BEZIQUE, b5.-zek! (Fr. bezique, origin ob scure). A game of cards ordinarily played with a double pack, from which the twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes have been rejected, thus leaving 64 cards. The remaining cards rank aces, tens, kings, queens, knaves, nines, eights, sevens. Eight cards are dealt to each player, and the seventeenth is turned up for trumps. Tricks are taken as in whist, except when the cards are equal, such as two tens together, when the leader wins the trick. After each trick the player draws one card from the stock, the winner tak ing the top card and the loser the next, the trump card, or the one exchanged for it, being taken up last. The object of the game is to promote in the hand various combinations of cards which, when declared, entitle the holder to certain scores, to win aces and tens, and to win the so-called last trick. If a declaration is made it must he as soon as the trick is taken, and before drawing from the pack, and this is done by placing the declared cards face upward on the table; but they still form part of the hand, and can be led or played, just as though they had not been declared. (The rules of the
Portland Club of London, England. are the accepted standard all over the English-speaking world.) The game is usually 1000 points, and the scores vary from 10 for the seven of trumps played or exchanged, to 500 for double bezique. If clubs or hearts are trumps the bezique cards are queen of spades and knave of diamonds, and vice versa when spades or diamonds are trumps. The deal goes from one to another alternately until the game is finished. There is a four-pack game called Rubicon, or Japanese Bezique, and two varieties of Polish Bezique or Fildinski.