One-act play

“ He that does it twenty times successively, and without failing, gains the match, or party, and he that misses gets a black stroke on his forehead for every time he misses. Another boy’s play is a game of chance, like cards or dice ”

“ What is the stage? It's a place, baby, you know, where people play at being serious, a place where they act comedies. We've got to act a comedy now, dead serious, you know; ”

“ Smart play it is, sometimes seventy, ay, a hundred Naps, on a game; and such players too!—fellows that sit for ten minutes with a card on their knee, studying your face, watching every line and lineament of your features, and reading you, by Jove,—reading you like a book. All the false air of ease and indifference, all the brag assurance you may get up to conceal a "bad hand," isn't worth sixpence. They laugh at your puerile efforts, and tell you "you are voled" before you've played a card. ”

“ I am not advocating ‘playing to the gallery,’ merely for the sake of bringing off a showy stroke, but playing out on purpose to try for position. There is, of course, a time for everything. In a match involving a stake, or when competing in a club handicap, a player should throw no chance away, and play carefully and cautiously, especially near the end of the game with the lead. But in an ordinary game he should play out and try whatever comes. ”

“ The first act's doubtful, but we say
It is the last commends the play. ”

“ It is necessary that of every play the chief action should be single; for since a play represents some transaction, through its regular maturation to its final event, two actions equally important must evidently constitute two plays. ”

“ I exclaimed, pointing with a trembling but triumphant finger at the cards. "You see! I am beaten now, in this game that seemed easy up to the very last moment. What could I hope for in a game where the cards fell wretchedly from the very start? If I hoped now, I'd be a hopeless fool, indeed!"
"'THAT WILL DO,' I SAID SEVERELY. 'REMEMBER THERE IS A GENTLEMAN PRESENT.'"
"Are you sure you know how to play this game?" ”

“ This toy world would not be here, this play could not go on, if we were knowing players. We must play blindfolded. Some of us have taken the part of the rogue of the play, some heroic — never mind, it is all play. ”

“ When parties play even, they draw lots for the first move of the first game. The first move is afterward taken alternately throughout the sitting, except when a game is drawn, when he who had the first move in that game still claims it, a drawn game being of no account. ”

“ Accidental circumstances will sometimes give a player overwhelming advantages in the play, of which none but he are aware; and who shall say that he will not avail himself of the opportunity which chance has thrown in his way? Against this sort of thing, however, there is no other safeguard than the watchfulness of the players. Where, then, is the 'game,' the amusement, if one has to play, armed at all points, as it were, and living in dread of pickpockets? ”

“ The proper number of players engaged at one time is three; the game can be played by two, but it is as slow as playing dummy whist. The advantage of our game lies in that a party could consist of up to six players. The limits of the players engaged at a time, as I have just said, is three, and therefore the number exceeding three is obliged to stand out for one game, namely, [Pg 178] for the play of one deal. But no particular person is obliged to stand out, so that one must either be bought off or allowed to play by the resignation of any other player, unless he himself prefers to stand out. ”

“ The play proceeds from left to right, and each player, in turn, has to follow suit if he can; as it is his desire to secure the trick for himself he will play as high as possible [21] if he has the power to head the trick. ”

“ We must know the whole play in order to properly act our parts; the conception of totality must never be lost in that of the individual. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For I must tell you, in this Game, is required much Cunning, and subtle Contrivance, as in any Recreation whatever, and therefore when you are to Play with an Expert Player, you must muster up all the forces of your Ingenuity and Wit, for the vanquishing of your Opponent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The whole system of the newly suggested play of the first and second hand is undermined by the fundamentally false assumption that the lead is always from a long suit; that everybody, irrespective of the score, has merely to ascertain which is his longest suit, and then to take immediate steps to put the table in possession of its exact length is so transparently simple, that such extreme simplicity in a game of skill is enough of itself to arouse the gravest suspicion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If they are light, and fewer in number than your adversary’s, of course your best policy is to close the game once and count, But in this you must learn to calculate from your adversary’s style of play whether his hand is light or heavy. ”

“ According to Egede, Greenlanders have a sort of roulette, an oblong ball about which the players sit with the stake before them.431 Another form of chance game is the morra, which was probably known to the ancient Egyptians, and was in all likelihood at first a clever method of calculating.432 As a play the hands of all the players are thrown simultaneously into the air, and each must guess at the number of outstretched fingers without taking time to count. ”

“ This objection is more apparent than real, and as one’s knowledge of the game grows, it becomes apparent that the first stones must be played with great care, and that there are certain definite, advantageous positions, which limit the player in his choice of moves, just as the recognized Chess openings guide our play in that game. ”

“ As they are so delighted with you, suppose, by way of letting them down gently, we give them another sight of you by moving up the basket trick on the programme, instead of letting it come between the second and third acts of the play,—we have had to advance the feat that was to have come between the first and second acts, anyhow,—and have no jugglery between the acts. ”

“ Both find their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to lead to the production of the first part again. ”

“ I know that professed or habitual card-players declare that, however much may be played for, the losses and winnings of games are equalized by turn, and that after a year's play the player has, practically, neither won nor lost. ”

“ You must be on your toes every second, ready to follow the other fellow’s shift. Your duty is to find out where the play is coming, and be ready to meet it. You’ll get fooled at first, I guess, for some shifts are used simply to pull you and the other backs away from the play. Only experience can teach you when a shift is just a fake.”
“The next thing is to watch the ball, Crail, from the instant it goes into play. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The passion of ball-play begins not with this friendly, graceful delivery of the ball into the next hand, but when two hostile players or parties are striving each to take or send it away from the other. Thus, on the one hand, there comes into existence the group of games represented by the Greek harpaston, or seizing-game, where the two sides struggled to carry off the ball. ”

“ They are trials of skill between two parties, consisting of a considerable number of men, forty to sixty aside, and often between two parishes. These exercises have their name from “hurling” a wooden ball, about three inches diameter, covered with a plate of silver, which is sometimes gilt, and has commonly a motto—“Fair play is good play.” The success depends on catching the ball dexterously when thrown up, or dealt, and carrying it off expeditiously, in spite of all opposition from the adverse party ”

“ ROUND THE JAM-POT, are really duty-games, of which I must tell you later on.
And if you have no caps, which you sometimes haven’t, you must just find something else to play with. [Pg 12] Buttons, for instance—everybody knows the old game of BUTTONS (or BANG-OUT, or BANGINGS) where you pitch them against a wall and have to measure the intervals between them with the span of your fingers and always end up with a row about cheating distances. You can make a fine gamble out of BUTTONS if you play the same game with halfpennies; you can win quite a lot, when there are no coppers about.... ”

“ Our third group of board plays is comprised of those which add the attraction of chance to intellectual enjoyment of the contest. It is true that to a certain degree chance is an element in the purest games of reason, since the most skilful player can not foresee all the consequences of a move, and various uncontrollable influences397 may interfere with the best-laid plans; but in the games which we are now considering there is a blending of risk with calculation, which has a peculiar charm. ”

“ A more useful contribution was made when the problem of the value of play itself was seriously attacked. The immense practical utility of most forms of play then became evident. Characteristically play is the preparatory organisation and development of impulses. It may easily become too narrowly specialised, and the impulses active may be such as never to receive ‘serious’ exercise. ”

“ These five examples of masterplay all illustrate a scientific knowledge of the game, and the student should play them over several times on his own board, as they will give him many points on the development of his forces after the positions attained by the opening moves, and they will, also, help him in gathering his men together for purposes of attack and defense. ”

“ Or, to express the effect of the successive actions of succeeding generations, we may borrow an illustration from the game of chess. It is possible for five players to play, taking it in turns to move, so that every player makes one move out of five, and plays alternately for White and Black. The result, with good players, is a brilliant and well-developed game, which is not the game as purposed or intended by [270] any one of the five players, but as continually modified and improved by each every time that he took it up. ”

“ You will defeat him nine times in ten without your being compelled to make your play certain, which can be done when you get your first draw, as follows: draw two; he cannot then defeat you, for whatever he draws, he will still leave from one to three for you, and you take the sixth off, when the rest is easy. ”

“ Nowadays, not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester conveys his iron chest to the play room. It is there that, as soon as the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible contests. ”

“ In chance games proper, however, the contestants do not attack one another directly, but seek to conquer by the better solution of some problem, the point of departure from other rivalries being that the reward of solution, at least in games of pure chance, is entirely accidental, and not dependent on the player’s strength or skill. We will now attempt to review the more important phenomena connected with such games, and later study the question in its psychological bearings. ”

“ The player removes the stones from the first depression on his right, and throws them one by one toward the left and into the holes on his opponent’s side. This play is kept up under certain rules and conditions, of course, and with the aid of much counting393 of winnings, and whoever gets the most stones has the game.394 In concluding we must not fail to notice the noblest of all board games, chess, which, on account of the great variety of men employed and their complicated moves, is the most difficult of games, as well as the most entertaining. ”