ARNAUD ON WHIST.
Tins book promises well, for it professes in the title-page to be ar- ranged on a plan " calculated to give rapid proficiency to a player of the dullest perception and worst memory." We know not how it may be with others, but, speaking from our own experience, we protest that a vast proportion of the people with whom we have ever been com- mitted in partnership, have been persons of " the dullest perception and worst memory." Mr. ARNAUD'S little volume is addressed indeed to an immense class, but his performance falls far short of his pro- mise—he is no whist-player. We see through him at a glance. He is a gentleman who has played with dowagers, and contracted an opinion of his own skill from its comparative superiority over their feebleness. Oh ye of Graham's ! what shall be said of the man who gives rules and instructions for Long Whist ? A Treatise on Health, CORNARO, ABERNETHY, and PARIS on Diet, ought to precede the essay ; because we should learn the art of living a couple of centuries before we enter upon the recreation of Long Whist. Long Whist, like the mammoth, has its remains ; but no evidence of its present existence has ever personally reached us.
Nevertheless, all ancient persons shoot out their tongues at Shorts, cry, " nought, nought," and vaunt the vast superiority of the long game. We by no means depreciate it—our single objection is the disproportion it bears to the ordinary terms of human existence; and the people who have survived its practice, and delight in its praises, should learn that they have laboured entirely under a mistake in sup- posing that they knew how to play it. Card-players have not been sitting still while the rest of the world has been in progress ; the science of whist has advanced with other sciences, and the game now played by the best hands hears a very slender resemblance to that of our ancestors. The old maxims are exploded, and the practice entirely changed. HovLE, for example, may be read with some advantage by the rule of contraries—that is, do the opposite of what he directs, and the strong probability is that you will play like a reasonable being and an instructed whist-player. We are aware that we are astounding the world with a revelation ; but our words, though startling, and kindling ignorance to wrath, will be found to be the words of truth.
Competent skill in games is at least as rare as competent skill in any other department of human dexterity and intelligence. People move pieces of wood and ivory about, and imagine they are playing chess; they sit two and two, fling cards about, blunder and scold, and conceive they are playing whist—mentis gratissimus error! Chess and whist are seldom played with tolerable skill out of the clubs devoted to them ; and persons who in general society conceit themselves first-rate players, will in clubs discover themselyes to be fourth or at best third-rate players. A club third-rate chess or whist player is a miracle of science among the ordinary performers. Graham's and the Portland are the Whist Uni- versities ; Tom's in the City, and Lewes's, those of Chess. Both games have been greatly improved by the attention and sharpened wit which have been bestowed on them, but the advances of chess are more easily demonstrated. The chance which has a part in whist, ex- cludes the certain proof of superior modes of play of which chess allows. There are thousands of chess- as of whist players in town and country, who fancy themselves fine performers, because they play a degree better than their still awkwarder neighbours ; but the first are sooner brought to their just bearings, and the discovery of their defici- ency, by a contest with a better-instructed connoisseur. The shibbo- leth which indicates the bungling chess-player, is the boast that "he has never been beaten,"—a sure proof that he has never played with good players, and consequently had no opportunities of acquiring prac- tical knowledge of the game. We have seen these invwti sit down with infinite gravity of conceit, and play a game which ought appro- priately to have ended bybowling the king down as at skittles. Parallel enormities are committed at whist, but the circumstances of the game do not permit of so complete a proof of error. Usage is pleaded in de- fence of stupid practices, and HOYLE is quoted as a silencing authority. The lights from Graham's have not yet, in short, broken upon the world. Most of the old maxims are found to be either false or danger- ous, and a closer observance of circumstances has superseded the ancient blind adherence to special rules: For example, HOYLE re- commends, " When you don't know what to play, play a trump:" he might as well have said, " When you don't know what to play, cut your throat." People who are apt to find themselves in the condition of not knowing what to play, would act most discreetly in not playing at all ; for in a well-matched game, there should seldom be a per- plexity about the card to be given, but should such a difficulty arise, playing the trump is most likely to be playing the devil. The old and the new-fashioned play differ indeed most strikingly in the treatment of trumps. A modern player considers his trumps as sharp, double- edged tools, which cannot be handled with too much caution, delicacy, and wariness. He likes to have a good view of the game before he touches them, and he knows they are not to be flung out on blind speculations. The great difficulty of whist is not, however, the lead ; but the nicety, the trial of judgment, the test of discretion, is the return of the lead.
"Always return your partner's lead," say the antique players : but when one considers the matter, instead of dogmatizing, it is not easy to determine the circumstances under which it is safe to give back the lead. For example, if you win with the queen, it is plain to demon- stration that the return will either produce your partner's ace, which he can be in no violent hurry to play, or it must be the death of his king if he hold it. With all cards below the queen, the same difficulty is felt.
" Never return your adversary's lead," is another maxim, equally peremptory and unsound. The question turns upon the strength of the third hand, and it is often excellent play to return the hostile lead ; but the season—the period of the game—is here of vast importance. Our advice would be, when you get the lead, show your partner your hand, or else play to clear your suits ; and to give him the ten= in his lead, if you can, as you may, contrive it, rather than lead to it, with the chance of bringing his cards to execution by the fourth player. A partner, who instantly returns your lead (except in trumps, in which the obligation is peremptory, and admits of no exception but the not having one,) is either wickedly poor, or a bungler. We say " wickedly poor," • because at whist as in the world, poverty is the greatest of all sins. • Another false maxim is, "When in doubt, win the trick "—we say, when in doubt, pass the trick, unless very strong, or unless the game depends upon it. The advice applies to the second player, and we pledge ourselves that experience will prove its advantage. Short-whist players are supposed, by persons who know nothing of their practice, to play a sort of snap-dragon game : no idea can be more erroneous, with regard to good players. In our next number we shall proceed to examine Mr. ARNAUD s rules.
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