COMMERCE.
This game is well named, for it is carried on throughout simply by a series of exchanges and business transactions.
A full pack of cards is used, which are all dealt one by one to the players.
The ace counts as eleven, tens and court cards for ten each, and the rest of the cards according to the number of their pips.
Before dealing, a pool is formed, by each player contributing to it an equal stake. The eldest hand then begins by exchanging a card with his left-hand neighbour, who again changes with his left-hand neighbour, and so on until some one, finding that he has a hand consisting entirely of one suit, cries out "My ship sails," and thereupon takes to himself the contents of the pool.
The object aimed at by all the players is one of three things: to make what is called a tricon (three cards alike), or a sequence (three cards following each other of the same suit), or a point (which is the smallest number of pips on three cards of the same suit).
The winner of the pool is the player who has the highest tricon; but should no tricon be displayed, the highest sequence has it; or in case of a failure also in sequence-making, then the player who has the best point takes the pool.
In case of ties, the banker or dealer is regarded as the eldest hand, but should he hold a lower tricon or sequence than either of the others, he loses the game, and forfeits a counter to each player higher than himself.