In the 16 th century a card game called triumph or trump (corrupted from “triumph ”) was commonly played in England. A game called trwnfi is mentioned as early as 1526, and triumphus Hispanicus in 1541. La triomphe occurs in the list of games played by Gargantua (Rabelais, first half of 16th century). In Florio’s Worlds of Wordes (1598) trionfo is defined as “the play called trump or ruff.” It is probable that the game referred to by the writers quoted is la triomphe qì the early editions of the Academie des Jeux. It is important to note that this game, called by Cotton “French ruff,” is similar to écarté. “English ruff-and-honours,” also described by Cotton, is similar to whist. If we admit that ruff and trump are convertible terms, of which there is scarcely a doubt, the game of trump was the precursor of whist. A purely English origin may, therefore, be claimed for trump (not la triomphe). No record is known to exist of the invention of this game, nor of the mode of its growth into ruff-and-honours, and finally into whist. The earliest reference to trump in English is believed to occur in a sermon by Latimer, “On the Card,” preached at Cambridge, in Advent, about the year 1529. He says, “The game that we play at shall be the triumph. . . . Now turn up your trump,. . . and cast your trump, your heart, on this card.” The game of trump is frequently mentioned in the second half of the 16 th century. In Gammer Gurton ’ s Needle (1575) Dame Chat says, “We be fast set at trumpe.” Eliot (Fruits for the French, 1593) calls trump “a verie common ale-house game.” Rice (Invective against Vices, printed before 1600) observes that “renouncing the trompe and comming in againe” (i.e., revoking intentionally) is a common sharper’s trick. Decker (Belmaη of London, 1608) speaks of the deceits practised at “tromp and such like games.” Trump also occurs in Antony and Cleopatra (written about 1607), with other punning allusions to card-playing—
“She, Eros, has
Packed cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory Unto an enemy’s triumph.”—Act iv. sc. 12.
Ruff-and-honours, if not the same game as trump, was probably the same with the addition of a score for the four highest cards of the trump suit. A description of the game is first met with in The Compleat Gamester (1674) by Charles Cotton. He states that ruff-and-honours (alias slamm) and whist are games very commonly known in England. It was played by four players with partners, and it was compulsory to follow suit when able. The cards ranked as at whist, and honours were scored as now. Twelve cards were dealt to each player, four being left in the stock. The top card of the stock was turned up for trumps. The holder of the ace of trumps was allowed to ruff, i.e., to take in the stock and to put out four cards from his hand. The game was played nine up; and at the point of eight honours could be called, as at long whist. Cotton adds that at whist there was no stock. The deuces were put out and the bottom card was turned up for trumps.
It is believed that the earliest mention of whist is by Taylor, the Water Poet (Motto, 1621). He spells the word “whisk.” The earliest known use of the present spelling is in Hudibras, the Second Part (spurious), 1663. The word is then spelt indifferently whisk or whist for about half a century. Cotton (1674) spells it both ways. Seymour (Court Gamester, 1734) has “whist, vulgarly called whisk.” While whist was undergoing this change of name, there was associated with it the additional title of swabbers (probably allied to sweep, or sweepstakes). Fielding (History of Mr Jonathan Wild) says that whisk-and-swab-bers was “the game then [1682] in chief vogue.” Grose (Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongxιe, 1785) states that swabbers are “the ace of hearts, knave of clubs, ace and duce of trumps at whist.” The true function of the swabbers is not positively known; it is probable that the holders of these cards were entitled to receive a certain stake from the other players. Swabbers dropped out of general use during the 18th century. The points of the game rose from nine to ten (“nine in all,” Cotton, 1725; “ten in all,” Seymour, 1734, “rectified according to the present standard of play”). Simultaneously with this alteration, or closely following it, the entire pack of fifty-two cards was used, the deuces being no longer discarded. This improvement introduces the odd trick, an element of great interest in modern whist. Early in the 18th century whist was not a fashionable game. The Hon. Daines Barrington (Archaeologia, vol. viii.) says it was the game of the servants’ hall. Contemporary writers refer to it in a disparaging way, as being only fit for hunting men and country squires, and not for fine ladies or people of quality. According to Barrington, whist was first played on scientific principles by a party of gentlemen who frequented the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row, London, about 1728. They laid down the following rules :—“Lead from the strong suit; study your partner’s hand; and attend to the score.” Shortly after the celebrated Edmond Hoyle (g.vf) published his Short Treatise (1743). It has been surmised by some that Hoyle belonged to the Crown Coffee House party. This, however, is only a conjecture. There is abundant evidence to show that, in the middle of the 18th century, whist was regularly played at the coffee houses of London and in fashionable society. And it is notorious that, ever since the time of Hoyle, the game has continued to increase in public estimation.
It will be of interest to mark the successive stages through which whist has passed from the time of Cotton to the present day. The only suggestions as to play in Cotton are that, “though you have but mean cards in your own hand, yet you may play them so suitable to those in your partner’s hand that he may either trump them or play the best of that suit;” also that “you ought to have a special eye to what cards are play’d out, that you may know by that means either what to play if you lead or how to trump securely and advantagiously.” It appears from this that the main ideas were to make trumps by ruffing, to make winning cards, and to watch the fall of the cards with these objects. In the rules laid down by the Crown Coffee House school a distinct advance is to be noticed. Their first rule, “Lead from the strong suit,” shows a knowledge of the game only to be acquired by cafeful study, together with a long train of reasoning. The arguments in favour of the original strong-suit lead would be out of place here; they are to be found in any modern manual. Their second rule, “Study your partner’s hand,” though sound, is rather vague, and savours somewhat of a repetition of Cotton. Their third rule, “Attend to the score,” if amended into “Play to the score,” is most valuable. From the Crown Coffee House school to Hoyle is rather a wide jump; but there is no intervening record. Whether or not Hoyle derived at least a part of his inspiration from that school, certain it is that in his Short Treatise he endorsed 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 depended on to observe and profit by it.
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 day. Matthews’s Advice to the Young Whist-Player (anon., 1804) repeats the “maxims of the old school,” with “observations 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, ii N.B.— This is contrary to the general practice, 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 adversaries’ suits; if strong, throw away from them.” This advice, though good, does not amount to anything like a principle of play.
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 throughout. 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 “Coelebs” (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 recognized 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 Laws of Short Whist, and a Treatise on the Game (1864). That distinguished 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 whist-players, with Deschapelles at their head, 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 winning 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 whist, 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 time the rules which constitute the art of whist-playing 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 Review of January 1871. On the appearance of this article it was fiercely debated by the press whether the “little school” did anything 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 conventions. 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 made since 1862 may here be appropriately introduced. 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 observance, the reason being that, when the attack was adverse, the instinct of the player prompted him to guard his weak suits. Hence the rule was modified, and it became 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 suddenly discovered that Matthews advanced a similar doctrine.
His pretensions to this distinction have already been examined. Soon after this (1872) followed the echo of the call for trumps. Calling for trumps, as all whist-players know, is effected by throwing away an unnecessarily high card. When the lower card is subsequently played, a royal invitation is given to the partner to abandon his own game and to lead trumps, there being greatstrength in the caller’s hand. In practice it was found for various reasons (for which manuals must be consulted) to be highly advantageous for the caller’s partner to be able to indicate whether he also had numerical strength in trumps {i.e., a minimum of four). The rule was eventually adopted that the caller’s partner with at least four trumps should, if he had an opportunity, call in response, or echo, by also throwing away an unnecessarily high card; of course, if he had the opportunity, and refrained from echoing, he had less than four trumps. This rule of play was not appreciated at the time; but now (1888) it has the adherence of all thoughtful players.
Contemporaneously with the echo, the lead of the penultimate card from suits of five or more cards was strenuously advocated in some quarters, and as strenuously opposed in others. Up to this date it had been the general practice, when leading a low card from a strong suit, to prefer the lowest card of the suit, irrespective of the number held. But some acute players departed from this rule when they held an intermediate sequence of three cards. Thus, with king, ten, nine, eight, two (intermediate sequence of ten, nine, eight), they would lead the eight in preference to the two, as a card of protection, in case the partner should happen to be very weak in the suit, when the eight must force an honour, whereas the two might enable the opponent to win the first trick with a six or a seven. Equally acute partners soon observed that, when a strong-suit player began with, say, an eight, and afterwards played a small card, the card must have been from a suit of at least five cards. As soon as this inference was established, the acute leader argued that, if he could show number in his strong suit (an important exhibition in modern whist), he need not confine this exhibition to those suits only in which he held an intermediate sequence. He contended that the right play is to lead the lowest but one (or the penultimate) from all suits containing five or more cards, with which the less advanced player would begin by leading the lowest. Then ensued the grand battle of the penultimate. The old players regarded it with the same “horror” as they had formerly displayed with respect to the French school, and even went so far as to stigmatize it as a private understanding and as cheating. The next stock objection raised was that it was an innovation. These feeble arguments were soon disposed of. The method was accessible to every one through the medium of the press; and, as Clay {Short Whist, 1864) rightly observes, “It is fair to give your partner any intimation which could be given, if the cards were placed on the table, each exactly in the same manner as the others, by a machine, the players being out of sight and hearing each of the others.” The more genuine strictures were that penultimate leads complicate the game, that they give no advantage to the players, and that they simulate leads from weak suits (from which the highest is led). It is very doubtful whether penultimate leads do complicate the game. But, admitting for the sake of argument that they do, it is no objection to an intellectual pastime that it exercises the brains of the players. The question whether those who practise penultimate leads reap any advantage therefrom is one which can only be determined by experience. The best test is the habit of those who play for a stake. They all hope to win; they are not likely to persist obstinately in a practice by which they find they gain nothing; and at the present moment (1888) there is scarcely a player of any ability who deliberately rejects the penultimate lead when he has a partner capable of understanding it. Hence it may be inferred that the experience of some sixteen years has resulted in a decided feeling that penultimate leads are on the whole advantageous to those who practise them. The simulation of a lead from a weak suit has no locus standi if it is borne in mind that original leads are contemplated, and that the original lead of all good players is from a strong suit. James Clay, the greatest player of his day, was at first opposed to penultimate leads. When he had considered the full arguments for and against them, he “put them to the test of his individual experience, acknowledged their value, and did not hesitate to give his adhesion to them.”
The consideration of the proper card to lead from five-card suits naturally led to that of the correct lead from more than five cards, in the case of suits opened with a small card. General Drayson {Art of Practical Whist, 1879) was the first to...
