Put is an English tavern trick-taking card game first recorded in the 16th century and later castigated by 17th century moralists as one of ill repute. It belongs to a very ancient family of card games and clearly relates to a group known as Trut, Truque, also Tru, and the South American game Truco. Its more elaborate version is the Spanish game of Truc, which is still much played in many parts of Southern France and Spain.
Etymology
The name Put, pronounced "u", like the name of the English village of Putney, derives from "putting up your cards in cafe", if you do not like them, or from "putting each other to the shift".
The game of Put is played generally by two people, sometimes by three, and often by four, with a 52-card pack with cards ranking 3-2-A-K-Q-J-T-9-8-7-6-5-4 in each suit. The game is won by the first player to score 5 points over as many deals as necessary, or by the player who wins a majority of three tricks played in any deal. The player drawing the highest Put card deals first, and the deal alternates. Shuffle thoroughly and deal three cards to each player in a clockwise mode, one at time. The turn to deal always passes to the left. Tricks are played to unusual rules. Any card may be led, and the other player may also play any card: there is no need to follow suit and there are no trumps. The trick is taken by the higher card, and the winner of one trick leads to the next. If cards of equal rank are played e.g. two Threes, two Aces, or whatever, the trick is tied and belongs to neither player. In this case it is put to one side, and whoever led to it leads to the next. If non-dealer throws up his cards, he loses 1 point; if he plays, and the dealer does not lay down another to him, he scores 1 point; but should the dealer either win the same, pass it, or lay down one of equal value, forming what is styled a tie, non-dealer is still at ease to Put, that is, play or not, and his opponent then only scores 1 point; then if both parties agree to go on, whoever wins all the tricks, or two out of three, scores 5 points, which is the game. If each player obtain one trick, and the third is a tie, then neither party scores. Either player, when about to lead to a trick, may do one of three things:
Throw his hand in, thus conceding the deal and 1 point to the opponent.
Lead a card without saying anything. His opponent must then play.
Say "Put", which is short for "I put it to you that you should throw your cards in while you have the chance". If the opponent follows this advice, the deal ends and the putter scores 1 point. If not, putter leads and the other must play.
Score
The game is won outright, regardless of points scored, by the player who wins two tricks in a deal, or one trick if the other two are tied. If each player wins one trick and one trick is tied, the result is a draw by "trick and tie" and there is no score for that deal. If neither wins outright, the winner is the first player to score 5 points for concessions.
The laws of Put
If the dealer accidentally discover any of his adversary's cards, the latter may insist upon a new deal.
If the dealer discover any of his own cards in dealing, he must abide by the deal.
When a faced card is discovered during the deal, the cards must be reshuffled and dealt again.
If the dealer give his adversary more cards than are necessary, the adversary may call a fresh deal, or suffer the dealer to draw the extra cards from his hand.
If the dealer give himself more cards than are his due, the adversary may add a point to his game, and call a fresh deal, or draw the extra cards from the dealer's hand.
No bystander must interfere, under penalty of paying the stakes.
Either party saying "I put", that is, "I play", play cannot retract, but must abide the event of the game or pay the stakes.
Strategy
Neither player will reach 5 points, because as soon as he reaches 4 the other will have no incentive to concede. Having nothing to lose, he may as well play the hand out on the off-chance of winning outright. This is not necessarily a defect in the game, though there may be a defect in the only original source from which all later accounts of the game derive. What it means, in effect, is that in the course of one game you have four chances of throwing your cards in without penalty; the points are not a score so much as a way of keeping count of your used opportunities. Of course, you could agree that an outright win earns a double game or stake, and a win on points only a single, in which case they become a "score" rather that of a "count". Considerable daring is necessary in this game, for a bold player will often "Put" upon very bad cards in order to tempt his adversary into giving him a point. Sometimes the hand is played with "Putting", when the winner of the three tricks, or of two out of three, scores 1 point. The best cards are first: the Threes, next the Twos, and then the Aces; the Kings, Queens, Knaves, and Tens following in order down to the Four, which is the lowest card in the pack.
Variants
The game becomes more interesting if the pack is shortened to 32 cards by stripping out all the lower ranks from Four to Nine.
Le Truc
In his book A Gamut of Games, Sid Sackson describes a similar French game called Le Truc, which he translates as "The Knack". This is played with a 32-card pack ranking 6-7-A-K-Q-J-T-9. The winning of two tricks, or one and two ties, scores 1 point. When about to play to a trick, a player may propose to double the value of the hand, allowing the other to throw in his hand to prevent the double from taking effect. The first to reach 12 points wins the game, and the first to win two games wins the rubber. The French version of Truc is closely related to the English Put.
Speculation
The Modern Pocket Hoyle describes the game of Speculation as follows:
Four-handed Put
It differs only in that any two of the players give each his best card to his partner, who then lays out one of his, and the game is afterwards played as in two-handed Put.
In literature
The game of Put appears in a "riddle", or acrostic, probably written by a Royalist in the thrilling interval between the resignation of Richard Cromwell on May 25, 1659 and the restoration of Charles II, crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661. It expresses in enigmatical terms the designs and hopes of the King's adherents, under colour of describing a game of "Put". The initial letters of the seven verses are an anagram, and indicate the number of cards shared between the two players in the game. S, X, I, C, R, A, T, make SIX CART, or six cartes. Six cards, also, are expressly mentioned in the riddle itself, namely: "the Knave", "a King", "Heart", "Trey", "Quarter" or quatre, and "the Buck". "The Buck", probably one of the picture-cards, or the ace, inferior to "Trey", which is the best card in the game of put; therefore "Trey" comes "to pull down the Buck". "The Buck" is an old English synonym for the Coarse Appellation, intended, no doubt, for a Puritan, or for the Puritan party. "Pulling down the Buck", is also an allusion to hunting. John Dickson Carr's novel The Devil in Velvet, set in 1675 London, includes a scene at Whitehall Palace in which the King's mistress Nell Gwyn and the courtier Ralph Montague play Put with stakes in the thousands of guineas. Gwyn is depicted as saying she prefers Put to other card games such as Ombre which are "too slow".
