Statistics Saturday: Some Popular 19th Century Gambling Games, So Far As You Know


  • Faro
  • Brag-and-Stick
  • Twenty-card Poker
  • Chuck-a-Luck
  • Cudgels
  • Phreno
  • Tiger and Mugwump
  • Policy
  • Lick-the-Walloon
  • Two-Card Monte (the third card took a blue ribbon, pastimes and recreations, when introduced at the Lewis and Clark Exhibition of 1905)
  • Lexo
  • Thimble-Rig

Reference: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life Of Cornelius Vanderbilt, T J Stiles.

Everything I Understand About Cribbage


Everything I Understand About Cribbage After Having A Friend Explaining It Relentlessly And Playing A Couple Games Over This Interactive Text-Based Link:

  1. It’s a card game.
  2. Also there’s pegs.
  3. There’s a running total that doesn’t get above 31, only if it gets to 31 or 30 or 15 it goes back to 0.
  4. You put down cards.
  5. Your opponent puts down cards.
  6. Sometimes you’re finished with the cards and you move pegs.
  7. I don’t understand anything about cribbage.
  8. If you play it right the game eventually ends. (If it doesn’t, go back and start again because you missed something.)
  9. You want cards to make like pairs or flushes or something and I think maybe it counts if you make a straight with some of your opponents’ cards or maybe I don’t understand that?
  10. I’m pretty shaky on backgammon too.
  11. Every hand starts with you giving away two of your cards to the crib, and I guess you’re supposed to someday ever see them again, or maybe not, and maybe they’re just a reminder of the inevitability of loss in this universe and a way to practice being at peace with the eventual decay of all things and the end of all life.
  12. I will never have any idea what bridge is about.