cards and curious logic; there is a fiend often reported to be present
in the card-room, known by the name of “Luck,” and you ought to be
acquainted with two of the common stratagems for circumventing him; it
is by no means unusual to see two obese elderly persons—who have just
lost a rubber by revoking, ruffing each other’s winning cards with the
thirteenth trumps, forgetting to score honours _et id genus omne_—after
first roundly anathematizing this malefic spirit, taking precautions
against such things happening again by slowly and painfully rising
from their respective chairs, and at great personal inconvenience,
changing places with each other; this is one way; another is to throw
away several additional shillings in the purchase of new cards; turning
your chair round and sitting down again is also supposed to have an
emollient tendency.
That there is such a thing—though stupidity is often mistaken for
it—is, to my mind, as undoubted as that there are birds; but whether
one or the other is to be caught by putting salt on its tail—without
taking other precautions—must be left to that right of private judgment
already mentioned. (Page 34.)
It is true the Swan of Avon sings—
“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to Heaven,”
but he was only a literary person, not a whist player; and if a careful
exercise of your judgment satisfies you that either calling (and
paying) for new cards, or wearing out the seats of your knickerbockers
by dodging from chair to chair, is a specific for want of memory and
attention, so let it be: whatever conclusion you arrive at, it is your
duty to respect your seniors.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] “When it is evident the winning cards are betwixt you and your
adversaries, play an obscure game; but as clear a one as possible if
your partner has a good hand.”—_Mathews._
[39] The defence is quite as singular as the attack; for instance, if
you should be taken to task for any alleged criminality arising from
defective vision; instead of making either of the obvious answers that
it never took place at all, or that you regret it escaped your notice
and will endeavour to keep a better look out in future, the ordinary
plea in extenuation is “the noise in the room,” also “because your
cards are so bad,” is often assigned as a satisfactory reason.
[40] Even a few days of this discipline at the beginning of Lent would
be better than nothing.
[41] Evasive answers are of two kinds; those
(1) For the ordinary platitude, for which you will find good examples
in _Card Table Talk_.
(2) For the blatant absurdity; these are more difficult, for while
modestly asserting your own individuality, you must at the same time
guard against
“Heating a furnace for your foe so hot,
That you do singe yourself.”
The following remark admirably fulfils both these conditions:—
“For the matter of that,” said Colonel Quagg, “Rot!”—_Sala_.
It should be addressed, kindly but firmly, to a point about eighteen
inches above your partner’s head.
[42] A well-known whist-player who is really deaf is reported to aver
that he never knew what comfort was till that misfortune befell him.
[43] Bad play is any kind of solecism perpetrated by somebody else; if
by yourself, it may be either just your luck, _pardonable_ inattention,
playing too quickly, drawing the wrong card, or—in a very extreme
case—carelessness, but it is never bad play; sometimes the difference
is even greater than this, and what would be bad play in another, in
yourself may be the acme of skill.
[Illustration]
LECTURE IX.
——
WHIST AS AN INVESTMENT.
——
“None alive can truly tell
What fortune they must see.”—_Sedley._
IN “the Art of practical Whist” you will see capital invested in
Whist compared to consols; don’t run away with the idea that there is
any such resemblance; those numerous foreign _securities_ or limited
companies nearer home where you receive no interest and lose your
principal—or those public conveyances suggested by the elder Mr.
Weller—would be much closer analogues.
Whist is not a certainty; neither is it true that you will every year
find your account exactly square on the thirty-first of December—it is
a popular fallacy devised by those who win, to keep the losers in good
spirits.
“Maxima vis est phantasiæ.”
An old friend of mine—veracious as men go, and always considered of
fairly sound mind and free from delusions, though a very inferior
whist-player—has often assured me that he won over three thousand
points for three years running (close on ten thousand in the
aggregate); if this statement is correct, and I have no reason to doubt
it—I often played with him, and he almost invariably won—it is manifest
that, after paying for the cards, some of us when we called at the bank
for our dividends, must have had to go empty away.
I have played whist—club, domestic, or bumblepuppy—pretty regularly for
a quarter of a century, and the only conclusion I have arrived at so
far, is the very vague one that I shall either win or lose—I don’t know
at all which—for five years in succession, or multiples of five.
For the first ten years I won considerably, for the next five I lost
considerably, then for another five I won slightly, and the last five
(I am thankful to say I am now getting well into the fifth) I have lost
again.[44]
I have no doubt things equalise themselves in the long run,
the difficulty is that I am unable to give you any idea, even
approximately, what the duration of a long run is.[45]
During a part of that first period, extending over a year and a
quarter, I played long whist—five points to the bumper—more than fifty
times, and never but once won less than twelve points. If we may
believe Herodotus, in his day the end was not always visible from the
beginning, and so it is now. I have won rubbers against all the cards,
and with all the cards I have lost them.
Sometimes I cannot lose a rubber, sometimes I cannot win one; at one
time cards will beat their makers, at another the makers will beat the
cards, and these results occur without rhyme or reason, in defiance
of any system of play. Don’t imagine for a moment that I suggest play
is of no consequence, I merely say that you will frequently see the
cards or the players run wild, and that the actual result—winning or
losing—is beyond your own control.
“In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of man.”
_Shakespeare._
I have known twenty-four successive rubbers lost, and I have won
seventeen more than once. I have lost nine hundred and thirty points
in two months, and a hundred and fifty-four in two days. I have lost
a bumper in two deals, holding one trump each hand and with the same
partner, the same seats, and the same cards won the next rubber but one
in two deals, again holding one trump in each hand.
I have seen a player with no trump and no winning card lose a
treble, and the very next hand, again with no trump and no winning
card—assisted to some extent by his partner—score nine, and on one
melancholy occasion my partner and myself were unable to raise a trump
between us; as a set-off to this, I ought to admit that we once held
them all.
Though I have never seen it myself, that the dealer should give each
member of the _parti_ an entire suit is becoming as common an object
of the sea-shore as our old friend the sea-serpent. Fortunately,
overpowering cards do not always win. A hand of thirteen trumps has
been known to make only one trick; it occurred in this wise.
A, B, Y, and Z were playing in a train, and A dealt himself the whole
suit of hearts: Y led the king of spades; B played the ace; Z followed
suit, and A ruffed.
B, “an arbitrary gent,” ejaculated “Trump my ace!” at once took up the
trick and, with his own twelve cards, threw the lot out of the window.
“The rest is silence.”
I have held three Yarboroughs in two hours (a Yarborough is a hand
containing no card above a nine), and a hand with no card above a
seven at least twice. There was a hand recently at Surbiton with no
card above a six. With ace, knave, to five trumps, two kings, and
trumps led up to me, I have lost by five cards, and with queen, knave,
10, 8, 3, 2, diamonds (trumps), spade king, ace and king of hearts,
ace, king, queen and another club, and the original lead, I lost the
odd trick; and, most incredible of all, I know a very good player who,
on three consecutive Saturdays, lost an aggregate of over three hundred
points.
I have played a set match, and, although I never bet, as I fancied
we had a shade the best of the play, and the other side made the
liberal offer of six to four, it tempted me, I took it and won five
rubbers running. I once cut about the best player I know six times
consecutively. My partner laid six to five to commence with, and as we
won the first game—a single—he gave five to two, and that was the only
game we won in those six rubbers.
One of the two finest players I ever met lost twenty-eight consecutive
rubbers; feeling aggrieved at this ill-treatment he swore off for a
fortnight, and then lost twelve more.
Busses—not Funds—is much nearer the mark. Irrespective of the time of
day, you can either go to bed when you have won two rubbers, or when
you have lost them; you can persevere to the bitter end either when you
are winning or when you are losing; you can take any of the measures
mentioned in the last lecture, or adopt any other system you please;
but there is one rule with no exception: though no earthly power can
prevent your winning or losing, the actual amount of that gain or loss
always depends upon yourself and your partner; if you should ever lose
eighty or a hundred points at one sitting, that deplorable result will
never take place without your active connivance; a trick lost here
and a trick lost there, an exposed card or something of that kind—the
consequence is always intensified when you are losing—will just make
the difference every now and then between winning and losing a rubber.
During the bad forty-eight hours I had when I lost a hundred and
fifty-four points, I was attending carefully to the play, the cards
were abominable, and, making no allowances for what might have happened
if my partner and I had only been omniscient, simple little mistakes of
the kind just mentioned accounted for thirty-two of those points.
If there is such a thing as luck—and I believe there is—don’t lie down
and let it kick you.
Always play with reasonable care and attention:—if a thing is worth
doing at all, it is worth doing well—and when you hold cards which you
do not consider quite equal to your deserts, instead of playing worse
on that account—as most people do—take a little extra care.
If your pocket money gives out, or you feel that your cards are too
bad for endurance, give up playing altogether; but if you continue to
play don’t exacerbate your misfortunes by your own shortcomings; it is
bad enough to retire to your crib with empty pockets, without a guilty
conscience in addition.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[44] To the sneer that I lose now because I play worse, I reply it is
quite possible I do not play so well as I did five years ago, I make
the sneerer a present of the admission, but I play better than I did
twenty years ago, when—playing against as good players as I do now—if I
did not win every time I sat down I was astonished.
[45] “An experiment that does not go on to millions is very little
use in determining such propositions. It can be demonstrated to the
satisfaction of everyone that the odds, after having won the first
game in a rubber, in favour of winning one of the next two games is
three to one. Yet Mr. Clay considered that five to two was a bad bet,
and we have lost not only at five to two but at two to one, and on one
occasion we actually lost the long odds in two hundred bets, a hundred
and three times, so that if we were to take this result as of any
value, the odds would be slightly in favour of losing a rubber when you
had won the first game, which is absurd.”—_Westminster Papers._
[Illustration]
LECTURE X.
——
ON THINGS IN GENERAL.
——
“‘The time has come,’ the walrus said,
To talk of many things.’”
TO become a fair whist-player[46] no wonderful attributes are required;
common sense, a small amount of knowledge—easily acquired—_ordinary
observation of facts as they occur_, and experience, the result of
that observation—not the experience obtained by repeating the same
idiotic mistakes year after year—are about all. To save you trouble,
the experience of all the best players for the last hundred years has
been collected into a series of maxims, which you will find in any
whist book. These maxims you should know,[47] but though you know
every maxim that ever was written, and are “bland, passionate, deeply
religious, and also paint beautifully in water-colours,” if among your
other virtues the power of assimilating facts as they occur is not
included, this will not avail you in the least.
Bumblepuppy—according to its own account—demands much more superfine
qualities, _e.g._, inspiration, second-sight, instinct, an intuitive
perception of false cards and singletons, and an intimate acquaintance
with a mysterious and Protean Bogey called “the Game”—in short
everything but reason[48]—(all these fine words, when boiled and
peeled, turn out sometimes to mean ordinary observation, but more
usually gross ignorance). So much for its theory; its practice is this—
_Practice of Bumblepuppy._
“This is an anti-Christian game,
Unlawful both in thing and name.”—_Hudibras._
(1) Lead a singleton whenever you have one.
(2) With two small trumps and no winning card lead a trump.
(3) Ruff a suit of which your partner clearly holds best, if you are
weak in trumps.
(4) Never ruff anything if you are strong.
(5) Never return your partner’s trump if you can possibly avoid it,
unless he manifestly led it to bring in a suit of which you led a
singleton.
(6) Deceive him whenever you get a chance.
(7) Open a new suit every time you have the lead.
(8) Never pay any attention to your partner’s first discard, unless it
is a forced discard (page 32); lead your own suit.
(9) Never force him under any circumstances unless you hold at least
five trumps with two honours; even if you lose the rubber by it, play
“the Game!”
(10) Devote all your remaining energies to looking for a signal in the
last trick. If you are unable to discover which was your partner’s
card—after keeping the table waiting for two minutes—enquire what
trumps are, and lead him one on suspicion.
* * * * *
Play all your cards alike without emphasis or hesitation; how can you
expect your partner to have any confidence in your play when it is
evident to him from your hesitation that you have no confidence in it
yourself?
If your partner renounces, and you think fit to enquire whether he is
void of the suit, do so quietly; don’t offer a hint for his future
guidance by glaring or yelling at him.
Don’t ask idiotic questions; if you led an ace, and the two, three, and
four are played to the trick, what is the use of asking your partner
to draw his card? If you hold all the remaining cards of a suit, why
enquire whether he has any?
Don’t talk in the middle of the hand.[49] However you may be tempted
to use bad language—and I must admit the temptation is often very
great—always recollect that though your Latin grammar says “humanum
est irasci,” the antidote grows near the bane, for—at the bottom of the
very preceding page—it also says “pi orant taciti.”
“’Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain.”—_Pope._
According to the wisest man who ever lived, “he that holdeth his
peace is counted wise, and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a
man of understanding.” Such a reputation appears cheap at the price;
but—if you are of the opinion of J. P. Robinson that “they didn’t know
everything down in Judee”—you can call your partner any names you like
as soon as the hand is over.[50] You need not be at all particular what
for, any crime of omission or commission, real or fancied, will do; if,
after the game is ended, you discover that it might have been saved or
won by doing something different, however idiotic, grumble at him.[51]
It is quite legitimate to revile him for not playing cards he never
held; if he should have the temerity to point out that the facts are
against you, revile the facts.
If there is a really diabolical mistake in the case, and you happen to
have made it yourself, revile him with additional ferocity.
But never forget this! Before you proceed to give your partner a piece
of your mind, _always call your honours!_ for by neglecting this simple
precaution, you will often lay yourself open to a crushing rejoinder;
_experto crede!_
Failing any other grievance, you can always prove to demonstration—and
at interminable length—that if his cards, or your cards, or both your
cards, had been just the reverse of what they were, the result would
have been different; this certainly opens a wide field for speculation,
but it is neither an instructive nor entertaining amusement, though
it kills time. “Oh, take one consideration with another, the
whist-player’s lot is not a happy one.”
There is a theory which, according to some evil-disposed persons,
may easily be made too much of—the injury to yourself being remote
and doubtful, while the gratification of annoying him is certain and
immediate—that abusing your partner, as having a tendency to make him
play worse, is a mistake from a pecuniary point of view; of course it
is a mistake, but not for such a paltry reason as that; take a higher
stand-point! Whether you are winning or losing
“You should never let
Your angry passions rise.”—_Watts._
Don’t cry!
“Ill betide a nation when
She sees the tears of bearded men.”
And you will have a beard yourself some time, if you don’t lead the
penultimate of five. (See page 21.) Without exciting the slightest
sympathy on the part of an unfeeling public, crying deranges the other
secretions; the Laureate says tears are idle, and professes ignorance
of their meaning; if he played whist he would know that they injure the
cards and make them sticky.
Don’t play out of your turn, nor draw your card before that turn comes.
Don’t ride a hobby to death! _In ordinary whist_ three prevailing
hobbies are so cruelly over-ridden that I am surprised the active and
energetic Mr. Colam has never interfered: these are—
(1) The penultimate of a long suit.
(2) The signal for trumps.
(3) Not forcing your partner unless you are strong
in trumps—under any circumstances.
The first is, in the majority of cases, a nuisance;[52] the second is
stated to simplify the game and to cause greater attention to be paid
to it—practically the entire time of the players is taken up, either
in devising absurd signals or in looking for and failing to see them:
the third is responsible for losing about as many games as anything I
am acquainted with, though the constant and aimless changing of suits
runs it close.
Is it any reason—because you have no trumps—that you should announce
that circumstance early in the hand to the general public and prevent
your partner making one? If he has them all, you cannot injure him; if
he has not, the adversaries will play through him and strangle him: why
is it that you are afraid to let your partner make a certain trick,
though you are never afraid to open a new suit?
An impression is abroad that there is somewhere a law of whist to this
effect: “Never force your partner at any stage of the game unless you
yourself are strong in trumps.” Now there is no such thing.
Let us see what the authorities say on the point. “Keep in mind that
general maxims pre-suppose the game and hand at their commencement,
and that material changes in them frequently require that a different
mode of play should be adopted.” “It is a general maxim not to force
your partner unless strong in trumps yourself. There are, however, many
exceptions to this rule, as
(1) If your partner has led a single card.
(2) If it saves or wins a particular point.
(3) If great strength in trumps is declared against you.
(4) If you have a probability of a saw.
(5) If your partner has been forced and did not lead trumps.
(6) It is often right in playing for an odd trick.
If your partner shows a weak game force him whether or not you are
otherwise entitled to do it.”—_Mathews._
With a weak trump hand force your partner:
“(1) When he has already shown a desire to be forced, or weakness in
trumps.
“(2) When you have a cross ruff.
“(3) When you are playing a close game as for the odd trick, and often
when one trick saves or wins the game or a point.
“(4) When great strength in trumps has been declared against
you.”—_Cavendish._
“Do not force your partner unless to make sure of the tricks required
to save or win the game;
“Or, unless he has been already forced, and has not led a trump;
“Or, unless he has asked to be forced by leading from a single card, or
two weak cards;
“Or, unless the adversary has led, or asked for trumps.”—_Clay._
“Unless your partner has shown great strength in trumps, or a wish to
get them drawn, or has refused to ruff a doubtful card, give him the
option of making a small trump, unless you have some good reason for
not doing so, other than a weak suit of trumps in your own hand.”—_Art
of Practical Whist._
With these extracts before you, perhaps you will dismiss from your mind
the popular fallacy, that you are under any compulsion to lose the
game, because your trumps are not quite so strong as you could wish.
Make a note of this.
Maxims were not invented for the purpose of preventing you from either
saving or winning the game, though it is their unfortunate fate to be
epitomized and perverted out of all reasonable shape: the ill-advised
dictum, “Suppose the adversaries are four, and you, with the lead,
have a bad hand. The best play is, in defiance of all system, to lead
out your best trump;” was comparatively innocuous till some ingenious
person, with a turn for abbreviation, altered it into “Whenever you
hold nothing, lead a trump!” Use your common sense.[53]
I have gone into this matter at considerable length, because I am
convinced that however many people, once affluent, are now in misery
and want, owing to their not having led trumps with five—Clay gave the
number as eleven thousand—a far larger number have been reduced to this
deplorable condition, by changing suits and refusing _on principle_ to
save the game by forcing their partner.
Before quitting the subject, there is another branch of it worthy of
a little consideration: when your partner by his discard has shown
which is his suit, and you hold two or three small cards in it, however
strong you may be in trumps—_unless everything depends on one trick_—do
you expect to gain much by forcing him and making yourself third
player? though it is usual to play in this absurd way, is there any
objection to first playing his suit and—as, _ex hypothesi_, you are
strong in trumps—forcing him afterwards?
Play always as simply and intelligibly as you can!
In addition to your partner not being able to see your cards—in itself
a disadvantage—he is by an immutable law of nature, much inferior in
perception to yourself; you should bear this in mind and not be too
hard on the poor fellow.
Never think![54] Know! Leave thinking to the Teuton:
“A Briton knows, or if he knows it not,
He ought.”—_Cowper._
After the game has begun, the time for thinking has passed: as soon as
a card is led it is the time for action, the time to bring to bear your
previously acquired knowledge.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Not a fine whist-player, for this is a rare bird, much more rare
than a black swan (these can be bought any day at Jamrach’s by the
couple, but even in the present hard times when, I am informed, the
markets are glutted with everything, he has not one fine whist-player
in stock); essential to him, in addition to common sense and attention,
are genius and a thorough knowledge of Cavendish.
[47] “Although these maxims may occasionally speak of things never to
be done, and others always to be done, you must remember that no rules
are without exception, and few more open to exceptional cases than
rules for whist.”—_Clay._
[48] Just as orthodoxy has been defined to be your own doxy, so “the
Game” usually means “your own idea of the game at the time.”
I have called it Protean because it assumes so many different forms
(being mainly based on results), and like the nigger’s little pig—runs
about to such an extent that it is impossible to get a clear view of it.