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Show THE GAME OF WHIST. American and English Systems and the Chances In Holding Hands. There are two recognized systems, the English and the American. In English whist ,he game is five points and honors ace, king, queen and knave of the trump suit are counted. In American whist the game is still fire points, but honors are not counted. The old English Eng-lish game long vhist consisted of 10 points, with honors counted. American Ameri-can whist is not the same as American leads. These leads can be played by in- oiviauai piajera, whatever the game may bo. Richard A. Proctor has written a good book on "How to Play Whist" He has also contributed articles to vari- j ous magazines on the subject of chances i In card games. He calculated that there are no less than 635,018,559, 600 ways of making a whist hand, and that there Is only one chance in 158,753,389,000 and then, of course, the dealer's trumps must bo taken of holding 18 trumps. Out of 1,587,533,899 hands dealt 842,182,219 hands will contain four cards of two suits, three cards of one and two cards of one suit There are 98,534,079,072 ways of making a hand that shall contain one five card suit, two three card suits and one two card suit and 82, 000, 000, 000 ways of malting a nana containing five cards of one suit, four of another, three of a third and two of a fourth. Fourth in tha order of frequency comes the hand containing con-taining one five card suit, one four card Buit and two two card suits. There are 67,182,336,640 ways of making this hand. "Only fifth in order of frequency," eayB Proctor, "comes the hand which many suppose the most frequent, that of greatest uniformity of distribution, " one four card suit and three three card suits. There are 60,005,856,160 ways of making mak-ing this hand. The sixth hand, in point of frequency, is that which contains six cards of one suit, three of another and two cards from each of two suits. Speaking Speak-ing of whist chances, Mr. Proctor dis cusses the "YTarborough hand," which contains no card over a nine. It was so called because Lord Yarborough used to wager l,000 to l that a hand of the sort would not be dealt The chance that such a hand will be dealt is one in 1828 chances, so that his lordship's bet vraa pretty 6afe. Baltimore American. |