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Published May 17, 2022 | Version v1
Preprint Open

Games of Twenty-One Combinations

  • 1. City, University of London
  • 2. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen

Description

Dice games of ‘pay-or-take’ such as the Game of the Owl or the Game of Seven are games of pure chance, in which the throw at each turn determines how many stakes to pay to or take from the winner’s pool. This paper is concerned with a subset of these games where only two dice are used and where the combinations of points on the individual dice are significant, rather than the total. There are 21 different combinations, giving rise to the suggested generic name for these games. The simplest games are those for children but adult versions also exist, often with more complex rules. The different forms are discussed, with examples from the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy, covering a time span from about 1500 to the twentieth century.

This is the English preprint of the paper published as: ‘Jeux à Vingt-et-une Combinaisons’. Le Vieux Papier, fasc. 444 (Avril 2022), pp. 49-57.

Files

Seville, Richter 2022 Games of 21 Combinations English illustrated.pdf