An Old Fashioned View of New
Fangled Play
BY
THE AUTHOR
OF “WHIST OR BUMBLEPUPPY”
As it has been taken for granted, because no abhorrence of the recent proceedings of the New Academy has been openly expressed, such feeling is non-existent, this opuscule has been written in the confident belief that it expresses the opinions of a majority of civilized Whist-players.
London, Christmas, 1884.
IF we only live long enough we all pass through at least three stages—one authority says seven;—we grow, we attain our prime, we decay; and Whist, apparently, is not exempt from the common lot.
Somewhat obscure in its origin, it gradually developed, it arrived at its zenith, then began to go down hill, and became the piteous spectacle we now see, until, flying from the whist-room as from a pest-house, the players are betaking themselves in shoals to other and unholy games.
There is an opinion that Whist is at the present moment so exceedingly popular that it is fast becoming a serious rival to afternoon tea, and this, so far from being inconsistent with my original statement, rather strengthens it; for it is quite possible that a certain percentage of the more reputable refugees from the clubs, averse to gambling, may have sought—and I hope I may add, found—consolation in the family bosom and the domestic rubber.
The golden age of Whist lasted from the time when Cavendish arranged in a systematic form his selections from the wisdom of our ancestors, until the death of Mr. Clay, twelve years ago; then the age of wood began, and if the whole subsequent literature of Whist had been publicly burnt by the common hangman, including nostri farrago libelli, it would have been an unmixed boon; so greatly has the evil preponderated over the good.
The peter, simple in its inception, and ineffably stupid in execution, was already on the scene, and though among decent players it soon found its level, and became comparatively inoffensive, was the pioneer of the mass of wood-paving which has since been laid down; echoes, tampering with the discard, penultimates, antepenultimates, developments, extensions of principle, rules for exceptional play, with a few other matters quod nunc perscribere longum est, all equally inelastic, but differing from the signal in this, that while its mission is to supply your partner with brains and to dictate to him, regardless of the state of his hand, to play trumps when you think fit, theirs is to do away with all necessity for any brains whatever.
The call for trumps appeared in this form, and in this form Bumblepuppydom believes in it to this day. “Whenever a player is strong in trumps, whether he has any reason for wanting them out or not, he informs the table of the fact, and it is imperative upon his partner to take the most violent and extraordinary steps to get in and lead him one.” However, the proceeding—when not useless—turned out so injurious to the perpetrator, that it had to be mitigated (for in that benighted day it had not been discovered that it was philosophical to lose on principle), and now reads something like this,—“whenever a player is strong in trumps, and considers from the fall of the cards that it is expedient they should be drawn, he makes those facts public,” and as his partner is usually in possession of the lead at the moment, he is able to play a trump without unduly straining himself.
Compulsory peters, anticipated peters, and peters late in the hand, are matters of common sense and intelligence, and attempts to lay down arbitrary conventions as substitutes for those qualities are the main causes of the present decadence of Whist.
The echo is reported to be an extension of the signal, and is the most innocuous of the series; it does very little harm, and always amuses somebody.
When the signal-man holds half the trumps and the echoer the remainder, it amuses them and does not hurt the adversary; for weight will tell, wholly irrespective of conventions.
When there is a possibility of saving the game, and it comes into play before the hand is over, which it seldom does, its usual effect is to induce the signal-man (seeing his partner drop a high card) to endeavour unsuccessfully to force him; then they suffer grief and pain, and the adversary in his turn is amused.
This resulted from tampering with the discard. Though Mathews (circa A.D. 1800) in two short sentences laid down the true and only principle of discarding: “If weak in trumps, keep guard on your adversaries’ suits; if strong, throw away from them,” fifty years afterwards it was discovered by the “little school” that “the old system of discarding was just this—when not able to follow suit, let your first discard be from your weakest suit.” Rough on poor Mathews! but the absent are always wrong.
However, by a process of evolution, to the first step of which no exception can be taken, we are next told—(a) “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.” “You must play a defensive game.”—Cavendish.
Then, as the evolution proceeds, and we come to (bcstrongestd