Some years ago a simple piece of mechanism, to which somehow or other very undue importance has been attached, was introduced to the Whist world; you play a higher card before a lower one—unnecessarily—to indicate that you hold good trumps, and want them out.[30]
You can want this for two reasons:
(1) Because you have the seven best trumps. There is no objection to your signalling here, though it is quite uncalled for; if you have the game in your own hand, you can either lead the lowest but two of six, stand on your head, or execute any other—what it is the odd fashion to call—convention the authority of the day may think fit to invent, as long as you do not come into collision with law 5.[31]
(2) Because you have a good trump hand, and the fall of the cards shows that unless you get them out, your winning cards or your partner’s will be ruffed. Here is a good legitimate reason, but when everything is going nicely, and your partner making the tricks, that you should interfere with this merely because you have five trumps—or nine for the matter of that—is the height of absurdity. It may be an interesting fact for him to know, on the second round of a plain suit, that you hold five trumps, just as there are numerous other interesting facts which he may also ascertain at the same time, e.g., that you have led a singleton, that you hold no honour in your own suit, and so on, but none of them justifies him in ruining his own hand and devoting his best trump to destruction.
You ought to understand the signaller to say, “Get the lead at any cost the first moment you can, play your highest trump, and you shall see something remarkable.”[32]
This is rather a large order, and when you find as the result of your best attempts to execute it, that that promised something is not uncommonly the loss of the rubber, though it will be a shock to you at first, you will soon get accustomed to it.
It is even a dangerous practice to signal when the adversaries will most likely have the lead on its completion; they at once adapt their play to the circumstances. I have seen innumerable games of whist not won, and many a game lost, by absurd signalling; still Whist players suffering from Peter on the brain constantly refuse to ruff a winning card in order to disclose a signal in the discard. If they wanted trumps led, it occurs to the ordinary mind that the simplest plan would be to win the trick and lead them, and as they decline to do so, the only conclusion is that they regard signalling for the mere sake of signalling to be in itself so noble an end that, to attain it, it is worth while to announce to their opponents that they had better save the game at once, and at the same time to present them with at least one trick towards it.[33]
If you only want the odd trick, signalling is about the safest way to miss it. Any two decent players would, in a vast majority of cases, get on exactly as well if the Peter had never been invented, while two bad players—assuming they can possibly miss the game with all the trumps—generally do so by its assistance.[34] Where it would be useful is when, with moderate strength in trumps, and the cards declared in your favour, you want trumps led at all hazards. Unfortunately, if at such a crisis as this, your partner is not equal to leading them without a call, he is certain not to see it, although he is missing all the other points of the game in what he calls looking for it. This looking for a Peter is an oddly-named and peculiar form of amusement appertaining not only to Bumblepuppy, but also to Whist. Among all those people who have attended the University Boat Race during the last half-century, I apprehend not one went to look for it, they went to see it, and just as you would see that race, so you should see the signal. Never look for it! look at it! It is just as obvious as any other circumstance that occurs in the play; instead of this, after much looking, it is generally overlooked altogether.
They come to look, and end by making spectacles of themselves.[35]
If you must look for it, at any rate don’t look for it in the last trick; you would scarcely look for the Boat Race as you were going to church the next day. Still, Cowper—though he clearly disapproves of the signal and calls it senseless—seems, if he is to be annoyed with it, to advocate this—
What the signal for trumps ought to be, and what strength in trumps justifies a signal are clearly laid down by Clay.
If you see a call and hold the ace and any number of trumps, play the ace—there can be no danger of dropping your partner’s king—and if you had originally more than three, continue with the lowest; but if you are quite sure that leading trumps is the only way to miss or lose the game, don’t lead them at all. Often as, in obedience to my partner’s call, I slam in an ace and play my best trump, Elaine’s despairing cry rises to my lips,—
This important fact is too much lost sight of: that the object of Whist is not so much to lead the lowest but one of five, or to signal, as to win the game; these and other fads may or may not be means to that end, but the end itself they emphatically are not; in their inception, at any rate, they were intended to be your instruments. Don’t let this position be reversed; whether, like fire, they are always good servants may be open to argument, but their resemblance in the other respect is perfect.
One aspect of signalling has been overlooked in all the treatises on Whist. I have seen a player of great common-sense and acute observation signal having three small trumps and a short suit, and by this means induce his watchful opponents to force him to make them all. I do not recommend such devious courses to you, even if they are lawful in a Christian country (of which I have doubts); they are only practicable when you are playing very good Whist, and this, as Clay says, can only be the case when you thoroughly know your men.
Hair-splitting about the legitimacy of the Peter is beyond the scope of these remarks; what is lawful is not necessarily expedient: this the Apostle Paul pointed out, long before either the foundations of New Orleans were laid, or Columbus discovered America; but when Professor Pole—who appears to have been acquainted with the present mode of signalling for forty years (Fortnightly Review, April, 1879), and for nine has advised learners with five trumps always to ask for them (Theory of Whist, page 65)—begins at this eleventh hour to find fault with the practice, and to have his suspicions that it is immoral; this is the Gracchi complaining of sedition with a vengeance.
In this year of grace, good players have long known that signalling is by no means an unmixed benefit, but rather an edge-tool dangerous to play with,[36] while it has been so long rampant that it has permeated the very lowest strata. If at such a time as this—when all the tenth-rate Whist players in Christendom and Jewry not only think they know all about it, and consider it in itself the quintessence of science, when many of them by constant practice have actually acquired such skill that their hesitation in playing first a ten and then a deuce is sometimes scarcely perceptible—the professor imagines that any words of his can put a stop to it, his courage is only equalled by that of the well-known Mrs. Partington with her mop. A child may start an avalanche; but once started it runs its appointed course, and in one respect it is preferable—it is sooner over—for there is no instance recorded in history of an avalanche keeping on for forty years.
In bumblepuppy the proceedings are so complicated and peculiar, they must be seen to be appreciated; but there are five common forms you should be acquainted with.
(1) After you have had a lead or two and got rid of your winning cards, you can begin signalling for somebody to lead a trump;[37] if somebody obliges you, and you win the trick, lead another suit, and wait till somebody else leads trumps again—continuing to signal in the intervals.
(2) You can signal in your own lead, and I don’t know that there is any objection to your expecting that your partner will attend to it—assuming he ever comprehends what you are driving at.
(3) You can signal without any trump at all.
(4) You can signal without intending to do so.
(5) If by any odd chance there should be no signal about, you can imagine there is and act accordingly.
To obviate the evident disadvantages and mutual recrimination which might ensue from such vagaries, if you really intend to signal, it is usual to take the following precautions:
(1) Always signal with your highest card.
(2) Pause before you play it.
(3) Put it down not only with emphasis, but in a special corner of the table mutually agreed upon beforehand. (Note,[30] page 59.)
(4) As soon as the trick is turned, ask to see it. (See note to Law 91).
There are three kinds of false cards—
(1) Those that deceive everybody;
(2) Those that deceive your opponents only;
(3) Those that deceive your partner only; and a sparing use of the two first—especially towards the end of a hand—is often advantageous;[38] but in playing cards that deceive everybody, you must be prepared to take entire charge of the game yourself, or you will probably have your conduct referred to afterwards. The third is sacred to bumblepuppy.
One thing is very certain, that the original leader is never justified in playing a false card.
Clay’s conclusion does not altogether harmonize with his premises—a very unusual circumstance with him—for after objecting strongly to false cards on high moral grounds, and prefacing his remarks by the expression of a touching belief that in no other position of life would anybody tell him what is untrue, he ultimately arrives at the delicious non sequitur, that if your partner is very bad, or holds miserably weak cards, or towards the end of a hand, you may often play a false card with advantage: why you should do what you know to be wrong, because another person is bad, or weak, or because you hold four cards and not thirteen, or even because such nefarious conduct may benefit yourself, he does not explain, and in default of that explanation he appears stronger as a whist player than a moralist. But the logic of whist is a thing per se, utterly dissimilar to any known form of argument;[39] it finds vent in such syllogisms as “You ought to have known I had all the spades, I led a diamond,” or, “I must have the entire suit of clubs, I discarded the deuce;” though the usual reply is “the deuce you did,” this is merely paltering with a serious subject; the only effective argument is to throw something at the speaker’s head—the argumentum ad hominem—(of course this would create more or less unpleasantness at first, but the speaker would soon find his level, if you hit him hard enough) “unfortunately this discipline by which such persons were put to open penance and punished in this world—that others admonished by their example might be afraid to offend”—has fallen into desuetude; until the said discipline be restored again, which—although it is much to be wished[40]—can never be until the present reprehensible practice of screwing candle-sticks, match-boxes, and all reasonable missiles into the table be done away with, you have two courses open to you:
(1) You can give an evasive answer;[41]
(2) You can pretend to be deaf; this is a capital plan, as it gives you the option either of being unaware anybody spoke, or of totally misunderstanding him.[42] There is an utter inability to see that any question can possibly have two sides, evidenced by such remarks as “My finesse was justifiable, yours was bad play.”[43] The two prepositions, post and propter, are constantly mistaken for one another—it seems to be thought that because they both govern the accusative case, their meaning is identical, or, to speak more correctly, convertible.
But you must be prepared to contend against other things besides false 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—
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.
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.
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.
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.
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—
(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.”
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
Don’t cry!
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: