The compleat gamester, or, Instructions how to play at billiards, trucks, bowls, and chess together with all manner of usual and most gentile games either on cards or dice : to which is added the arts and mysteries of riding, racing, archery, and cock-fighting.
About this Item
Title
The compleat gamester, or, Instructions how to play at billiards, trucks, bowls, and chess together with all manner of usual and most gentile games either on cards or dice : to which is added the arts and mysteries of riding, racing, archery, and cock-fighting.
Author
Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.
Publication
London :: Printed by A.M. for R. Cutler and to be sold by Henry Brome ...,
1674.
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Subject terms
Games -- Early works to 1800.
Gambling -- Early works to 1800.
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 17th century.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A34637.0001.001
Cite this Item
"The compleat gamester, or, Instructions how to play at billiards, trucks, bowls, and chess together with all manner of usual and most gentile games either on cards or dice : to which is added the arts and mysteries of riding, racing, archery, and cock-fighting." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A34637.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 19, 2024.
Pages
CHAP. XXVIII.
Of TICK-TACK.
ALL your men must stand on the
Ace-point, and from thence play
forward, but have a care of being too
forward, or so at leastwise that Doublets
reach you not.
Secure your Sice and Cinque-point
whatever you do, and break them not
unless it be when you have the advan∣tage
of going in, which is the greatest
advantage you can have next to a hit;
for your Adversaries eleventh point
descriptionPage 159
standing open you have it may be the
opportunity of going in with two of
your men, and then you win a double
Game. A hit is but one, and that is,
when you throw such a cast that some
one of your men will reach your Ad∣versaries
unbound, but sometimes
though it hits it will not pass by reason
of a stop in the way, and then it is no∣thing.
Sometimes it is good going over
into your Adversaries Tables, but it is
best for an After-game.
Playing close at home is the securest
way, playing at length is both rash and
unsafe, and be careful of binding your
men when you lie in danger of the ene∣my.
Moreover, if you see you are in
danger of losing a double Game give
your Adversary one; if you can it is
better doing so than losing two.
Here note, if you fill up all the
points of your second Table with your
own men you win two, and that you
may prevent your Adversary from do∣ing
so (if you are in danger thereof) if
you can, make a vacant point in his
Tables, and it is impossible for him to
do it.
descriptionPage 160
This is the plain Game of Tick-Tack,
which is called so from Touch, and take,
for if you touch a man you must play
him though to your loss; and if you
hit your Adversary and neglect the ad∣vantage,
you are taken with a Why not,
which is the loss of one: likewise if
you are in, and your cast is such that
you may also go into your Adversaries
eleventh point by two other men, and
you see it not, either by carelesness or
eager prosecution of a hit which is ap∣parent
before your eyes, you lose two
irrecoverably. Besides, it is a very
great oversight as your men may stand
not to take a point when you may do
it.
Now some play this Game with
Toots, Boveries, and Flyers; Toots
is, when you fill up your Table at home
and then there is required small throws;
for if you get over with a Sice you have
no benefit of Toots.
Boveries is when you have a man in
t••e eleventh point of your own Tables,
and another in the same point of your
Adversaries directly answering.
Flyers is, when you bring a man
descriptionPage 161
round the Tables before your Adver∣sary
hath got over his first Table, to the
effecting of which there is required
very high throwing of your side, and
very low throwing of his.
Much more might be said as to the
craft of the play, which cannot be so
well discovered as from observation in
your own or others playing.
There are several foolish pastims to
be plaid in the Tables which are ridi∣culous
to treat of, wherefore I shall
only mention these three. Viz.
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