Boston

Boston is a card game using the standard 52-card deck. It's a trick-taking game, a Whist variant that incorporated elements of Quadrille and developed over the 18th and 19th centuries. The game was supposedly developed in the early days of the American Revolution, when Bos-tonians wanted a game not as associated with the British as Whist was; this may or may not be true.

Some of the key developments in Boston include the mid-18th century adoption of the misère bid, a bid to lose all 13 tricks. This negative or reversed approach is not found in many widespread trick-taking games, outside of Hearts, but as a possible bid it had been introduced in a variant of the game Hombre and soon spread to Quadrille, Boston, and Tarot. In addition to misère, other possible bids included petite misère (making one discard followed by losing 12 tricks), piccolis-simo (winning one and only one trick), piccolo (winning two tricks), and misère ouverte, in which the player plays with his hand exposed on the table. This approach to negative and precision bids was passed on to games like Skat, Solo, and Norwegian Whist.

Misere and petit misère were—legend has it—named after the islands Little Misery and Big Misery off the coast of Marblehead (near Boston). The use of French is sometimes explained by Benjamin Franklin's love of the game and introduction of it to the court at Versailles, but these are unlikely explanations. What is true is that Boston rose in popularity quickly, before its niche was usurped by Bridge; variants and alternate names of Boston are attested all over the English-speaking world.

Boston can also refer to Eight-Ball, the billiards game most Americans refer to simply as pool.