Victorian games

[Charles Knutson]

A little something gave out as a handout at Teslacon

Victorian Games
A few games played in the Victorian era
 
Card Games 

Chemin de fer 
was a casino game and is an old variation of Baccarat. The house isn’t involved in the game, the casino provided a Croupier (dealer) the table, cards and chairs. For this service the house took 5% of all Banker winnings, but the gambling was done exclusively between the players. 
More info on Wikipedia at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Baccarat#Chemin_de_Fer

Cribbage 
Sir John Suckling, (1609-1642) is often said to have been the man who standardized the modern rules for Cribbage. William Crockford, the founder of Crockfords's Club, which became the largest social/gambling club in Victorian London is said to have earned much of his starting capital for his gambling club by winning 1000 pounds in a marathon 10,000-point Cribbage game against a London butcher.  The 4-player game was more popular in Victorian times than it is today. In fact, Charles Dickens wrote about fourhanded Cribbage in the "The old Curiosity Shop": 
"Mr. Quip is a dishonest player: Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous way of always cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by looks, and frowns, and a kick under the table, Richard Swiveller, who being bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate at which the pegs traveled down the board, could not be prevented from sometimes expressing his surprise and incredulity". 

Ecarte 
This two-player game is played with a 32-card deck, the cards of each suit ranking from high to low K-Q-J-A-10-9-8-7. Five cards are dealt to each player, one is turned to determine the trump suit, and the object is to win at least three out of the five tricks. If neither player will undertake to try to win three tricks with the hands they are dealt, both may discard unwanted cards and are dealt an equal number of fresh cards in exchange.
More info on Wikipedia https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ecarte

Faro 
This casino gambling game originated in France in the late 1600’s, where it was known as Pharaon (first recorded 1688), and became extremely fashionable in Europe in the 18th century. After 1820, Pharaoh (Pharo, Faro) disappeared from Western Europe but became extremely popular in America during the Gold Rush, but is rarely played nowadays. It became a casino game when Nevada legalised gambling in 1931, but went out of fashion in the 1950s. 
Detailed rules here: http://www.thegamesforum.com/Faro.htm
Play Faro Online http://www.gleeson.us/faro/

Loo
This is a game of which was popular in England from the 17th to the 19th century. It is played by 3 to 8 players, using a 52 card pack. There are versions in which three or five cards are dealt. In either case players have the opportunity to stay in or drop out. Anyone who stays in takes a proportionate share of the pot for each trick they take, but has to pay in an amount equal to the whole pot if they fail to take any tricks. In some versions players who decide to play have the chance to discard some of their cards and have their hand replenished from the undealt stock.
Rules for Three card and Five Card Loo can be found at http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs/loo.html

Whist
Whist was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whist was derived from the older game Ruff and Honours, and is and ancestor to modern Bridge. The classic game of whist is a plain-trick game without bidding for 4 players in fixed partnerships. Although the rules are extremely simple there is enormous scope for scientific play, and in its heyday a large amount of literature about how to play whist was written. Rules athttp://www.pagat.com/whist/whist.html
 

Other Games

Hazard 
Hazard is the ancestor of the modern game of Craps. In fact, it has been suggested that the name “craps” comes from the “crabs” a term for the worst possible roll in Hazard, a 1-1. Hazard, in some form dates at least to the Medieval era, and variations on it continued to be the most popular dice games in Europe and common in Victorian gambling “hells” until the mid-1800’s. It was often played on simple table with a circle in the center:http://www.historicgames.com/gamehall/gifs/HazRowlandson.jpg
Rules:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hazard_%28game%29
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dice-play/Games/Hazard.htm

Backgammon
Backgammon, is the oldest, most consistently popular board game in Western history. There are variations on Backgammon that have been played on a recognizable board going back to Ancient Rome, whereas evidence of what we might recognize as chess only goes back to around 600 A.D. There are older surviving games that are still played, but none has remained as popular as Backgammon. This makes Backgammon one of the few games that could have been recognized by any soldier Roman Legionaire as well as a Vietnam-era “grunt”, and therefore could be played by reenactors portraying almost any era.

MacGregor Historic Games
Purveyors of games of the past to historical reenactors around the world
www.historicgames.com