The Edge
The play in Basset resulted in, basically, a lottery. A player might occasionally win, but the big winner was the dealer (banker). The dealer had a number of privileges under the rules, including having the sole disposal of the first and last card; this gave him or her a significant edge. This was a truth so acknowledged in France that the king ordered, by public edict, that the privilege of a tallière (banker) should be allowed only to the chief cadets (sons of noblemen). His assumption was that whoever kept the bank must, in a very short time, acquire a considerable fortune.
Read more about this topic: Basset (card Game)
Famous quotes containing the word edge:
“And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The self-consciousness of Pine Ridge manifests itself at the village’s edge in such signs as “Drive Keerful,” “Don’t Hit Our Young ‘uns,” and “You-all Hurry Back”Mlocutions which nearly all Arkansas hill people use daily but would never dream of putting in print.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)