Documents for "Games and Hobbies":

• écarté card game similar to euchre , played by two persons. The pack has 32 cards, seven through ace in each suit; the king is the highest card, and the ace ranks below the jack and above the ten. A trick is won by the higher trump...

• auction bridge see bridge.

• baccarat French card game formerly widely played in European casinos but now supplanted in popularity by chemin de fer. The banker plays against the hands he deals to two other players called punters. The winning hand is the one whose point total has the number closest to 9 as its last digit, face cards and tens...

• backgammon game of chance and skill played by two persons upon a specially marked board divided by a space, called the bar, into two tables (inner table and outer table), each of which has 12 alternately...

• bezique card game usually played with 128 cards by two players. Bezique developed in France and England in the 1860s and originally required only 64 cards; later there were variations for three players...

• blackjack one of the world's most widely played gambling card games; also known as twenty-one or vingt-et-un. Despite contesting claims between the French and Italians, its origins are unknown. Each player...

• bridge card game derived from whist , played with 52 cards by four players in two partnerships.

• canasta see rummy.

• cards, playing see playing cards.

• casino or cassino . 1 Card game played with a full deck by two to four players. Its origins are obscure though it probably traces back to the Italian game of Scopa. It is a very scientific game, though playing with more...

• cassino see casino.

• charade verbal, written, or acted representation of a word, its syllables, or a number of words. The object is to guess the idea being conveyed. Winthrop M. Praed wrote many of the well-known charades, and...

• checkers game for two players, known in England as draughts. It is played on a square board, divided into 64 alternately colored—usually red and black or white and black—square spaces, identical with a...

• chemin de fer [Fr.,=railroad], the most popular gambling card game in Europe. The present day versions are variations of Italian baccara which Charles VIII introduced to France in 1490. It differs from baccarat...

• chess game for two players played on a square board composed of 64 square spaces, alternately dark and light in color.

• contract bridge see bridge.

• craps see dice.

• cribbage card game played by two persons with a deck of 52 cards and a scoring (pegging) device known as a cribbage board. The board contains four rows of 30 holes each (two rows for each player), plus...

• crossword puzzle word game in which words corresponding to numbered clues are put into a grid of horizontal and vertical squares to form intersecting words. The puzzle is solved when a player supplies all of the...

• dice [plural of die ], small cubes used in games. They are usually made of ivory, bone, wood, plastic, or similar materials. The six sides are numbered by dots from 1 to 6, so placed that the sum of the dots on...

• doll small figure of a human being, usually used as a child's toy. The many types of dolls found among the relics of primitive peoples were cult objects. Egypt, Greece, and Rome have left well-preserved...

• dominoes game played with a set of rectangular pieces (usually 28 in number) called dominoes. Each piece (made of wood, bone, ivory, plastic, or other material) has one blank face and one face marked with...

• double solitaire see solitaire.

• draughts see checkers.

• euchre card game, played usually by four persons (two sets of partners). The game originated among the Amish and was a popular card game in America in the late 19th cent. The pack has 32 cards, from 7 up...

• fan tan card game for three to eight players using a regular deck. All cards are dealt after each player antes (pays) one chip into a pool. Play rotates to the left and if a player cannot play a card he...

• faro [for Pharaoh, from an old French card design], gambling game played with a pack of 52 cards. First played in France and England, faro was especially popular in U.S. gambling houses in the 19th cent. Players bet...

• five hundred card game, similar in principle to euchre , usually played by three persons with a pack of 32 cards and a joker. Each player receives 10 cards, and highest bidder for the widow (the three cards left over) names trump. The two other players...

• gambling or gaming, betting of money or valuables on, and often participation in, games of chance (some involving degrees of skill). In England and in the United States, gambling was not a common-law crime if...

• games, children's amusements or pastimes involving more than one child and in which there is some sort of formalized dramatic element, contest, or plot. Games are a cultural universal; for example, the string play...

• gaming see gambling.

• gin rummy see rummy.

• go or i-go, a board game popular in Japan that probably originated in China or India as long ago as the third millennium BC The board is marked by a grid of 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines to form 361...

• hearts card game played by three to six players with an ordinary deck. All the cards are dealt to the players. After a card is led, each hand must follow suit if possible. The object is to avoid...

• i-go see go.

• lottery scheme for distributing prizes by lot or other method of chance selection to persons who have paid for the opportunity to win. The term is not applicable when lots are drawn without payment by the...

• mah jongg four-handed game, probably of Chinese origin, popular in the United States. It is played in many variations throughout China. In 1920, Joseph P. Babcock, an American traveler in China, devised a...

• numismatics collection and study of coins, medals, and related objects as works of art and as sources of information. The coin and the medal preserve old forms of writing, portraits of eminent persons, and reproductions of lost works of art; they also assist in the study of early customs, in ascertaining dates, in clarifying economic...

• Parcheesi see backgammon.

• patience see solitaire.

• philately collection and study of postage stamps and of materials relating to their history and use. Collecting stamps began soon after the first postage stamp was issued in 1840; the first printed catalog...

• picquet see piquet.

• pinochle card game, probably derived from bezique , that was developed in the United States in the 19th cent. Pinochle is played by two, three, or four players, with a deck of 48 cards containing two each of the aces, face cards, tens, and nines of...

• piquet or picquet , card game played by two persons with a deck of 32 cards—7 (low) up to ace (high) in each suit. Each player receives 12 cards, and eight cards are left on the table face down. The nondealer (the...

• playing cards parts of a set or deck, used in playing various games of chance or skill. The origin of playing cards is unknown, and almost as many theories exist as there are historians of the subject. Playing...

• poker card game, believed to have originated in Asia and first played in the United States in the 19th cent. A traditional cutthroat gambling game at first, it is now also an internationally popular...

• roulette game of chance popular in gambling casinos, and in a simplified form elsewhere. In gambling houses the roulette wheel is set in an oblong table. Its outer area is marked off into 37 (in Europe) or...

• rummy card game played by two to six players with a standard deck. The cards usually rank from king down through ace. Seven cards are dealt to each player in the three- or four-hand game, one card is...

• solitaire or patience, any card game that can be played by one person. Solitaire is the American name; in England it is known as patience. There are probably more kinds of solitaire than all other card games together...

• sudoku or su doku [Jap.,=single number], a number puzzle consisting, in its classic form, of a square divided into nine squares, with each smaller square divided into nine boxes, thus forming an overall grid of 81...

• sweepstakes contest or race, usually a horse race, on which a lottery is run. Prizes are awarded to the holders of winning tickets. In the case of a horse race, the draw is made from the names of all the...

• tarots playing cards that are used mainly for fortunetelling, sometimes called "the book of divination of the Gypsies." It is generally believed that the cards were introduced into Western Europe by the Gypsies in the mid-15th cent. There is much conjecture about their origin. The pack of 78 cards is divided into...

• theme park see amusement park.

• toy article designed to be played with, chiefly for children. Archaeological research has revealed numerous playthings from prehistoric civilizations. Early Egyptian, Greek, and Roman dolls, tops,...

• twenty-one see blackjack.

• vingt-et-un see blackjack.

• whist card game for four players, those on opposite sides of the table being partners. The full pack of 52 cards is dealt. The dealer's last card is turned up to indicate trump, and after he draws this...