New interest in old games

Published January 22, 2025 Updated January 22, 2025

Games once fashionable are now eclipsed by quicker gratifications.

United Kingdom Bézique pinochle

I have for some years been frustrated by the apparent lack of interest of younger generations in card games. It started with my personal failure, despite many attempts, to interest my own children, and subsequently my grandchildren, in card games of any kind. Even my beloved game of cribbage, learned at my grandfather’s knee many decades ago, failed to impress. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given the wealth of alternative games on the internet and games consoles which offer immediate exciting game play. But so sad not to be able to communicate the sheer delight and enjoyment to be achieved by mastering the art of cribbage or, even more importantly, winning a complicated hand of bridge with some skilful play.

However, I recently regained some hope in the future when contacted by two separate card game enthusiasts through the good offices of the wopc web site. Both enquiries related to games which have been fashionable in the past but have faded in the face of more immediately achieved gaming pleasures. One wished to find a set of playable rules for Rubicon Bezique; the second a young lady wanted to explore ways of promoting her love of Double deck pinochle. Perhaps there is some reason for optimism after all, so I tried to help.

Interestingly. these two independent enquiries involve games which are very closely related, as we shall see below.

Rubicon Bezique originated in France in the late 19th century and became very popular in Britain at the time but has long-since faded from view. My correspondent’s frustration was that the truncated instructions for the game produced in mini-book form by Cavendish for Goodall and Son, together with more recent internet versions, simply do not produce sufficiently clear information to make the game playable in a form which would be recognised by knowledgeable Victorian players.

Faced with this problem, I turned to one of my late-Victorian heroes, R. F. Foster¹. He is second to none in his ability to describe card games in ways which make sense, describing all you need to know in order to play, play well and avoid the mishaps and the cheats. I like to think of him as the Delia Smith of the card-playing world! Straightforward, no-nonsense descriptions of each game in such detail that anyone can be confident that they are playing it correctly. In his “Comprehensive Handbook of Card games “ (c.1906) containing 493 pages, 38 are devoted to what he calls the Bezique Family which includes 15 versions of the game. Of these 38 pages, nine are devoted to Rubicon Bezique alone. In addition to describing the various forms of the game he examines their origins and etymology.

Extract from R. F. Foster's compendium, 1906

Foster himself explains the reason for some of the confusion in rules of play experienced by my recent correspondent, although I am sure that he would be disappointed to hear that the problem still existed. “Great confusion seems to have existed when the game of Bezique was introduced to England in the winter of 1868-9, owing to the fact that so many persons rushed into print with their own private opinions of the rules, which were first given by Dr. Pole in 1861”. He refers to the fact that Cavendish himself – his great rival - writing for Goodall & Son, got a number of details wrong in the first edition of his Pocket Guide, but “corrected himself without explanation or apology in the second edition”. Foster says that “time and experience” have finally settled all the disputed points which is reflected in his definitive version of the rules of play.

As a result of Foster’s excellent work, I was able to help out, both by summarising the rules and by referring the interested party to the original text, just in case I had fallen into the same trap as Cavendish all those years ago. Having done the necessary research I realised that Rubicon Bezique follows few of the rules one expects having played whist or bridge. It has more in common with some more complex forms of rummy, or the non-card game Rummycub.

My second enquiry was about Pinochle. I had already written everything I know about Pinochle in my wopc article². It is a game I have always associated with the United States and have never seen any evidence of it ever having been promoted on this side of the Atlantic. This in itself is odd given that 19th century card game producers were constantly searching for new games to present to a British public keen to try new games. Yet I can find no evidence of any attempt to launch it in the UK. Neither of the two major British card game manufacturers and promoters – Goodall and Son or De La Rue – appear to have included Pinochle in their wide repertoire of card game instructions.

Once again, R. F. Foster, provides a possible explanation. As you can see from the extract (shown above) from his 1906 compendium³, reproduced above, he includes “Binocle”, alongside Rubicon Bezique, in what he calls the “Bezique Family” of games which also includes bezique itself with several variants, Cinq-cents, Penchant, and Sixty-six. As several of these other bezique variants were produced as mini-booklets of instructions by either or both Goodalls or DLR perhaps it was felt that Binocle (however spelt) was so close to these others that meant it was not worthy of separate treatment.

He does, however, in addition offer some interesting thoughts on the game. He attributes the “renaming” of Binocle as Pinochle (with or without the h) to the suggestion that the German pronunciation of the initial letter “B” sounds like “P” and hence the confusion. He also notes that the same game can be found spelt in a variety of ways “as binochle, pinochle, pinuchle, pinucle, penucle, penuchle, penuckle and pinuckel, all of which may be found in various works on card games”. Quite apart from highlighting the variations in spelling, this illustrates the fact that the game was widely written about in the card game books of the day although not worthy of a specific promotion in the UK. His reference therefore is likely to be primarily to the US card game literature as, although born in Scotland, he emigrated to the US when young and lived there throughout his life. Nevertheless, his work was hugely well-known and equally influential on both sides of the Atlantic.

All of this may or may not be interesting to card game nerds like myself, but it is comforting to know that somewhere out there still exist younger people with an interest in cards and card games. I was asked why and how some games are seen as “extinct”? I pointed out that the last decades of the 19th century were littered with card games which never really caught on. Card playing was the primary family and social activity during these years – no radio, no TV, and only towards the end of the century were there gramophones and early cinema. Games manufacturers were constantly on the lookout for “the next big thing” in card games. Some were invented; most were “discovered” from other parts of the world and re-presented for the local market. Some took off for a while; others never really made it at all. All have faded as interest in card games has faded. I have written about numbers of these elsewhere on this website. However, they are “extinct” only if no-one plays them, but all are still potentially there to be played. Playing cards still exist to be used (rather than just collected) and the rules of play are available if anyone takes the trouble to find them and try them out. One of my correspondents hoped, having mastered Rubicon Bezique, hoped to have a go at Six-Pack or “Chinese” Bezique, the favourite game, we are told, of Winston Churchill.

I remain optimistic while I continue to get enquiries such as these.

Tony Hall, January 2025

References

  1. See also Hoyle v Foster, WoPC, July 2023; The Personalities and books that shaped the game of Whist, 1860-1900, WoPC, October 2018.
  2. Pinochle and its place in the literature of card games, WoPC, July 2023
  3. R. F. Foster, Comprehensive Handbook to the Card Games, London, c.1906
  4. Both Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra were known to play Rubicon Bézique frequently. They often engaged in long, leisurely games with each other and their children. This card game provided a rare opportunity for the family to bond and relax amidst their demanding royal duties. See: Palace Personalities - Bezique, an Imperial Pastime
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By Tony Hall

Member since January 30, 2015

I started my interest in card games about 70 years ago, playing cribbage with my grandfather. Collecting card game materials started 50 years or so later, when time permitted. One cribbage board was a memory; two became the start of a collection currently exceeding 150!

Once interest in the social history of card games was sparked, I bought a wooden whist marker from the 1880s which was ingenious in design and unbelievably tactile. One lead to two and there was no stopping.

What happened thereafter is reflected in my articles and downloads on this site, for which I will be eternally grateful.

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