Big game

“ There, on that most sacred spot in all the universe, in the holiest hour ever marked on the dial of time, when heaven, earth and hell are quick with interest, who is it sits unmoved, unobservant, unstirred, concerned only with the game? Ruthless gamblers sit beneath the lowering skies, and on the palsied earth they shake the dice to win the garments of the man of sorrows. ”

“ Just as at cricket you get more runs. There is no use in the runs; but to get more of them than other people is the game. And there is no use in the money; but to have more of it than other people is the game. ”

“ But even supposing the question of the table to be settled, there is another formidable difficulty in the way of reviving satisfactory matches—namely, how to insure that the game is genuine and that each competitor is trying to win. The great games of old days were for the most part honest, the stakes were real, the rivalry of competitors was evident, and these facts added greatly to their attraction. ”

“ She disregarded the money appeal. "But you like it, this--this 'game' you call it. Why?"
He lacked speech-expression. He expressed himself with his hands, at his work, and with his body and the play of his muscles in the squared ring; but to tell with his own lips the charm of the squared ring was beyond him. Yet he essayed, and haltingly at first, to express what he felt and analyzed when playing the Game at the supreme summit of existence. ”

“ If you see half a dozen heads together, you will know that a game is in progress, and that the stakes are high, perhaps even five cents. As each man throws the dice, he gives his thigh a resounding slap. ”

“ It is only where the stakes are small that the leisurely players, idly fingering the fallen cards, return in fancy to certain points—to this trick trumped or that chance missed, playing the game over again. But when the result is great it overshadows the game, and all men's thoughts fly to speculation on the future. How will the loser meet his loss? ”

“ Whether it was that the gamblers, expert in the reading of a man's mood and intentions, sensed the fact that Orde might be led to plunge, or whether, more simply, they were using him as a capper to draw the crowd into their game, it would be difficult to say, but twice more they bungled the throw and permitted him to win. ”

“ When playing at the usual game of "hand," the stakes, comprising all the valuables the players possess, are piled in two heaps close at hand, the winner at the conclusion of the game sweeping the goods towards him, and often returning a small portion "on the prairie," with which the loser may again commence operations with another player. ”

“ In most of these we have practically the same thing—the sides have opposite homes, and the leader, though individual at first, becomes merged in the group when the line is formed, and the game ends by all the players being on one side. ”

“ I knew that gambling was practiced everywhere; that such players as had not stamina to resist the overtures made to them were being caused to swerve from the legitimate ends of the game, and to serve the illegitimate purposes of the gamesters. I do not claim for myself any degree of puritanical perfection ”

“ That gaming was among his follies at this period he himself tells us in the journal I have just cited:—
"I have a notion (he says) that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always excited. Women, wine, fame, the table,—even ambition, sate now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. ”

“ Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug. Perhaps that is why we have been summoned to the board and the cards dealt round: that we may learn some of the virtues of the good gambler ”

“ Perhaps twenty people would be staking at the same time. This man had to roll the ball, to watch the stakes as they were laid down, to gather them off the colour which lost, to pay those who won, to do it all with the utmost despatch, to roll the ball again, and to keep this game perpetually alive. ”

“ The winners ride out of the enclosure in single file, while the losers dismount and follow on foot, leading their horses, a picturesque conclusion to a noble and manly game. Should neither side score its banded ball within a given time (half-an-hour usually) from the commencement of play, the game is drawn. ”

“ To show you the nature of a Problem, and the way to record its solution, I will append a diagram.
White to play and win in eight moves.
The difficulty here is the first move. That discovered, all the others follow as a matter of course. This is the solution:—
by which you will see that Black’s moves are all forced, and White wins the game.
Draughts is played in three ways: the Winning (and most usual) game, the Losing, and the Polish game. The last, not much practised in this country, is played on a larger board, and the men take backwards or forwards. ”

“ And here again another likeness presents itself, for the games were played and contests entered by men paid to show their skill, while thousands sat and watched, shouted advice, or yelled their disapproval, though quite unable and unwilling to venture on the game themselves. ”

“ If there are good grounds for coming to the conclusion that he holds heavy numbers while you hold light ones, block up the game as speedily as you can, and proceed to count. To understand your opponent’s hand is a most important matter, and we do not think we have insisted on it too much. Good players will tell you that they have won many games by watching closely the opponent's moves, and drawing therefrom inferences respecting the dominoes he holds in hand. ”

“ Every failure means “out,” and then your opponent has his turn. The winner is the one who gets through first. Such is the game as I remember it, but I have an uneasy suspicion that I have missed something out. ”

“ The way we play the Game of Life today is similar to playing poker. We keep a straight face and play the cards tight to our chest. But what would happen if everyone could see everyone else's cards? It would cease to be a game of strategy, and become a game of pure chance. ”

“ But for my present purpose, the most suitable simile would be that of a game of chess, where the plan we determined to follow is conditioned by the play of our rival,—in life, by the caprice of fate. We are compelled to modify our tactics, often to such an extent that, as we carry them out, hardly a single feature of the original plan can be recognized. ”

“ Games of chance—even in the long-ago sixties—were rarely indulged in in the ante-room, which was reserved exclusively for solemn whist for nominal stakes, where the players bottled up trumps, misdealt, and revoked, regardless of all the canons of the game. ”

“ Rivalry enters, too, into such games as tenpins, billiards, croquet, golf, etc., all of which are favourite amusements. The pleasure they afford is complicated, including display of one’s own strength and skill, the pleasure of watching others, the stimulus of rivalry and the satisfaction of overcoming an opponent. Sometimes, and especially in croquet and billiards, the contest closely approaches fighting play, since the participants not only try to attain the object of the game, but are apt to engage in direct hostilities. ”

“ There are some in which chance is predominant—as poker, for example, or the new game of bluff, so popular in America, where so much depends on the dealing, and the play is not so much a calculation as an attempt to exhaust one’s opponent.... The stronger games, however, such as whist, Boston, l’hombre, solitaire, piquet, Skat, euchre, etc., depend on the sustained influence of both chance and calculation. ”

“ The changes in a game of football as it is now played, though, are so rapid that the whole secret of success is to guage the precise merits of the opposition with a certain degree of accuracy, and to adopt the play of one's self and one's side to the exigencies of each situation as it arises. ”

“ The athletic contests of the ancient Greeks (ἀγῶνες) and the public shows (ludi) of the arena and amphitheatre of the ancient Romans are treated below (Games, Classical) ; the various forms of modern games, indoor and outdoor, whether of skill, strength or chance, are dealt with under their specific titles. A special use (“gaming” or “gambling”) restricts the term to the playing of games for money, or to betting and wagering on the results of events, as in horse-racing, &c. ”

“ But I believe, though it is so much less a thing of chance than science or skill, eager players pass whole nights in marching and countermarching their men and check-mating a successful adversary, supposing that at a certain point of the game, they had determined upon making a particular move instead of the one which they actually did make. ”

“ No more, verily, than with the fate and fortunes of the elephants and castles, the kings, queens, bishops, knights, and commonalty on a chess-board, in a game between an adept and a novice, which is up in a few moments, neither exalting the winner nor disparaging the loser, nor affecting life, limb, character, or feeling in regard to one of the puppets employed in the play. ”

“ Even they who were not themselves bettors felt the deepest interest in the game where the stake was so great, and all who could set value on skill and address were curious to watch the progress of the contest. ”

“ In the eighteenth century allusions to the game become more frequent, although it was still a boy's game. It had its poet, who sang—
"Hail, cricket, glorious, manly, British game,
First of all sports, be first alike in fame."
It had its calumniators, who said that it "propagated [pg 063] a spirit of idleness" in bad times, when people ought to work and not play, and that it encouraged gambling. But the game began to prosper, and several noted men, poets and illustrious statesmen, recall the pleasurable memories of their prowess with the bat and ball. ”

“ It’s one thing to play with a mob in the old-fashioned go-as-you-please way, and quite another to run a regular team of seven, with complicated rules, and lifts and shoots and body checks and passes and on-side and off-side play, and all the tricks of the new game. ”

“ That the line of players had to keep to their own ground is, I think, manifest, from it being necessary for one of the line to touch the base. There is no mention of a leader. Thus we have here an undoubted form of a contest game, where the taking of prisoners is the avowed motive, played in almost the same manner as the line dramatic game. ”

“ Then each party strives who shall first send the ball beyond the goal planted conspicuously on the opposite side, for whenever the ball is struck by the netted sticks through the goal at either side, that gives the victory to the other side. This is the kind of game, evidently a slippery and dangerous one. ”

“ For though gamesters say that the cards beat all the players, though they were never so skilful, yet in the contest we are now considering, the players are also the game, and share the power of the cards. ”

“ Developing itself, like that game where the skilful winner advances gradually but surely, each piece protected by another through a series of moves, our policy had only become conspicuous by the last move which obtained its victory. ”

“ It had been a splendid game, and our wits had been sharpened, our faculties strengthened, our prosperity fortified, our self-confidence enormously increased in playing it. Given our rules, we could play the game more resourcefully than any other people on earth. ”

“ To funk the bold game would be fatal. The bold game was the only one which offered the vaguest possibility of success—a plan such as they had set themselves to carry out could only hope to succeed if it were executed in the same spirit of consummate cheek and hell-for-leather daring as that in which it had been conceived. And that was what Patricia Holm intended to do, starting in at that very instant. ”

“ They are part and parcel of the strategies available to the players and cannot be arbitrarily ruled out. On the contrary, their introduction as part of a dominant strategy will simplify Game theory and make it much more applicable. ”

“ The mistake of one party is the profit of the adversary. Collecting Tricks.—The tricks belonging to each player should be turned and collected by one of the partners only. All above six tricks reckon towards game. Honours.—The ace, king, queen, and knave of trumps are called honours; and when either of the partners hold three separately, or between them, they count two points towards the game; and in case they have four honours, they count four points. Game.—Long Whist game consists of ten points, Short Whist of five points. ”

“ With countless duties yet to do;
You leaders who must head the line,
One dumb play may bring lifelong shame;
Watch every signal, every sign.
Get in the game! Get in the game!
Get in the game—this age is live,
And loafers have no part to play.
If you would win, if you would thrive,
“Keep on your toes” in every fray;
And if you rise or if you fall,
It matters not—the Road to Fame
But echoes with the world-wide call:
“Get in the game! Get in the game!”
{86} THE GOODS.
Here’s to the guy that delivers the goods—
Gent from the city or geek from the woods ”

“ mine was the game where the player cannot lose and may win. ”

“ Among gamblers, it means deceiving the person who had back’d you, by wilfully losing the game; the money so lost by him being shared between yourself and your confederates who had laid against you. In playing three-handed games, two of the party will play into each other’s hands, so that the third must inevitably be thrown over the bridge, commonly called, two poll one. See Play across.
BROADS, cards; a person expert at which is said to be a good broad-player. ”