Pool Games

Pool games are card games, or dice games, requiring the participation of a relatively large number of players who, at the start of the game, each take an equal amount of chips – the stake – part of which they will be led to give up on the occasion of game events defined by the rules. When all players but one have been stripped of all their chips, the last one is immediately declared the winner. He wins the pool, that is to say, the total of the chips lost by the players over the course of the game. The pool is most often formed in the middle of the table by the deposit of the chips lost by the players – these players are said to pay or put so many chips into the pool, according to the rules specific to each game. The amount of the pool won by the winner, added to the chips he has kept, is then equal to the total of the stakes of all the players. It can thus be seen that if each player loses only a few chips, the winner wins a relatively large number of them. Generally, in the course of the game, when a player is stripped of all his chips, he no longer takes part in the game. However, in some games, besides the chips put into the pool, others may pass from the hand of one player to that of another. If the latter had no more chips, he then effectively finds himself back in the game.
Pool games are games of chance which may involve a small degree of reasoning or require a good capacity for memorization. They are always convivial games with simple rules that must be played briskly.
In the 18th century, different pool games could be played in succession; this is what was called making a macédoine.