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Robert  FOSTER

 

  Lo scozzese Robert Frederick Foster, nato ad Edimburgo il 31 maggio del 1853 e scomparso il 25 dicembre del 1945 a Eastham nel Massachusetts,  è stato una personalità universalmente riconosciuta nello studio e nella diffusione di vari giochi sui quali ha scritto una cinquantina di libri.

 Foster si dedicò a tempo pieno a questa ultima attività dopo aver girato il mondo come ingegnere specializzato nella ricerca di miniere d'oro e dopo aver accumulato e dissipato un paio di fortune.

 Mago dilettante, sposato con Mary E. Johnson, visse a lungo negli Stati Uniti e fu emerito membro dei più famosi Club di bridge e di Golf.

 Nella seconda metà della sua vita conobbe il bridge e ne restò conquistato tanto da approfondirne molti aspetti sia del gioco che della dichiarazione; a lui si deve l'enunciazione della famosissima Regola dell'11 che ogni bridgista di tutto il mondo ha conosciuto ed usato.

 Da ottuagenario continuava imperterrito a vincere molti tornei e a scrivere articoli su nuovi gadget dichiarativi.

Born in Scotland in 1853, R.F. Foster immigrated to the United States at an early age. Upon maturity he worked in a wide variety of jobs, including gold prospecting and lecturing on Pelmanism. He finally settled on writing about games, especially card games.

He wrote dozens of books on card games in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His books dominated in the U.S. between 1880 and the 1930s. They covered every imaginable card game: euchre, poker, rummy, bridge, whist and many more. Foster wrote on other games too, such as Mah Jong, dice, and dominoes. You can still find many of these excellent works at used bookstores, often sold for a pittance as obsolete items.

Since the books are out of copyright, many are posted in their entirety on the internet: you can download them for free. For example, here is his book on Conquian, an early form of rummy and considered the ancestor of all rummy games. Download his unique book on Pirate Bridge, a three-handed form of Bridge that Foster thought would take over as America’s dominant card game. He wrote the book in 1916 and as it turned out, he was right that Bridge would dominate, but wrong in thinking Pirate would take the honors, as Contract Bridge emerged victorious.

Foster’s great achievement was his Foster’s Hoyle, first published in 1897. At over 625 pages it covered every card game of its day and makes a fascinating historical study. You can see how games have evolved in the past century. This masterpiece was published continually until at least the 1950s, and just the other day I saw a new reprint available. It’s a fun, comprehensive reference work, even if some the games have changed. Every gamester should have a copy (digital or print).

R. F. Foster died in 1945 at the age of 92. Though he was one of the grand old men of cards, few attended his funeral ...he had outlived all his contemporaries.

Robert Frederick Foster (1853–1945). Né en Écosse, ingénieur de formation, il s’installe aux USA où il met rapidement sa plume et son érudition à profit pour écrire sur de nombreux jeux. Une multitude d’articles et de livres, dont certains témoignent d’un réel intérêt pour l’histoire des jeux, en font certainement l’auteur le plus prolifique de son époque. Après avoir grandement contribué à enrichir la littérature du genre, et celle du bridge en particulier, il décède à l’âge vénérable de 92 ans. S’il écrit d’abord sur le whist, comme nous l’avons vu dans l’épisode précédent, ses publications sur le bridge sont particulièrement abondantes et reconnues.

Il s’intéresse en fait à pratiquement tous les jeux de cartes en  vogue à l’époque, tels l’euchre (sorte de triomphe américaine), le skat, la crapette, etc. sans oublier toutes sortes d’autres jeux, comme le mah-jong.

Il fait d’ailleurs partie du comité de standardisation de ce dernier pour les USA, en compagnie de Milton C. Work. À partir de 1897, il publie Foster’s encyclopedia of games un recueil de règles particulièrement riche et complet sur une vaste gamme de jeux, y compris le billard, constamment réédité jusqu’en... 1963.

Dès le bridge aux enchères, et bien avant Harold Vanderbilt et le bridge contrat, il imagine l’ouverture de 1♣ artificielle et forcing, ainsi que son indispensable complément, l’ouverture de 1SA faible. La technique du jeu de la carte, qu’il étudie passionnément dès le whist, lui doit également beaucoup, avec notamment l’entame en 4meilleure et la règle des onze, qu’il met au point à peu près en même temps que E.M.F. Benecke (à Oxford) et qu’il publie dans son célèbre Whist Manual.

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