Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/580

544 WHIST that school, certain it is that in his Short Treatise he en dorsed and illustrated their rules. He also brought the doctrine of probabilities to bear on the game, and gave a number of cases which show a remarkable insight into the play. Two examples will suffice. He distinguishes between the lead of king from king, queen, knave, and one small card and of knave from king, queen, knave, and more than one small card. He also directs the third hand holding queen, ten, nine, and a small card to play the nine, not the small one, to his partner s lead of ace. This whist is so good, and so advanced, that even now, a hundred and fifty years later, only the very best players can be de pended on to observe and profit by it. Payne. About 1770 was published Payne s Maxims for Playing the Game of Whist. The advance in this book is decided. Leading from five trumps, in the hope of bringing in your own or your partner s long suit, is made into a general rule. And here, for the first time, the rule with respect to returned leads is printed, viz., " In returning your partner s lead play the best you have, when you hold but three originally." This rule, of all elementary ones, is, according to Clay, "the most important for the observance of whist-players." Hoyle does not give any such rule for returned leads, whence it may be inferred that no settled practice prevailed in his Mat- day. Matthews s Advice to the Yoiing Whist-Player (anon., thews. 1804) repeats the "maxims of the old school," with "ob servations on those he thinks erroneous " and "with several new ones." Matthews s book was a valuable contribution to whist literature, but some of the maxims which he thinks erroneous are now generally allowed to be correct. Thus, he prefers leading a single card to opening a long weak suit, the modern practice being just the contrary. He rejects leads from suits of three cards, except when the leader has reason to think it is his partner s suit ; then he should " play off the highest, though the king or queen," and he adds, "iY..5. This is contrary to the general prac tice, but undoubtedly right." Assuming his statement to be true, the general practice was evidently wrong. Matthews is sometimes credited with the discovery of the modern principle with regard to discarding. The old rule was always to discard from the weakest suit. The modern rule is to discard from the best protected suit when the opponents have the command of trumps. What Matthews does say is, " If weak in trumps, keep guard to your ad versaries suits ; if strong, throw away from them." This advice, though good, does not amount to anything like a principle of play. Short Soon after Matthews wrote, the points of the game were cut down from ten to five. Clay s account of this change is that, about the beginning of the 19th century, Lord Peterborough having lost a large sum of money, the players proposed to make the game five up, in order to give the loser a chance of recovering his loss. The new game, short whist, was found to be so lively that it soon became general, and eventually superseded the long game. This produced in 1835 Short Whist by "Major A." "Major A." is only Matthews done into short whist by a literary hack, who substituted " five " for " ten," and so on through out. The book would not call for notice here, but that Major A. was regarded as the authority on whist for a considerable time, probably because it was erroneously supposed that the author was the well-known Major Aubrey, one of the best players of his day. Similarly " Ccelebs " (Laws and Practice of Whist, 1851), who mainly repeats ^ former writers, only calls for mention because he first printed in his second edition (1856) an explanation of the call for trumps. Calling for trumps was first recog nized as part of the game by the players at Graham s Club about 1840. Long whist may be said to have died about the same time that Major A. s book was published. The new game necessarily caused a change in the style of play, as recorded by James Clay in The Laics of Short Clay. Whist, and a Treatise on the Game (1864). That dis tinguished player says that, when he first remembered whist, its celebrities were for the most part those who had been educated at long whist. In his judgment the old school was very accurate and careful, but was wanting in the dash and brilliancy of the best modern players, and sinned by playing what is now called a backward game. Whist then travelled, and about 1830 some of the best French French whist -players, with Deschapelles at their head, whist, modified and improved the old-fashioned system. They were but little influenced by the traditions of long whist, and were not content merely to imitate the English. The French game was the scorn and horror of the old school, who vehemently condemned its rash trump leads. Those who adopted the practice of the new school were, however, found to be binning players. By way of example, the English player of the old school never thought of playing to win the game before it was saved ; the French player never thought of saving the game until he saw he could not win it. As between the two systems, Clay preferred the rash attack to the cautious defence, and recommended a middle course, leaning more to the new than to the old doctrine. Dr Pole (Philosophy of Whist, 1883) remarks that the long experience of adepts had led to the introduction of many improvements in detail since the time of Hoyle, but that nothing had been done to reduce the various rules of the game to a systematic, form until between 1850 and 1860, when a knot of young men proceeded to a thorough investigation of Avhist, and in 1862 one of the members of this " little whist school " brought out a work, under the pseudonym of " Cavendish," which " gave for the first Caven- time the rules which constitute the art of whist-playing dish, according to the most modern form of the game." The little school was first brought prominently into notice by an article on whist in the Quarterly Revieio of January 1871. On the appearance of this article it was fiercely debated by the press whether the " little school " did any thing extraordinary, whether they elaborated anything, or compassed anything, or advanced a science, or whether they drew their inspiration from external sources, and merely gave a systematic arrangement to what was well known and procurable before. It was finally allowed that the little school did originate something, as they were the first to give, logically and completely, the reasoning on which the principles of play are based. Whist had previously been treated as though the " art " of the game depended on the practice of a number of arbitrary conven tions. But the fact is that all rules of whist-play depend upon and are referable to general principles. Hence, as soon as these general principles were stated, and the reasons for their adoption were argued, players began to discuss and to propose innovations on the previously established rules of play. A critical examination of the more important proposals Discard- made since 1862 may here be appropriately introduced. iu g- The older authorities laid down the rule, Discard from the weakest suit. It was shrewdly noticed that, when command of trumps was shown by the adversaries, the rule was more honoured in the breach than in the ob servance, the reason being that, when the attack was ad verse, the instinct of the player prompted him to guard his weak suits. Hence the rule was modified, and it be came the practice to discard from the best protected suit when the command of trumps is with the opponents. There can be no doubt as to the soundness of this modern rule of play, and it has been generally accepted. It was sud

denly discovered that Matthews advanced a similar doctrine.