded in your suit, instead of being delighted to
play it, wild horses are powerless to drag it from him.
[26] Absorbed in their discoveries, they appear to have forgotten that,
“_Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona_.”
“If weak in trumps, keep guard on your adversary’s suits. If strong,
throw away from them.”—_Mathews._
[27] That young and curly period when I was influenced by the fashions
has passed away. _Eheu fugaces_, etc. It may be easier to remember
“strong” than “best protected”; one epithet is certainly three
syllables shorter than the other, but it seems a pity, for the sake of
those three syllables, to use an expression which is utterly misleading.
In “The Art of Practical Whist” also “strongest” is used without any
qualification whatever, and here you only save two syllables; although
the Commination Service is seldom read now—even if, like Royal Oak Day
and Herr Von Joel, it should cease altogether to be retained by the
Establishment—to make the blind man go out of his way would still be
inexpedient, unless you make him go out of your own way as well, for
you may cut him for a partner; if you have no respect for the blind,
surely you have some regard for your pocket-money.
[Illustration]
LECTURE V.
——
THE DISCARD FROM THE _STRONGEST_ SUIT.
——
“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademptum.”—_Eton Grammar._
PART I.
THE last lecture went thoroughly into the forced discard and, after
looking at it in every possible light, left it exactly at the point
where it was left by Mathews nearly a hundred years ago: “IF WEAK IN
TRUMPS, KEEP GUARD ON YOUR ADVERSARY’S SUITS. IF STRONG, THROW AWAY
FROM THEM AND DISCARD AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE FROM YOUR PARTNER’S STRONG
SUITS IN EITHER CASE.”
Here I should gladly have let the matter rest—as the boy said when he
saw the wild cat. It is a thorny subject; but the New Man will not
permit it.
“_The Decline and Fall of Whist_” contains a view of him and his game,
which is very widely entertained in this country, and though it may or
may not be a better game, it is not Whist in the English sense of the
word.
Our subject being the Whist or Bumblepuppy of our native land, the
invariable lead of the longest suit, fourth-bests, eleven rule,
American leads, and all the subsequent proceedings have no more
interest for the British school-boy wishing to learn Whist than they
had for Abner Dean of Angels on a well-known occasion.
To give the American Whist-players their due, I am bound to admit that,
in addition to their having devised a new set of leads, new play of
second and third hand, a new mode of scoring, and having done away with
the honours—greatly to their credit for common sense and intelligence;
their idea of our modern forced discard is: “It is a curious notion
that an original discard should always be from the strongest suit” (_A
Practical Guide to Whist, by Fisher Ames_), and also they have compiled
a new code of laws which is an enormous improvement upon the singular
jumble of laws, definitions, and arbitrary decisions under which we
impotently writhe.
“On ashes, husks, and air we feed,
And spend our little all in vain.”—_Wesley._
Law 37 of their code runs as follows: “When a trick is turned and
quitted it must not be seen again until the hand has been played. A
violation of this law subjects the offending side to the same penalty
as a lead out of turn.”
They may have been driven to abolish our Law 91 in order to make the
intricacies of their game humanly possible, still, “for this relief
much thanks.”
Considering the cheapness of freight, and that there is no import
duty, why Law 37 has not been introduced into this country is one of
the greatest mysteries of the end of the nineteenth century.
We are flooded with all the other American Whist innovations, and the
key of the position is conspicuous by its absence.
“Why should English Whist-men retain an antiquated, ill-constructed and
ambiguous code, when they have in the code of the American Whist League
laws as free from such defects as human ingenuity can devise?”—_Whist._
And echo answers, Why?
But to return to our muttons. On one point it is incumbent to make
a stand. If the New Man had only been satisfied to concentrate his
mischievous attentions on his New Game, we might have agreed to differ
and gone our several ways in peace and harmony: _dis aliter visum_.
Unfortunately, “in his craze for uniformity,” he has tampered with the
forced discard, which is our common grazing ground, and has deluded
himself and the whole of Bumblepuppydom into a wild and erroneous
belief that the first discard—when unable to follow suit to an adverse
trump lead—is _always_ the suit he wants led.
“In all the fabric
You shall not see one stone or a brick,
But all of wood.”
Now, I have dealt myself innumerable hands—it is a favourite amusement
of mine when I have a little spare time—and taking the shortest and
weakest suit for trumps, have carefully calculated how often I could
discard a suit I wanted led; how often I should feel justified in
dictating to my partner to make me third player in it. It comes out
well under fifty per cent.
Hands of this kind are constantly turning up.
Diamonds (trumps)—9, 7.
Hearts—Kg., Qn., 3.
Spades—Qn., Kn., 9.
Clubs—10, 8, 6, 3, 2.
Here I must discard a club, but I don’t necessarily want it led.
Diamonds (trumps)—Qn. and another.
Hearts—Kn. and three small ones.
Spades—Kn. and three small ones.
Clubs—Three small ones.
As I am not going to unguard either of these knaves, again I discard a
club, and again I don’t want to dictate to my partner to lead it, and
so _ad infinitum_.
The simple faith that, whenever the adversary leads trumps, you are
bound to hold a strong suit, may be better than Norman blood. If it is,
it only tends to prove of how singularly little value that fluid may be.
Therefore, in my own case, this is the way the rule works out: “When we
are in a very tight place, and trumps are declared against us, my first
discard _always_ shows clearly the suit I want led;” only, in more than
half the instances, it does nothing of the kind.
This is a pretty sort of universal rule. Whatever view you may take of
it, it scarcely comes up to my idea of a sheet anchor.
“_Lex non cogit ad impossibilia._”
“Kind Fortune, come, my woes assuage,
Bend down and mark a modern moan,
And bear me through the golden age,
Through age of iron, bronze, and stone;
Back, back, before the men with tails,
A million years before the flood;
To where the search of science fails,
And leave me happy in the mud.”
But if I prefer to wallow there, don’t let me thrust my opinions on
you—you may object to mud; your cards may be better than mine; judge
for yourselves! Deal a few hands, and if you find once in five times,
or once in ten times, that the rule won’t work, then you have this
formula for your guidance: “We always discard from the suit we want
led, _except when we have no such suit_,” and mind this, the first
time you fail, all the fat is in the fire; there is no retreat. When
once you cast judgment and common-sense to the four winds of heaven,
and submit yourselves body and soul to the rule of thumb—and such a
thumb!—you cannot play fast and loose with it; you must take it for
“all in all, or not at all.” Like a wife, which you may have some day,
you take it for better or worse, till death do you part; and this is
all worse; it is an utterly unworkable arrangement,
“That, like a wen, looks big and swells,
Is senseless, and just nothing else.”
If you are to have an _always_ in this most intricate and difficult
affair (_which I strongly deprecate_), and are unable to sit
comfortably at a whist-table without a crutch of some kind to lean
upon—and this in such a position seems uncalled for—you will find
discarding from your _longest_ suit a safer plan, though this is not
always available. Why cannot you leave good old _best-guarded_ alone?
After all I have said, should you still persist in running your heads
against “strongest” and “the suit I want led,” these lines of Moore
undoubtedly “touch the spot”—
“Behold your Light, your Star—
“Ye _would_ be dupes and victims, and ye _are_!”
PART II.
“Post tenebras lux.”—_Pintsch._
THERE is one method of forced discarding which is often extremely
useful; it is simple to a degree and always practicable; it has been in
use for some years, and is approved of by all the good whist-players I
have ever come across.
If you have a really strong suit to discard from—a suit that you _can_
order your partner to lead you—_signal in it_, and throw away the
highest card you safely dare.
This was first brought to my notice by Mr. Proctor, and—like Newton’s
apple, Columbus’s egg, and many other great discoveries—is almost
obtrusively obvious when it is once pointed out.
It is no new invention, for it has been the well-known practice of
whist from primæval times.
Possibly known in the cave of Neanderthal.
Its inhabitants, when they had a really powerful suit, discarded an
unnecessarily high card. With a quint major, they discarded the ace;
with a quart to a king, they discarded the king, and so forth.
Here is a declaration of absolute strength at the very moment it is
required; no uncertainty as to whether it is a protective discard,
or mere length; it is also flexible,[28] for you can use your own
judgment; give the information; conceal it for a time if you think fit,
or withhold it altogether.
Minor details—such as that when only one discard is available, a
high card would in all probability indicate strength, while a low
one (though it might indicate length) would do nothing of the kind,
but rather the opposite; and its use under many circumstances, even
when your partner is leading trumps—if not at once obvious to your
own unassisted intelligence, are better left to the professional
development-mongers.
Having a rooted antipathy to formulating an interminable series of
minute regulations for exceptional cases, a practice which has done
irreparable injury to whist, far be it from me to trench upon their
preserve.