Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
HEARTS
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: HAN-HEG
del.icio.us it!
|
HEARTS , a See also:game of See also:cards of See also:recent origin, though founded upon the same principle as many old See also:games, such as Slobberhannes, Four Jacks and Emile, namely, that of losing instead of winning as many tricks as possible. Hearts is played with a full See also:pack, See also:ace counting highest and See also:deuce lowest. In the fourhanded game, which is usually played, the entire pack is dealt out as at See also:whist (but without turning up the last card, since there are no trumps), and the player at the dealer's See also:left begins by leading any card he chooses, the See also:trick being taken by the highest card of the suit led. Each player must follow suit if he can; if he has no cards of the suit led he is privileged to throw away any card he likes, thus having an opportunity of getting rid of his hearts, which is the See also:object of the game. When all thirteen tricks have been played each player See also:counts the hearts he has taken in and pays into the See also:pool a certain number of counters for them, according to an arrangement made before beginning See also:play. In the four-handed, or sweepstake, game the method of settling called " See also:Howell's," from the name of the inventor, has been generally adopted, according to which each player begins with an equal number of chips, say 10o, and, after the See also:hand has been played, pays into the pool as many chips for each See also:heart he had taken as there are players besides himself. Then each player takes out of the pool one chip for every heart he did not win. The pool is thus exhausted with every See also:deal. Hearts may be played by two, three, four or even more players, each playing for himself.
Spot Hearts.—In this variation the hearts See also:count according to the number of spots on the cards, excepting that the ace counts 14, the See also: Joker Hearts.—Here the deuce of hearts is discarded, and an extra card, called the joker, takes its See also:place, ranking in value between ten and knave. It cannot be thrown away, excepting when hearts are led and an ace or See also:court card is played, though if an opponent discards the ace or a court card of hearts, then the holder of the joker may discard it. The joker is usually considered See also:worth five chip's; which are either paid into the pool or to the player who succeeds in discarding the joker. Heartsette.—In this variation the deuce of spades is deleted and the three cards left after dealing twelve cards to each player are called the widow (or kitty), and are left See also:face downward on the table. The winner of the first trick must take the widow without showing it to his opponents. Slobberhannes.—The object of this older See also:form of Hearts is to avoid taking either the first or last trick or a trick containing the queen of clubs. A See also:euchre pack (See also:thirty two-cards, lacking all below the 7) is used, and each player is given 10 counters, one being forfeited to the pool if a player takes the first or last trick, or that containing the See also:club queen. If he takes all three he forfeits four points. See also:instrument is that it should always give, at least approximatel the same indication at the same temperature. The See also:air-thermo See also:scope of Galileo, illustrated in .fig. 1, which consisted of a See also:glass bulb containing air, connected to a glass See also:tube of small See also:bore dipping into a coloured liquid, though very sensitive to See also:variations of temperature, was not satisfactory as a measuring instrument, because it was also affected by variations of atmospheric pressure. The invention of the type of thermometer See also:familiar at the See also:present See also:day, containing a liquid hermetically sealed in a glass bulb with a See also:fine tube attached, is also generally attributed to Galileo at a slightly later date, about 1612. See also:Alcohol was the liquid first employed, and the degrees, intended to represent thousandths of the See also:volume of the bulb, were marked with small beads of See also:enamel fused on the See also:stem, as shown in fig. 2. In See also:order to render the readings of such See also:instruments comparable with each other, it was necessary to select a fixed point or See also:standard temperature as the zero or starting-point of the graduations. In-See also:stead of making each degree a given fraction of the volume of the bulb, which would be difficult in practice, and would give different values for the degree with different liquids, it was soon found to be preferable to take two fixed points, and to See also:divide the See also:interval between them into the same number of degrees. It was natural in the first instance to take the temperature of the human See also:body as one of the fixed points. In 1701 See also:Sir See also:Isaac See also:Newton proposed a See also:scale in which the freezing-point of See also:water was taken as zero, and the temperature of the human body as 12°. About the same date (1714) See also:Gabriel See also:Daniel See also:Fahrenheit proposed to take as zero the lowest temperature obtainable with a freezing mixture of See also:ice and See also:salt, and to divide the interval between this temperature and that of the human body into 12°. To obtain finer graduations the number was subsequently increased to 96°. The freezing-point of water was at that See also:time supposed to be somewhat variable, because as a See also:matter of fact it is possible to cool water several degrees below its freezing-point in the See also:absence of ice. Fahrenheit showed, however, that as soon as ice began to form the temperature always See also:rose to the same point, and that a mixture of ice or See also:snow with pure water always gave the same temperature. At a later See also:period he also showed that the temperature of boiling water varied with the barometric pressure, but that it was always the same at the same pressure, and might therefore be used as the second fixed point (as See also:Edmund See also:Halley and others had suggested) provided that a definite pressure, such as the See also:average atmospheric pressure, were specified. The freezing and boiling-points on one of his thermometers, graduated as already explained, with the temperature of the body as 96°, came out in the neighbourhood of 32° and 212° respectively, giving an interval of 18o° between these points. Shortly after Fahrenheit's See also:death (1736) the freezing and boiling-points of water were generally recognized as the most convenient fixed points to adopt, but different systems of subdivision were employed. Fahrenheit's scale, with its small degrees and its zero below the freezing-point, possesses undoubted advantages for meteorological See also:work, and is still retained in most See also:English-speaking countries. But for See also:general scientific purposes, the centigrade See also:system, in which The freezing-point is marked o° and the boiling-point See also:loo°, is now almost universally employed, on See also:account of its greater simplicity from an arithmetical point of view. For work of precision the fixed points have been more exactly defined (see See also:THERMOMETRY), but no See also:change has been made in the fundamental principle of See also:graduation. 3. Comparison of Scales based on Expansion.—Thermometers constructed in the manner already described will give strictly comparable readings, provided that the tubes be of See also:uniform bore, and that the same liquid and glass be employed in their Four Jacks (See also:Polignac or Quatre-Valets) is usually played with a See also:piquet pack, the cards ranking in See also:France as at ecarte, but in See also:Great See also:Britain and See also:America as at piquet. There is no See also:trump suit. Counters are used, and the object of the game is to avoid taking any trick containing a knave, especially the knave of spades, called Polignac. The player taking such a trick forfeits one See also:counter to the pool. Enfle (or Schwellen) is usually played by four persons with a piquet pack and for a pool. The cards See also:rank as at Hearts, and there is no trump suit. A player must follow suit if he can, but if he cannot he may not discard, but must take up all tricks already won and add them to his hand. Play is continued until one player gets rid of all his cards and thus wins. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] HEARTH (a word which appears in various forms in se... |
[next] HEAT (0. E. haktu, which like " hot," Old Eng. hat,... |