I would like to think that Edmond Hoyle was a bit like me, a Cardoholic who loved his card games. Back then the card game of choice was Whist (a precursor of modern Bridge) but he did not just describe and enumerate all the rules pertaining to this game alone. He wrote about every game he put his hands on and for which he held some manner of interest. For instance he published rules and strategies pertaining to backgammon, chess and 3-card Brag the latter considered one of the precursors of modern poker. He however never wrote any materials regarding Poker, the game matured much later.
His passionate interest in card games and games in general, not to mention the books he published made him an undisputed authority to such an extent that his name was used, sometimes fraudulently to afford a certain patina of repute to other questionable publications.
Funnily enough while any self-respecting card player will most probably have heard of Edmond Hoyle, little is known about the man’s early years. We know for a fact that he trained to become a lawyer and that for a time he also tutored members of the English Royal family in proper Whist game play. Other than that we don’t know much else. Some historians apparently speculate that he was born in Yorkshire and that he owned some land in Dublin but others believe that it was another Edmond Hoyle, not the “Father of Whist”.
Whist belongs to a family of card games known as trick-taking game. Basically the main premise of all trick-taking games is a comparison of cards with the highest card played winning the trick (winner takes all the cards involved). Players normally endeavour to play one card at a time. The player starting a trick is said to be leading because his card will determine the rest of the trick played. Pinochle and Hearts are examples of games that adopt a trick-taking mechanism. Some trick-taking games employ trump suits, sometimes chosen randomly or perhaps stipulated by the name of the game itself. For instance in Pinochle the trump suit is determined before the tricks are played, in Hearts, hearts will eventually carry the most bearing toward the final win etc. Whist is not any different; partnerships may or may not be used depending on the variation played. Solo Whist for instance played in Britain focuses mostly on individuals with each player making a bid to the number of tricks he intends taking. Sometimes there might even be temporary alliances to facilitate the trick taking process.
While Trick taking games are interesting and I have tackled some of them on this blog (see my adaptation of the French game “Tarot” in my Card Games section for instance) I still don’t find them that appealing. I tend to prefer matching (Rummy, Gin Rummy etc.), fishing (Scopa, Bella Donna), counting (Cribbage) and comparing (Blackjack, 31, Poker) games which I consider to be significantly more appealing perhaps because I was brought up playing these or similar games as a child.
Back to the subject matter, my respect for Edmond Hoyle stems from his evident methodology when it came to approaching the popular card games of the time. The fact that his name even today is used almost synonymously with reputable game rule compendiums is a testament to all he stood for.
One thing is certain, playing games or writing about them must have done Edmond Hoyle a tonne of good because in a time when it was normal to die rather young, he died at the very venerable age of ninety-seven years in London, England.
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