When it is considered that in some hands the score may be nothing, and that it may vary in all degrees between these, the variety obtainable will be strikingly evident.
The Final Score.
It is necessary now to explain what is done with the scores made in the successive hands, and how the final adjustment is effected.
According to the original mode of playing, the game consisted of 100 points; indeed, in early times the name Cent (corrupted into Sant or Saunt) appears to have been applied to it. Hoyle adhered to this, but at some later period the 100 was altered to 101. This was also the ordinary way of playing the game in France, and has been generally adhered to in England until the last few years. According to this, the score of each hand is registered, either by writing it down, or by some kind of marking contrivance, and the whole added up until the 100 limit is reached by one of the parties. The game may extend over several hands, or it may, by the aid of the extraordinary scores, be completed in one.
It will, however, often happen that both parties may arrive simultaneously near the 100 score, and it then becomes necessary to register carefully and in proper order the scores made at the different stages of the hand by the two parties respectively. The laws prescribe that the scores, whether obtained by the elder hand or by the dealer, shall be reckoned in the following order of precedence—viz.:
1. Carte blanche.
2. Point.
3. Sequences.
4. Quatorzes and trios.