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Originally Posted by katex
.......... Thirteen cards each, trump card was chosen by splitting the pack ..........
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Trump selection was actually determined by the tournament (Whist drive) rules, Kate. In addition to the procedure you outline, trumps were determined by rotation -- clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades (the trump rank precedence that was adopted for Contract Bridge and which persists to this day). That was the system used for the St. Matthew's & Mechanics Institute (Burnley) Whist drives I attended and that we used in our family games. Bid Whist was also a popular and intermediary game between original Whist and Contract Bridge, differentiated from the latter by the fact that the bidding contract and play was individual -- no partnerships. Also, the scoring was nowhere as complicated as the Contract Bridge system. We played bid Whist just about every lunch break when I was attending Burnley Municipal College.
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.......... the only skill involved was whether to leave these 'til later and throw away a hand earlier ..........
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There were actually some legal strategies adopted by the better players that enabled partnerships to produce higher scores, for instance: finessing a Queen in an attempt to trap a King or make an otherwise doomed Queen score; signaling a suit lead preference when discarding; describing suit length by high-low play -- all techniques subsequently adopted by Contract Bridge players. Verbal and physical communications relating to play including winks, nods, foot taps, etc., were prohibited and could lead to various penalties depending on tournament or informal rules.
James