The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (176 page)

to a column vacancy, but the exposed card of each column may be

built on a main sequence at any time.

built on a main sequence at any time.

When al the cards have been cal ed, everyone can carry on

building up their sequences as far as possible by playing of cards

from the exposed end of the wastepiles.

Score The usual score is 1 per card played of to your sequences,

but I prefer a system whereby everyone scores the combined face

values of the uppermost cards on their main sequences, counting for

this purpose Jack 15, Queen 20 and King 25. Thus a game

completed up to the four Kings scores the maximum of 100,

whereas four sequences headed by (say) K-J-9-3 would score 52 –

not a bad result, on average.

Dictated Strategy

A Patience much favoured by contemporary players is one cal ed

Strategy, invented by Morehead and Mot -Smith. Based on Sir

Tommy, it runs as fol ows, and maybe played competitively by the

Dictation method.

Set out four Aces to start with. The aim is (eventual y) to build

each one up in suit and sequence to the King. But not yet.

Instead, as each card is turned and cal ed by the Dictator, place it

in any one of eight wastepiles, which maybe spread towards you in

columns so al are visible. As above, you needn’t open al eight

immediately, but, unlike the above, you may not yet build any

turned card on a main sequence. Not until al 48 cards have been

turned from stock, and each discarded to a selected wastepile, do

you at empt to complete the game by taking cards from the

exposed ends of the wastepiles and using them to build up the

sequences.

You can vary this game by reducing or increasing the number of

wastepiles. Given a favourable distribution of cards, it can be done

in as few as four.

Poker Squares

2+players, 52 cards each

This is the ‘Dictation’ version ofthat perennial favourite, Poker

Patience, which runs as fol ows.

Turn twenty-five cards from a shuf led pack one by one, and

place each on the table in such a way as to build up a square of 5 x

5 = 25 cards. A card once placed may not be moved so as to alter

its position relative to any other placed card. The next card of the

stock may not be looked at until the one just turned has been

placed. The object is to make the highest-scoring Poker hands in the

resultant ten rows and columns.

Treating each row and column as a Poker hand, score for it

according to either the British or the American scoring schedule

opposite.

British scoring is based on the relative dif iculty of forming the

various combinations in this particular game, American on their

relative ranking in the game of Poker. Playing solitaire, consider

yourself to have won with at least 75 British or 200 American

points. Playing competitively, obviously, the highest score wins.

UK

USA

royal flush

30 100

straight flush 30 75

four of a kind 16 50

straight

12 15

full house

10 25

three of a kind 6

10

flush

5

20

two pairs

3

5

one pair

1

2

Reminder: A straight flush is five cards in suit and sequence,

counting Ace low or high (A2345 or TJQKA). A royal flush (not

distinguished in British practice) is an Ace-high straight flush. A

straight is five in sequence but not al in suit, a flush is five in suit

but not al in sequence. Four or three of a kind means four or three

of the same rank, any other cards being unmatched. Ful house is a

triplet and pair.

Cribbage Squares

2+ players, 52 cards each

Competitive version of Cribbage Patience, the equivalent of Poker

Patience.

Turn one card face up as a starter. If it’s a Jack, score 2 for his

heels. Then turn sixteen cards from a shuf led pack one by one, and

place each on the table in such a way as to build up a square of

four rows and four columns. The aim is to make the highest-scoring

Cribbage hands in the resultant eight rows and columns, using each

line of four in conjunction with the starter to make a five-card

hand. Score each hand as at Cribbage. Playing solitaire, consider

yourself to have won with at least 61 points. Playing competitively,

the highest score wins.

Variant. Deal the square first and then turn the 17th card as a

starter. This is more usual, but the above is more authentic.

Reminder: 2 for each combination of cards total ing 15, 2 for a

pair, 6 for a prial (three of a kind), 12 for a double pair royal (four

pair, 6 for a prial (three of a kind), 12 for a double pair royal (four

of a kind), 1 per card for a run, 4 for a four-card flush or 5 if the

starter is of the same suit, 2 for a row or column counting 31

exactly (Ace 1, numerals as marked, courts 10).

Don’t forget…

Play to the left (clockwise) unless otherwise stated.

Eldest or Forehand means the player to the left of the dealer

in left-handed games, to the right in right-handed games.

T = Ten, p = players, pp = in fixed partnerships, c = cards,

† = trump,

= Joker.

22 Vying games

The first or eldest says, l’le vye the ruf , the next says I’le see it, and

the third l’le see it and revie it… then they show their Cards, and he

that hath most of a suit wins six pence or farthings according to the

Game of him that holds out the longest.

John Cotgrave, The Wit’s interpreter (1662)

The nature of [Brag] is, that you are to endeavour to impose

upon the judgment of the rest that play, and particularly upon the

person that chiefly of ers to oppose you, by boasting of cards in

your hand, whether Pair Royals, Pairs, or others, that you are bet er

than his or hers that play against you…

Richard Seymour, The Compleat Gamester (1725)

Poker heads the family of gambling games in which players vie

with one another as to who holds the best hand. ‘Gambling’, here,

has its literal meaning of playing for money, not its metaphorical

meaning of staking money on some future event over which you

have no control as in casino or banking games. ‘Vying’ is the

process of claiming that you hold the best hand, or the makings of

the best hand if there are more cards to come, and backingupthe

claimbyput ing your money where your mouth is. It also includes

bluf ing, which means backing up a spurious claim with however

much (or lit le) money as it takes to frighten anyone out of paying

to see your hand – or, literal y, ‘cal your bluf ’. Unlike banking

games, few of which of er scope for bluf , Poker and its relatives are

games of psychological and mathematical skil , where you can be

dealt a bad hand yet stil win by superior play.

dealt a bad hand yet stil win by superior play.

What makes them gambling games is not the element of chance

but the fact that they can reasonably be played only for real money.

Strictly speaking, they are not real y card games at al , since they do

not involve any actual play of the cards. It would be truer to

describe them as money games that happen to be played with

cards. Al the play takes place with cash, or chips or counters

representing cash. The basic principles underlying Poker can be,

and frequently are, applied to other numerical y distinguishable

objects, such as bank-notes or dominoes. Nor are they original to

Poker and its relatives, which probably borrowed them from older

games played with dice.

There are two main vying procedures.

In the first and apparently older type, each in turn either pays

money into a pot to assert that he holds the best hand, or

drops out of play when convinced he has not. This continues

until only two remain in, when one may cal for a showdown

by matching the previous stake without raising it further. This

may be cal ed ‘two-down vying’, and is typical of Brag.

In the more sophisticated type, al players can force a

showdown by matching the previous stake, thereby

preventing the previous raiserfrom raising it again. This may

be cal ed ‘al -round vying’, and is typical of Poker.

Poker is the only vying game to have transcended its national

boundaries and acquired international status. As a national game it

remains essential y American. Equivalent national games include

Britain’s Brag, Italy’s Primiera, Spain’s Mus, and the now defunct

French game of Bouil ot e. These and others wil be considered in

their turn, but there is no doubt as to where we must begin.

Poker basics

2 or more players, normal y 52 cards

Fields – Poker? Is that the game where one receives five cards? And if there’s two alike that’s pretty good, but if there’s three alike, that’s much better?

Hustler – Oh, you’ll learn the game in notime.

W. C. Fields, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

Poker evolved in New Orleans from elements of Brag, Poque, and

Bouil ot e, and spread along the Mississippi in the steam-boat

saloons. It is recorded as having been played under its present name

in 1829, and was first described in the 1845 edition of Hoyle’s

Games (Philadelphia) by Henry Anners under the title ‘Poker, or

Bluf ’. A photocopy of the relevant pages, for which I am indebted

to Elon Shlosberg, shows that it was played with 52 cards, without

a draw, and without straights, making the highest hand four Aces,

or four Kings and an Ace kicker. The 1829 game was played, like

Bouil ot e, with only 20 cards, and this form is said, by Oliver P.

Carriere (in The Great American Pastime, by Al en Dowling), to

have been played as late as 1857 in New York. The draw feature

was introduced, from American Brag, in the 1840s, and the straight

is first mentioned in The American Hoyle of 1864. Stud Poker arose

during the Civil War, but, despite these rapid developments, the

game as a whole took some time to achieve social respectability. As

late as 1897, one commentator noted that, ‘The best clubs do not

admit the game to their rooms.’ It soon reached England, where

George Eliot referred in 1855 to the ‘game of Brag or Pocher’, and

Queen Victoria later confessed herself amused by it. American

Ambassador Schenk is known to have taught it to the whole Court

of St James.

Poker’s most characteristic feature is the fact that players bet on a