I often think, when I see this game in full blast, that whist-players are not sufficiently grateful to Charles the Sixth, or whatever other lunatic invented playing cards, for having limited himself to four suits; he might have devised six—but the idea is too horrible. “In the time of Charles the Sixth there were five suits.”—Field. This not only proves my ignorance but my position, for if five suits have been tried and found too much for human endurance, then six would manifestly have been quite too awful! Q.E.D.
LECTURE III.
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THE PLAY OF THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH HAND.
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“The play is the thing.”—Shakespeare.
Second hand with king and another, or queen and another, never play the honour either in trumps or plain suits, unless you particularly want the lead, and then you will probably not get it, and throw away a trick.
By not playing the honour,
(1) The chance of trick-making in the suit is greater (this has been proved to demonstration by Mogul).[17]