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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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whist
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The most widely played of card games until replaced by its own progeny, the more complex game of bridge. Whist is believed to have developed in England, where it was known by the early 16C. The definitive rules were established in Edmond Hoyle's Short Treatise on the Game of Whist (1742). The essential feature of the game is two pairs of players competing to win seven or more of the 13 available tricks (from the pack of 52 cards), with one of the four suits declared as trumps. Bridge added much greater sophistication in two areas – the method of playing the hand and the system of scoring. It began to be developed in Greece and Turkey in the 1860s, and achieved its present form in the USA in the 1920s.
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