John Petch Hewby

“ To ignore the teaching of a long line of illustrious dead, to set precedent at defiance, and deliberately to go out of your way in order to lose, is an extension of the old stoical principle, “under all circumstances to keep your temper,” in the very best latter-day manner; but reasonably doubtful as to the success of such an appeal if left to stand upon its own bottom, he invokes elementary algebra to his aid. Now elementary algebra is not devoid of good points; by its means we learn that a man may—either in time or in eternity—hold 635,013,559,600 different whist-hands. ”

“ When you hold a bad hand, it is just as philosophical to acquaint your partner with that unpleasant circumstance by leading a strengthening card, as it is to lead a long weak suit and leave him floundering about in ignorance of everything but its length, and it has a much greater weight of authority at the back of it. ”

“ Don’t finesse against yourself. If you have led from ace, knave, etc., and your partner has made the queen, the king is certainly not on your right. If, on the other hand, you have led from king, and your partner again has made the queen, it can be of no use to put on the king, the ace must be over you. Though Clay described the finesse obligatory before you were thought of, I am afraid that after you are forgotten, these two simple cases will continue to be reversed—that people will finesse against, and not for, themselves. ”

“ If it is any amusement to him—and I presume it is, otherwise he would not do it—from his cradle to his grave to play a game of which he knows absolutely nothing, and if in pursuit of that amusement he thinks it worth his while to take a certain amount of his own and his partner’s capital, and to throw it in the street, why should he lose his temper? ”

“ The Whist philosophy of Cam, propounded day by day, was, that there is no absolute never or always. The same idea runs through the entire treatise of Clay; and if there is one point more especially distinctive than another in the teaching of that great master, repeated again and again, and constantly insisted upon, it is that all the maxims of Whist are open to innumerable exceptions, that the coat must be cut according to the cloth, and that he is the finest Whist-player who can most readily grasp that fact. ”

“ Sometimes I cannot lose a rubber, sometimes I cannot win one; at one time cards will beat their makers, at another the makers will beat the cards, and these results occur without rhyme or reason, in defiance of any system of play. Don’t imagine for a moment that I suggest play is of no consequence, I merely say that you will frequently see the cards or the players run wild, and that the actual result—winning or losing—is beyond your own control. ”

“ As a general principle, with the original lead and a very bad hand, it is advisable to efface yourself as much as possible. In such a case, I always have a strong desire to get under the table—I don’t know that it is contrary to either the laws or the etiquette of whist to do so—and I firmly believe it is a better course than leading the trey of trumps; at any rate it is not for the weak hand to dictate how the game should be played; and to step boldly to the front and lead a small trump from two, without a trick behind it, is in my opinion the height of impertinence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If yelling when he is trodden upon, and crying if he loses, are proofs of humanity, he is essentially human.
Now, no one has the slightest objection to your amusing yourself as long as you do not annoy anybody else. I go further than this, and admit your abstract right to amuse yourself at your partner’s expense, but I protest against your expecting him to rejoice with you in his own discomfiture. ”

“ As to not heading the queen with king and another, one of the latest Cavendish coups, it is really so puerile, he must be practising upon our credulity; the veriest bumble-puppist that ever [39] crawled upon this earth is too well aware that, every now and again, a trick may be made by the most absurd and outrageous play—or rather want of play—otherwise the breed would have been as extinct as the dodo.
There are positions enough, where the king is the only card of re-entry and where, unless the fourth hand can get in with the ace and draw the trumps, the game is over, but it is not so here ”

“ I have lost a bumper in two deals, holding one trump each hand and with the same partner, the same seats, and the same cards won the next rubber but one in two deals, again holding one trump in each hand.
I have seen a player with no trump and no winning card lose a treble, and the very next hand, again with no trump and no winning card—assisted to some extent by his partner—score nine, and on one melancholy occasion my partner and myself were unable to raise a trump between us ”

“ The constitution of Whist and the constitution of our beloved country are both at the mercy of a grand old man of exuberant verbosity, each of whom is able, in some extraordinary way, to persuade himself that the side of any question on which he happens to be looking, is not only the right side, but that it positively has no other, in spite of the fact that in previous stages of his existence, he has himself, both recognised and vehemently supported that other side. ”

“ When once you cast judgment and common-sense to the four winds of heaven, and submit yourselves body and soul to the rule of thumb—and such a thumb!—you cannot play fast and loose with it; you must take it for “all in all, or not at all.” Like a wife, which you may have some day, you take it for better or worse, till death do you part ”

“ Another disadvantage is that in nearly all cases where either adversary wins the second round, he will know whether or not he can force his partner in that suit without risk of being overtrumped, but if the original leader wins the second round his partner will rarely get any positive information as to his strength until the third round.” “These refinements of artifice are utterly opposed to the essence of scientific Whist, viz., the necessity of rational deduction. To substitute signals which convey information, without troubling the brains, must tend to spoil the game.” ”

“ These are noble sentiments! how any sane human being can imagine he has the right to tell me to destroy my hand and do for him—after he has drawn his own teeth—what he was afraid—before that operation—to do for himself, I have never been able to understand.
[38] “When it is evident the winning cards are betwixt you and your adversaries, play an obscure game; but as clear a one as possible if your partner has a good hand.”—Mathews. ”

“ Whether to give or withhold information frequently tries the discretion of the best players, and with weak hands the great necessity is to keep your adversaries in ignorance, without deceiving your partner. Now if this new signal were generally adopted, players would, as regards the lead in question, be [29] deprived of all discretion, and be compelled either to give information to their adversaries, which might be used against them with fatal effect, or else deceive their partners, whereas the present lead, if it gives no information does not deceive your partner. ”

“ It is even a dangerous practice to signal when the adversaries will most likely have the lead on its completion; they at once adapt their play to the circumstances. I have seen innumerable games of whist not won, and many a game lost, by absurd signalling; still Whist players suffering from Peter on the brain constantly refuse to ruff a winning card in order to disclose a signal in the discard. ”

“ A leads the ace of hearts. He then leads three of hearts. His left hand adversary, Y, plays ten, B queen, and Z, fourth player, nine. Neither adversary has asked for trumps,” which is entirely a matter of opinion; for as no human being knows, or ever will know, where a single trump is, Z might have begun a call, and finding the whole heart suit dead against him, and knowing the exact position of every card in it, thought fit to conceal it. ”

“ Many feeble whist-players are unwilling ever to let their opponents make a single trick; now this is unnecessarily greedy; under no circumstances, at short whist, is it imperative to make more than eleven. Allow your adversary to have two, it amuses him and does not hurt you.
“It is less mischievous, generally, to lead a certain losing card, than to open a fresh suit in which you are very weak.”—What to Lead, by Cam. ”

“ THE ECHO. 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 ”

“ To become a fair whist-player [46] no wonderful attributes are required; common sense, a small amount of knowledge—easily acquired—ordinary observation of facts as they occur, and experience, the result of that observation—not the experience obtained by repeating the same idiotic mistakes year after year—are about all. To save you trouble, the experience of all the best players for the last hundred years has been collected into a series of maxims, which you will find in any whist book. ”

“ Permutations and Combinations will inform us sooner or later—I should imagine later, for to my certain knowledge, a series of four thousand two hundred and nineteen is not [37] enough—as to the number of times we shall make it or lose it, whether we play it, or do not play it; but they will give us no clue as to the extent of damage we may receive when it is played and taken by the third hand, or as to the loss we incur when the ace is in the fourth hand, by importing uncertainty into the game. When we do not put it on and lose it, we may—or may not—lose one trick ”