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1920's BG scoring matches on eBay
Posted By: Tom Keith In Response To: 1920's BG scoring matches on eBay (Art Grater)
Date: Sunday, 5 May 2013, at 3:39 p.m.
I have no idea how to actually use them!
From an article by Frank Crowninshield in the September 1929 issue of Vogue, archived at the Chicago Point web site:
"It remained for a group of enthusiasts at the Racquet Club in New York to invent a further hazard in the shape of "matches and doubles." This device is simplicity itself. Whenever a player, in the course of a game, feels that he has a decided advantage over his adversary, he is at liberty to say, "I double." This means that he is willing to double the agreed stake, for that game only. The adversary is then at liberty to say, "I resign," and pay the original stake for the game; or he may say, "I accept," in which case he assumes the responsibility of a double payment in the event of his losing the game. Furthermore, at any period of that game, should the fortunes of the players alter, the other player may in turn double the original doubler. This process of doubling and redoubling may go on indefinitely (always in turn, however), but it is rare that a game is of such a nature that it can be doubled or redoubled more than twice. Occasionally, however, eight doubles are met with. A lady on Long Island, recently playing for a stake of five dollars a game, soon found herself playing for eighty.
In order to keep track of these doubles, the device of ordinary parlour matches is resorted to. Twenty or more matches are put in a bowl somewhere near the players. At the beginning of the session, a single match is placed on the bar, or backbone, of the board to show that it is a single game. If, in the course of the game, the stake should be doubled, another match is put on the board. If white wins a single game, he takes down the one match (or the two) from the backbone of the board and puts it at one side (not on the board) and not with the common stock of matches. If he wins another game, he puts aside another match. If black should then tie white, in wins, he would put all of the matches back into the original pot, as the players would be even. The matches beside the players show the number of stakes won by each. When the session is over, a settlement is made for the net number of matches held by each player, at so much a match. That is, at two dollars a match, if the table stake was two dollars, five dollars, if it was five dollars, and so on."
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