Origin France Type Trick-taking Cards 52 | Alternative names Loo Players 3 to 8 (5 to 7 best) Deck French | |
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Lanterloo or Loo is a 17th-century trick taking game of the Trump family of which many varieties are recorded. It belongs to a line of card games whose members include Nap, Euchre, Rams, Mao, Hombre, and Spoil Five. It is considered a modification of the game of "All Fours", another English game possibly of Dutch origin, in which the players replenish their hands after each round by drawing each fresh new card from the pack.
Contents
History
Under various spellings, like the French forms Lenterne, Lenturlu, Looterlu, (meaning "fiddlesticks", a meaningless word equivalent to "Lullay", or "Lulloo", used in Lullabies), the game is supposed to have reached England from France most probably with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Also called Langtrillo in its prime form and later simply Loo (also termed Lant in the north of England by 1860, most possibly for having evolved into a more elaborate form of play by the addition of new rules, it may also have been brought to England from Holland. Whichever way it may have been, by the turn of the eighteenth century it was already England's most popular card game. It was considered a great pastime by the idle rich of that time, but it got a very bad reputation as a potentially vicious "tavern" gambling game during the nineteenth century. In the 1875 novel, The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, chapter 24 has an episode wherein a recurring character, with a bad reputation for paying his gambling losses with IOUs and never redeeming them with money, makes a point of winning back his IOUs, one night, by persuading his companions to play Loo with him both playing and dealing, during which he cheats repeatedly by hiding cards up his sleeve, which is possible because the entire deck is not dealt out but cards remain with the dealer.
Etymology
Oxford English Dictionary quotes a 1685 reference to "Pam at Lanterloo", and Chatto quotes a Dutch political pamphlet of about 1648 entitled Het herstelde Verkeer-bert verbetert in een Lanterluy-spel, containing a dialogue equating the game Labate (hence French Triomphe became La Bête, "The Beast", in Cotton's Complete Gamester) with Lanterluy. This was the very first mentioning of the game.
The name "Pam", denoting the J♣ in its full capacity as permanent top trump in Five-Card Loo, represents an old medieval comic-erotic character called Pamphilus (Latin for a Greek word, meaning "beloved of all") or "Pamphile", in French, described as "an old bawd" by the New Zealand-born English lexicographer Eric Partridge.
Description
The game is played by 3 to 8 players using a 52-card pack. The players bet and play for tricks, and in each round they may pass, play, or "miss" (exchange from an extra hand). The main forms of the game are Three-Card Loo, Five-Card Loo,and Irish Loo, which is Five-Card Loo played with only three cards.
The turn to deal and play passes always to the left.
Objective
The basic idea is that a pool is formed by each player's contribution of three chips or counters (or five in Five-Card Loo). Then the players are dealt three cards each (if five play, then five cards are dealt) and the next turned for trump. Everyone's aim is to win at least one trick, under penalty of increasing the pool. For this purpose cards basically rank A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2, but the J♣, or "Pam", beats all the other cards, including the Ace of trumps.
The players, having seen their hands, can either abandon them free of charge or elect to play, thereby undertaking to win at least one trick for one third (or one fifth) of the pool. Any player failing to do so is "looed", and adds five more chips to the pool. Each player must have the same number of deals, but if there is a "loo" (the sum forfeited by a player who plays, but does not win a trick) in the last deal of a round, the game continues till there is a hand without a loo .
Declarations
Play
If any player holds a flush (five cards of the same suit or four of a suit plus Pam), whether dealt initially or obtained by drawing cards, he wins the deal outright, there being no pay. If more than one has a flush, the best is a flush with Pam; failing that, a flush in trumps; failing that, the flush containing the highest top card (or cards if equal). The holder of the winning flush wins the stakes of all the other players, including those who dropped, but excluding those holding either Pam or a lower flush.
Elder leads to the first trick. If he is in the possession of the trump Ace (or King if the Ace is the turn-up card), he must lead it. If not, he must lead any other trump, and it must be his highest trump, specially if there is only one opponent. If the Trump Ace is led and its player says "Pam, be civil", it may not be played to the same trick, unless its holder has no other trump in hand.
Subsequent players must then follow suit if possible, heading the trick, or trump if unable to follow. The trick is taken by the highest card of the suit led or by the highest trump if any are played. The winner of each trick leads to the next, trumping if possible.
Division Loo
One card is dealt to each player, and the player receiving the lowest card is entitled to deal. At the commencement of the game the dealer puts three chips, or counters, in the pool. The value of which already been agreed upon by the players. It is necessary to make the pool a number that can be exactly divided by three, say 3, 6, 9 chips. After the cards are shuffled and cut, the dealer gives three cards (one at a time) to each player, beginning at the eldest hand, and going round to the left. An extra hand called Dumby, or Miss, is dealt in the center of the table and the next turned up for trumps.
In the first hand, and whenever the pool consists of only three chips deposited by the dealer, it is called a Bold Stand, or Force, and each player is compelled to play his hand, except the eldest hand, who, if he prefers it, is entitled to the Dumby and may exchange it for his own. Bold Stand is played for the purpose of getting a larger pool; thus, if eight are playing, and five lose, they will be looed the amount of the pool, raising the total of chips to eighteen. The deal passes to the left, and the dealer must on all occasions pay in the pool three counters for the deal. When the pool consists of more than the original three chips deposited by the dealer it becomes optional to play or not, and before looking at his own cards, the dealer asks all the payers, beginning at the eldest hand, whether they play their own hand, take the Dumby, or decline playing for that round. If the eldest declines to the Dumby, the next in turn has this option, and so on.
Whenever a player declines playing, he must give his cards to the dealer who will place them under the pack. No one can retract after declaring his intention to stand or not. When all players have declared their intention, the first in hand of those who play, if he holds two trumps, must head the trick. At the end of the game, the pool is divided into three portions. If one player takes three tricks, he wins the whole pool; if he takes two, he wins two thirds; if one, only one third. All those who have failed to win a trick are looed the original amount deposited by the dealer and when only two players stand, the last player before the dealer must either play he hand, or the Dumby, or give up the pool to the dealer.
Unlimited Loo
Each player is looed the whole amount in the pool until the occurrence of a bold stand, which can only happen when three players stand the game, and each win a trick, or when two play, and one takes two chips and the other only one. The dealer being last in hand has always the advantage of knowing how many are to play before he decides. It likewise sometimes happen, when a large sum is in the pool, that none of the players consider it safe to stand, in which case the dealer takes the whole pool. This variation, also known as Loo the Board, forces those who lose the game to double the amount of chips in the pool, making it grow faster than in other forms of Loo.