ALL-FOURS

family of card games dating back to 17th-century England and first mentioned in The Complete Gamester of Charles Cotton in 1674. Like whist, all-fours was at first a popular game with the lower classes, but in the 15th century it came to be accepted into middle-class homes. Each player is dealt six cards, three at a time. The top card of the remaining pack is then exposed to establish the trump. The player to the dealer's left, called the eldest hand, may dispute the trump, in which case the dealer may agree to run the cards (trade three from the pack for three from each hand) and then establish a new trump. Play is led by the eldest hand, and each player either follows suit or plays trump if he is able; otherwise, he follows with any card of ascending rank, regardless of suit. The highest trump or, if no trumps were played, the highest card in the led suit takes the trick. Each trick is led by the previous trick's winner. Points are awarded at hand's end, and 7 points wins the game. All-fours is so named because there are four scoring categories: high (scored by the player who plays the highest trump card); low (scored by the player who plays the lowest trump); jack (knave of trump suit, scored by the dealer if he turns it as trump or by the player winning it in a trick); and game (a plurality of high-card points won in tricks, with each 10 counting 10, jacks 1, queens 2, kings 3, and aces 4). The game is played by two or three players or by two sets of partners. The game was called seven-up, from the 7 winning points, when it first was introduced to North America in the early 1700s. That game was replaced in popularity by pitch, which introduced bidding: each player has one chance to bid the number of points he thinks he can win, with 4 the high bid. The high bidder pitches (leads first), and the suit of this card becomes trump for the hand. If the pitcher fails to fulfill his contract, he is set back the number of points bid. At times, pitch is augmented by the rule called smudge, by which the player meeting his bid of 4 wins the game at once. From this comes the variant game smudge, where collecting all 4 points in one hand, regardless of the bid, wins the game.