ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CARD GAMES: GAMES OF COMBINATIONS, OF TRICK, OF CHANCE, PATIENCE, ETC. / JEAN BOUSSAC
Author: Boussac, Jean (18 ...- 19 ...? Card player)
Publisher: L. Chailley (Paris)
Date of publication: 1896
Subject: Card Games – Encyclopedias
Translated by: Lydie M.

The Trente-et-Quarante or the Red and Black
 

If there is a card given in more or less, the row is restored if possible, otherwise there is baccarat.
No game is simpler than this one; however, it is the game for which one is more passionate; every day he plays incredible sums. It is a game of pure chance, fast and fair. Two simple chances, the red and the black, are at each stroke opposed to each other, without it being possible by calculation to give the slightest preference to one rather than to the other.

The Trente-et-Quarante requires the use of 312 cards, that is to say, six whole games. We could at least be satisfied with four games.

The party enters between "one against all", that is to say between a banker and clutches. The banker is usually assisted by a croupier, who stands in front of him. The role of this auxiliary is to check the bets, to ensure that they do not exceed the rate of the bank, to pick them up or to double them according to the vagaries of random.

The banked amount is announced aloud and put on the table. To facilitate payments, it is immediately converted into tokens of different shapes and colours, which are assigned a convention value.

In the houses or establishments where the game is an industry, there are one or back tables specially arranged for the thirty and forty elsewhere, we put two cardboards on the table, one black and one red.

Each clutch chooses the box that suits him, and places the sum he wants. Then, the banker mixes the cards, distributes them in packets between the different players, begging them to beat them or mix them. Then he finally beats them, and cut them by one of the players, or by someone from the gallery, to his choice.

So he asks to the clutches: Is your game done? And, immediately, he discovers a card he puts in the middle of the table, saying Black.

Holding the game always in his left hand, he continues with his right hand to discover the cards, and to place them next to each other until the points they present together have exceeded thirty-one and without exceeding forty.

He continues with the following cards: distribute for the red and in the same way as above.

These two rows of cards constitute what is called a row.

When the same number of points is brought for the red and the black, the banker says After, which constitutes a redone or doublet.

• VALUE OF CARDS - The face cards are counted as ten points, and the other cards as many points as they present thus the discount for a point, or for eleven, the two for 2 points, etc., etc.
• GAME MARKET - The banker calls the points in the following manner by distributing the cards, for example, he draws a lady, he says ten an ace, he says one or eleven; an eight, he says eight, etc.

If the point brought by the black colour approaches more than thirty-one than the one brought by the red colour, the clutches gain a sum equal to that one they put on the black card, and the banker announces it in saying: the red loses. He then picks up all that has been put on the red card, and pays the bribes of the black cardboard, drawing the difference from his box if necessary, and cashing it in the opposite case.

The colour: In the gambling houses, especially in Monte Carlo, there is a special space on the blackboard for those who play the colour, and those who will go to this establishment may be satisfied to find here some notions that are important to them. It will be useful there because it happens most often that the newcomers do not understand absolutely anything that is said and done in the reserved room of the thirty-forty, when they are driven by curiosity, or by some other mobile may be less innocent.

The colour is determined by that of the first card used for making the shot. If this card is black, the colour is black, and if this card is red, the colour is red.

Also, the banker, announcing the result of the row, he says:

• Red wins and colour, if the red wins, the colour of the first card is red
• Red wins and colour loses, if the red wins, the colour of the first card is black
• Red loses and colour, if, the red loses, the colour of the first card is red
• Red loses and colour wins, if the red loses; the colour of the first card is black.
• You can also place bets on “inverse” in order to designate the game of colour.

Redone or DOUBLET. When the points brought by the red colour equal those of the black one, there is redone or doublet, and the blow is null.
There is, however, a case where the blow is not nil if it is the point of thirty-one that the banker brings twice in a row, he draws half of the money exposed on each of his cards.

This advantage can be assessed if it has about five percent. The conditions of the redo are more or less expensive for the clutches according to the establishments.