The following figures should be carefully borne in mind:
If a player holds four trumps, it is 8 to 5 on his finding one more at least in the "widow."
If he holds five trumps, the odds are only 7 to 6 in favour.
If he has six, he must not reckon on getting another, the odds being 6 to 5 against.
Book on Five Hundred.
Hoffmann, Professor.—Five Hundred: the popular American Card Game. Goodall & Son, Ld.
QUINTO.
This game is the invention of Professor Hoffmann. It has achieved immediate popularity in circles where it has been experimentally introduced, and it has been thought that it may even be destined to supplant Bridge. Waiving discussion, however, of the question whether Bridge is on the point of immediate deposition from its throne, no impartial person would deny that games could be devised that might run it very close, and bid fair to imperil its popularity. To invent such a game Professor Hoffmann, with his long and close experience of social pastimes of every kind, is exceptionally well qualified; and, whether or no we shall all leave off being Bridge-players and become Quinto-players, there is no denying that in the latter game there are several new and interesting elements, that it carefully avoids the fatal error of excessive complexity—the ruin of "Vint" and "Skat," for instance—and that it is compounded of skill and chance in very happy proportions.