Post and pair
# Post and pair

Post and Pair or Post and Pare is a gambling card game that was popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries — another name of the game was Pink. It is based on the same three-card combinations, namely prial, found in related games of this family.

It is much dependent on vying, or betting, requiring repeated staking as well as daring on the part of the players. It is considered a derivative of the game of Primero and closely resembles another game, called Put, that was as popular as Gleek and Noddy during the Tudor dynasty.

## History

Post and pair appears to derive from the game of Primero. Due to its gaming mechanics and resemblance with Primero and its variants, it is easily implied that post and pair evolved into a faster-paced card game with the addition of rules borrowed from neighboring games, like the Tudor game named post, attested by The Oxford English Dictionary from the early 16th to the 17th centuries, which may have survived longer in local versions.

Charles Cotton, in his 1674 The Compleat Gamester, mentions that Post and Pair was particularly popular in the west of England, as much as All Fours was popular in Kent, and Fives in Ireland. And if Francis Willughby's 1816 Book of Games gives no rules for the game, Cotton describes it as a three-stake game - stakes being laid for Post, Pair and Seat - almost identical to Three-Card Brag (or Three-Stake Brag). David Parlett and John McLeod suggest that modern Brag is an extract of Post and Pair.

## Play

Three separate stakes are made by each player. After staking at "post" and then at "pair", and getting two cards, the players stake at "seat". A third card is then dealt face up. The three stakes are won as follows:

* Seat. The stake goes to the holder of the best single Whist card dealt face up. The A♦ is the highest card, followed by the other Aces and then the rest in their natural order.
* Pair. The stake goes to the player with the best set i.e. cards of the same rank, or to the player who can outvie the others into ceding the stake. A pair royal of aces is the best hand, followed by a pair royal of any three court cards in order of rank: three kings, three queens, three knaves (jacks), etc. If no one has a pair royal, the highest pair wins, failing that, the hand that holds the highest cards wins. If players are still tied, the eldest hand wins.
* Post. The stake goes to the player with the best combination of cards totalling, or most approaching, twenty-one points. The best possible combination is two tens and an ace, with court cards counting as ten.

Players may vie for Pair. Eldest hand begins and may vie or pass. Having passed, eldest may come in again, if any others vie. If a player vies, the others must respond in turn by 'raising' the bet or 'seeing' i.e. matching it. In the latter case, the players left in may agree to divide the stakes; otherwise they must show their cards and the best hand wins. If no-one vies, the dealer may double the stakes or just "play it out" i.e. let everyone show their hands and the best hand wins.

