whist
Whist is a card game for four people with a French hand of 52 cards that originated in England in the 17th century . The bridge game emerged from the game, which later largely supplanted Whist .
history
Whist probably originated in England in the 17th century, at the latest in the early 18th century. The etymology of the name Whist is unclear. Probably the name suggests that the game requires great attention and therefore "silence". Initially, whist was a Lower Class game, but when Lord Folkestone played this game in 1728 at The Crown , a London coffee house, whist became the favorite game of English gentlemen .
In 1742 wrote Edmond Hoyle Scripture A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist ; this work became the rulebook par excellence, and so according to Hoyle means something like "to play strictly according to the rules".
The British upper class indulged in the game in the traditional clubs , such as B. in Crockford's, Graham’s or Brooks’s . The London Portland Club , whose regulations were generally recognized as determinative, took on a special position ; The Portland Club continues to play this role in relation to the game of bridge.
From the early 19th century, in the period after the Congress of Vienna , whist spread over the entire globe, on the one hand by the British themselves in all regions of the British Empire , on the other hand by all those nations that embody the British lifestyle - style the most important world power at the time - copied, such as France, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary . Phileas Fogg , the main character in Jules Verne's Journey Around the World in Eighty Days spent as a member of the London Reform Club much of his time - especially while traveling - befitting the Whist . Another well-known fictional character, Horatio Hornblower , is an equally consistent whist enthusiast.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Whist gradually emerged from Bridge and almost completely replaced Whist . The inventor of the modern bridge is Harold S. Vanderbilt , who presented his bonus system to his game partners on a cruise with the SS Finlandia in 1925 .
The game
The following description is based on Meyer's Konversationslexikon from 1908:
Whist is played by four people with a full French card ( whist card , 52 hands).
To determine the places, the complete game is spread out in a crescent on the table; each player draws a hand. Whoever draws the lowest card is first dealer and chooses his place; the following is his vis-a-vis and ally ( aide , friend ). In the same way, the third and fourth are allied and sit opposite each other.
Everyone receives 13 sheets; it is lifted off to the right and passed around to the left, only one sheet each time. The forehand determines the trump ( atout ) by opening a hand from another deck of cards mixed by the dealer's aide; but if you don't have a second game at hand, the dealer reveals the last card (belonging to himself) as a trump.
The value of the cards is natural from the ace to the two; Trump stands , of course, the other colors . Color must always be known, and only in the absence of it can one trump with trump.
Inviting is called playing a lower card than the seven, so that your partner places his highest hand in this suit and you get the higher hands you have in this suit free. Singleton is a color that has only one leaf, and doubleton is a color that has two leaves.
You play the whist after games and seals ; A game includes ten points , a robber two games.
The points are obtained by marking the honors and tricks . Honors are the five highest trump cards (ace to ten), if a party has three of those cards, it counts deux honneurs , if it has four, quatre honneurs , it has five, six honneurs and spends two, four or six points.
In addition, the stitches are laid across six (the book ), one point for each stitch.
If you play whist without remainder , the game ends with ten points, and what you do over it is not marked; If you play with the rest , what you did in the first over ten is marked as the second.
If one party wins the Robber's first game, the other party goes back to zero if it has already bet; if one party stands on nine, it can only end the game with a trick, not with honors.
The robber is called small or large , depending on whether or not the losers have won a game. The game is won simply if the opponents have five or more, double if they have three or four, triple if they have one or two, and quadruple if they have nothing.
Usually three or five points are paid for the little robber and five or seven points for the big one.
Except Robber and lot are still paying small slam ( slam ) when the other party has only one stitch, and grand slam when that has no sting, the first three or four, the second with six or eight points.
After a robber has finished , you play the counter robber or you change places, with the dealer and forehand remaining in place while the other two change. After the third Robber everyone has played with everyone, and a lottery draws for places again.
In addition to the whist among four people, the whist with straw man , Mohr ( Le mort ) or blind man , among three, is very common. Whoever draws the lowest card is king and declares. After the forehand has played, the king gives out the straw man's cards and spreads them openly, even if the third player (the aide of the forehand) has also admitted. Finally he looks at his own card. The reverse occurs when the king gives for the straw man; then he looks first at his card and last at the straw man's card. After the robber is over, the second player becomes king and so on
Rarely is it played among three in such a way that the straw man's cards remain hidden and the fifth trick is counted as a trick, whereby each player naturally plays for himself.
In addition to this simple whist , as it is played alone in England, a number of special tours have been incorporated in order to give the game a greater variety . The most common is Whist with cayenne , which thus deviates from the usual game, that game from the second color ( Cayenne ) is made and the donor the trump determined from its already besehenen map. If he doesn't think it's good, he can leave it to his aide with the words: "I'm pushing". The aide is allowed to “push back”. If one or the other Cayenne wins trumps, everything is invested twice. At zero or Nullo it does not come here to not to make, but so few tricks as possible. The tricks count twice, also with grand , where it is important to get the most tricks and there are no trumps, as well as with half-grand and half-zero , with the first seven tricks counting as grand tricks and the other six as zero tricks.
Sturmwhist differs from the usual only in the way of paying, in that not only Atout-Renonce, three, four, five pieces, three and four aces in one hand, but also every single trick, as well as Schlemm and Robber, are paid much higher.
Occasionally special lucky events ( parades ) are paid out of hand. B. four points for four aces. This is called: "playing with sheep ".
Additions and derivatives
Determination of the trump suit
The original rule is that the dealer reveals the last card; the determination of the trump suit using a second package was not considered correct. When Lord Brougham once forgot to turn over the last card at the Portland Club in 1894 because he believed he was playing bridge , he introduced the newer bridge.
Honors
In Great Britain and France only the four highest trumps, i.e. ace , king , queen and jack , count as honors: if a party holds all four honors, it writes four points; if a party holds three honors, it writes two points.
Points required to win a game
In long whist , a game is over as soon as one party scores ten points; With a short whist, five points are enough to win a game . This shortening of the game to five points is said to be due to Lord Peterborough at the beginning of the 19th century, when his friends wanted to give him the opportunity to take a brief revenge after a major loss.
In American Whist , the game is played at seven points and there are no points for honors.
Related games
Apart from the main variations described above, whist has been played in many different, sometimes national, forms, e.g. B. Bid Whist , Boston , Chinese Whist , German Whist , French Whist , Dutch Whist , Jerolasch , Knockout Whist , Contract Whist , Nomination Whist , Norwegian Whist , Russian Whist or Vint , Scottish Whist , etc. a. m.
Most of these variations are now forgotten and, like the original whist , have been supplanted by bridge .
However, the variant Solo Whist, or Solo for short , should be emphasized , in which the four players do not play together in fixed partnerships, but instead form alliances that change from game to game. Solo whist was very popular to loosen up a whist game between two robbers.
For the game with dominoes, which is related by name, see Domino Whist .
literature
swell
- Ulrich Auhagen: The big book from the bridge. Easily understandable introduction for beginners, successful strategies, tips for rubber bridge and tournament players, game implementation and counterplay from AZ, bidding conventions up to date, bridge dictionary, exciting history of bridge . Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1990, ISBN 3-88199-679-6 .
- A. Hertefeld: Illustrated Whist Book. Theory and practice of the whist game for thorough learning for beginners and the more experienced . Kern publishing house, Breslau 1882.
- Albert H. Morehead et al. a .: The new complete Hoyle revised. The authoritative guide to the official rules of all popular games of skill and chance . Doubleday, New York 1991, ISBN 0-385-24962-4 .
- David Parlett : The AZ of card games . OUP, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-860870-5 (New edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Card Games and The Oxford Guide to Card Games )
More non-fiction books
- Adolf Brenner: The whist game in all its subtleties and modifications, as: Whist en cinq, en trois, en deux, Cayenne, short whist, etc. Along with an explanatory list of the articulate terms used in whist. An indispensable advisor for beginners and the more experienced, as well as a guide to the championship . Leipzig 1859. Digital copy of the SLUB Dresden via EOD
- Josef Sigmund Ebersberg : The noble whist as it is played in the noblest societies. Comprehensive instructions for easy and thorough learning of the whist game . 7th edition Hartleben, Vienna 1877.
- C. Meyer: The unsurpassable Whist Boston and L'Hombres player. A practical guide to learn and play these games with every trick in the book. 6th edition 1878, digitized
- Thea Frank: Whist and touring whist . Hörhold, Hildesheim 1953.
- F. von Hoppe: The Whist and Boston player as he should be or thorough instructions to learn to play the Whist and Boston game and its variants according to the best rules and generally applicable laws . Ernst Verlag, Halberstadt 1895.
- Edmond Hoyle : A short treatise on the game of whist . Ewing, Dublin 1762 (also available via Eighteenth Century Collections Online )
- Henry Jones: Laws and principles of Whist. Clear and expert advice on which games to play and how to play them . 17th ed. Stokes Books, London 1888 (under the pseudonym "Cut Cavendish").
Fiction
- Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly : Le dessous de cartes d'une partie de whist . Édition Arléa, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-86959-428-3 .
- Georg P. Dambmann: Whist. A painting after life . Hartleben, Vienna 1807.
