The Play.
The items in the elder hand thus being counted, the holder lays down one card, thus beginning the "play." The dealer plays to this; but, immediately before doing so, he calls and counts all he has to score in his hand.
The play, the object of which is to gain tricks, follows the ordinary Whist rule; the second player being obliged to follow suit, if he can, and the best card winning. If he cannot follow suit, he loses the trick, throwing away any card he pleases.
The scoring of the play is peculiar. The first player to every trick counts one for the card he so plays; but if the second player wins the trick, he
also counts one. The player who takes the last trick counts an extra one for it.
If either player wins more than six tricks, he scores ten "for the cards," as it is called. If the two players win six tricks each, there is no score "for the cards" on either side.
Example.
What has been above described constitutes the simple or ordinary game. There are some additional scores for extraordinary cases; but before we mention them it will be well to illustrate the foregoing directions by an example of an imaginary hand, which will show that although the description may appear complicated, the practice is very easy.
A and B play at Piquet, B being the dealer, and A the elder hand. B deals out the following cards:
To A.