Oh Hell or Contract Whist is a trick-taking card game of British origin in which the object is to take exactly the number of tricks bid. Unlike contract bridge and spades, taking more tricks than bid is a fail. It was first described by B. C. Westall around 1930 and originally called Oh! Well. It was said to have been introduced into America via the New York clubs in 1931. It has been described as "one of the best round games."
Klondike, also known as Canfield, is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, something which "defies explanation" as it has one of the lowest rates of success of any such game. Partly because of that, it has spawned numerous variants including Batsford, Easthaven, King Albert, Thumb and Pouch, Somerset or Usk and Whitehead, as well as the American variants of the games, Agnes and Westcliff. The distinguishing feature of all variants is a triangular layout of the tableau, building in ascending sequence and packing in descending order.
Sid Sackson was an American board game designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game Acquire.
Pig is a simple, collecting card game of early 20th century American origin suitable for three to thirteen players that is played with a 52-card French-suited pack. It has two very similar and well known variants – Donkey and Spoons. It is often classed as a children's game. It may be descended from an old game called Vive l'Amour.
A Gamut of Games is an innovative book of games written by Sid Sackson and first published in 1969. It contains rules for a large number of paper and pencil, card, and board games. Many of the games in the book had never before been published. It is considered by many hobbyist gamers to be an essential text for anyone interested in abstract strategy games, and a number of the rules were later expanded into full-fledged published board games.
Calculation is a solitaire card game played with a standard pack of 52 cards. It is part of the Sir Tommy family of patience games. It has its origin in France, where it is known as La Plus Belle.
Accordion is a patience or card solitaire using a single deck of playing cards. It is so named because it looks like accordion pleats, which have to be ironed out. The object is to compress the entire deck into one pile like an accordion.
Napoleon at St Helena is a 2-deck patience or solitaire card game for one player. It is quite difficult to win, and luck-of-the-draw is a significant factor. The Emperor Napoleon often played patience during his final exile to the island of St Helena, and this is said to be the version he probably played. Along with its variants, it is one of the most popular two-deck patiences or solitaires. The winning chances have been estimated as 1 in 10 games, with success typically dependent on the player's ability to clear one or more columns. The game is the progenitor of a large family of similar games, mostly with variations designed to make it easier to get out.
Poker Squares is a patience game with the objective of building the best poker hands using just 25 cards from the deck. It rewards both lucky guessing and accurate calculation of odds.
Canfield (US) or Demon (UK) is a patience or solitaire card game with a very low probability of winning. It is an English game first called Demon Patience and described as "the best game for one pack that has yet been invented". It was popularised in the United States in the early 20th century as a result of a story that casino owner Richard A. Canfield had turned it into a gambling game, although it may actually have been Klondike and not Demon that was played at his casino. As a result it became known as Canfield in the United States, while continuing to be called Demon Patience in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It is closely related to Klondike, and is one of the most popular games of its type.
Beleaguered Castle is a patience or solitaire card game played with a deck of 52 playing cards. It is sometimes described as "Freecell without cells" because its game play is somewhat akin to the popular solitaire computer game of that name but without extra empty spaces to maneuver. Beleaguered Castle is also called Laying Siege and Sham Battle.
The Bridge World (TBW), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge, was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson. It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the play of the cards, discussions of ethical issues, bridge politics and leading personalities, and reports of major tournaments.
Oswald "Ozzie", "Jake" Jacoby was an American contract bridge player and author, considered one of the greatest bridge players of all time and a key innovator in the game, having helped popularize widely used bidding moves such as Jacoby transfers. He also excelled at, and wrote about, other games including backgammon, gin rummy, canasta, and poker. He was from Brooklyn, New York and later lived in Dallas, Texas. He was the uncle of activist and author Susan Jacoby, as well as father of James Jacoby, an author and world-class bridge player in his own right.
Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr. was a writer for The New York Times, a bridge player, a lexicographer, and an author and editor of reference works.
Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are intended for play by a single player, but there are also "excellent games of patience for two or more players".
Bridgette is a two-player bridge game that has been popular since 1970. It features a 55-card deck: the regular pack of 52 cards plus three extra cards called "colons". These special cards separate the pack into three groups: aces (A) with the grand colon, picture cards (JQK) with the royal colon, and spot cards (2—10) with the common colon. On an opponent's lead, the colon from the corresponding group may be played instead of following suit. The colon so played loses, but forces the opponent to lead one of the other three suits to the next trick. The colons' skill is quite subtle and the addition of these cards makes up for there being only two cards to a trick, instead of four cards as in the game of standard bridge.
Schlafmütze ("nightcap") is a fast-paced game of matching and bluffing, which is closely related to the English game Spoons. The game requires a minimum of two players, but ideally a minimum of three players, and involves each player passing round cards in an attempt to acquire a hand consisting of all the same value cards. Upon doing so, they silently place their hand of cards on the table. The last player to notice that this has happened is the loser of the round.
Newmarket is an English card game of the matching type for any number of players. It is a domestic gambling game, involving more chance than skill, and emerged in the 1880s as an improvement of the older game of Pope Joan. It became known in America as Stops or Boodle before developing into Michigan. In 1981, Newmarket was still the sixth most popular card game in Britain.
Schwimmen or Einunddreißig is a social card game for two to nine players, played with a 32-card Piquet pack, that is popular in Austria and Germany. Although it is also called Einunddreißig, this should not be confused with a predecessor of Siebzehn und Vier (Twenty-One), also called Einunddreißig. Schwimmen is German for "swimming" which refers to the last chance that a player gets before they drop out.
Paul Adrian Lamford is a Welsh gaming and gambling expert, author, publisher and company director. He is a three-time Welsh chess champion, 1993 and 2001 British backgammon champion, and a Grandmaster at bridge and a poker player. During the 1990s he was editor of Games & Puzzles magazine and has been editor of Chess magazine and Bridge magazine. He appeared several times on Radio 4's Puzzle Panel.
