Maw (card game)
Maw, formerly also mawe, was a Scottish card game for two players, popularised by James I, which is ancestral to the Irish national game of Twenty-five as well as the Canadian game of Forty-fives. Maw appears to be the same as five cards, a game described by Charles Cotton in the 17th century. The game disappeared from the literature after the period of the English Commonwealth, only to emerge in Ireland in the 19th century in new forms for two or more players and known as five and ten, spoil five and forty-five. These new variants are still played today, the latter has evolved into the Canadian game of forty-fives.
History
The earliest records of the Scottish game of maw date to around 1550. James VI and I played maw, and it is frequently mentioned up to about 1650. Maw was played at Hengrave Hall at Christmas 1572. In 1580 it was described as "a playe at cardes grown out of the country, from the meanest, into credit at court with the greatest." On 14 December 1594 a lost play called The Set at Maw premiered at The Rose.The game is mentioned in a 1608 play by Thomas Middleton in which a character replies: "Then I hope, you will be as good to us as the five-finger at maw," and in another in 1611 written by George Chapman and called May Day in which Lodovico rues his loss in a game of Maw against Lucretia: "You will the more muse at my fortune, or my oversights. For the game stood, methought, upon my last two tricks, when I made sure of the set, and yet lost it, having the varlet and the five finger to make two tricks." Thomas Cockson's 1609 engraving The Revells of Christendome includes a description of maw being played:
The former peasant's game became fashionable in court circles by the reign of James I and the king himself was a card player, a 1622 pamphlet alluded to this:
Ever in the very gaming Ordinaries, where men have scarce leisure to say grace, yet they take a tyme to censure your Majesties actions and that in their oulde school Termes. They say you have lost the fairest game at Maw that ever King had, for want of making the best advantage of the five finger, and playing the other helpes in time. That your owne Carde-holders play bootye, and give the signe out of your owne hande. That he you played withall hath ever been knowne for the greatest cheater in Christendome.
"Five finger" was the name of the trump 5 in the game. The Duke of Buckingham mentioned playing six sets of maw with Sir John Ayres in a letter to King James.
Along with many other old card games, maw died out in England during the time of the English Commonwealth. These games were succeeded by new ones primarily from Europe.
Charles Cotton calls its descendant in 1674 "five-cards", and gives the nickname five fingers to the five of trumps, extracted from the fact that the Irish word cúig means both 'five' and 'trick'. Others equated maw with five cards. Either way, A win at five-cards was worth five and a slam, ten.
By the early 19th century, two new variants of the two-hand game of maw or five cards had emerged. First was a version in which four played in two teams of two players that was called five and ten after the rewards for winning singly and double respectively. This name was also now applied to the old two-hand game. Second, the first round game version emerged with the inevitable consequence that there might not now be a winner if the hand was "spoilt" by no-one being able to take 3 tricks. As Samuel Lover explained in 1837, "The game they played was one which has long been a favourite in Ireland, and still continues to be so amongst the peasantry. It is called five and ten when played between two persons, or four engaged as partners; but when a larger number is enlisted, it is called spoil five, and a poule is played for. The same cards are influential in both games, though a totally different play is required... for in the former, the object is to win as many tricks as you can, while in the latter your own hand, if not sufficiently strong... is always sacrificed to the common good of "spoiling" the endeavours of a more fortunate holder of cards, and thereby increasing the poule... But in either form, this game is a great favourite with the peasantry, and is played by them with considerable skill..." Spoiled five is recorded as being played in the Peninsula War by Irish troops.
Forty-five or five and forty had emerged by the early 19th century as a popular Irish variant in which each trick scored 5 points and game was 45. In 1837, in an article describing the atmosphere of the Fermoy racecourse, the reader is told that "if you prefer a stroll through the crowd to the music on the stands, where a couple of military bands are always stationed, or to seeing the horses rubbed down, you will see parties of four or six engaged at innumerable tables, playing, with what they are pleased to call cards, at the Irish game of forty-five....to your astonishment, the players throw down as quick as thought, hitting the table a blow with the knuckles, whenever they play a good trump, that would peel the skin off any fists not as hard as horn. You will also perceive that they never take up a trick when won, but go on flinging down card after card, until the end of the deal, when they count the game, and if there should be any difference, the odds are, that five out of the six players are able to tell the order in which every card was played; but then they are all crack carroochs , if you see silver on the table, for none else would venture so high in public. Sometimes they are so engrossed with the game, that they will not stop to look at a race on the flat, but nothing will keep them from a "go" over a country, and the stiffer the better."
Forty-five is already described as "old fashioned" by 1834. And in 1858, an Irish periodical describes twenty-five and forty-five as "our own old games" in which the five of trumps, called five fingers, was the best card, followed by the ace of hearts. Twenty-five eventually emerged to become the national card game of Ireland.
In the 20th century, forty-fives became popular in Canada along with a variant called auction forty-five, in which players bid in multiples of 5 up to 30 and game is 120. French Canadians took the game south into Massachusetts and New Hampshire in New England, where it continues to be popular, sometimes under the French name quarante-cinq.
Forty-fives is popularly played on the South Island of New Zealand, especially on the west coast which had a large number of Irish immigrants in the past who brought the game with them. Meanwhile forty-five is still played in many places in Ireland, where there are tournaments called 45 card drives.
Rules
Maw
No detailed description of the rules for maw has survived, but a document published c. 1600 lists the "lawes at Mawe", in reality penalties for infractions. The Groom Porter was the officer responsible for games at the royal court of James I.What is known is that it was a two-player game in which there were five tricks, the aim being to win at least three.
The text of the 1600 document containing the laws of maw follows:
From these "laws", it can be deduced that:
- There were two players.
- A hand was called a "game" and several games made a "set"
- After the deal and before play, players could either "ask for" a card from stock or vie but not both.
- A player who folds before play, loses 4 points, unless that player hands over the deal in which case no points are won or lost.
- A player with the ace of hearts could "rob" the upcard
- Turning up the ace of hearts scored 4 points
- During play, players had to follow suit and could vie before playing a card, but not once it was played
- Game was 26 points
Five cards (1674)
Two players are dealt five cards each and turns the next for trump. The top three trumps are:
- Trump 5 – five fingers
- Trump Kn
There are five tricks and the winner is the player to take at least 3 trumps, scoring 5 points for a normal win and 10 if all tricks were taken. Whist rules of play are assumed, but not stated.
Five and ten (1830)
This "favourite game of the Irish" for two to four players is first described in 1830 in a Scottish publication by Robert Hardie. Four play as two teams of two. A full pack is used in which the order of the top trumps has changed slightly. In detail the cards rank as follows when the respective suits are trumps:- Hearts:
- Diamonds:
- Spades:
- Clubs:
- Hearts:
- Diamonds:
- Spades:
- Clubs:
If four play, they cut for partnerships, the two lowest playing the two highest. Players ante equal stakes and cut for deal, lowest wins. The cards are cut again and 5 dealt to each player in twos and threes, the next being turned for trump. If the turnup is an Ace, the dealer takes it and discards another card in exchange. A player holding the trump Ace either picks up the turnup or turns it over. Players must follow suit, except that a player holding any of the top three cards may renounce it unless a higher trump is played.
Hardie mentions a three-hand game in passing in which, if no-one takes 3 tricks, the hands is 'spoilt' and the stakes carried forward and increased. This is the variant usually known as Spoil Five, q.v. His description is reprinted in the 1845 and 1857 American Hoyles as well as Hardie's 1860 edition of his book.