Robert Frederick Foster
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Robert Frederick Foster (May 31, 1853 – December 25, 1945) of
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, known as R. F. Foster, was a memory training promoter and the prolific writer of more than 50 nonfiction books. He wrote primarily on the rules of play and methods for successful play of card, dice, and board games.
Alan Truscott Alan Fraser Truscott (16 April 1925 – 4 September 2005) was a British-American bridge player, writer, and editor. He wrote the daily bridge column for ''The New York Times'' for 41 years, from 1964 to 2005, and served as Executive Editor for th ...
wrote 20 years after his death that Foster "had been one of the great figures in whist and bridge" for 60 years.


Biography

R. F. Foster was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
on May 31, 1853, the son of Alexander Frederick and Mary E. Macbrair, and "connected with some of the best families in Great Britain". He was educated as an
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and
civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...
. He emigrated to the United States (probably in 1872) where he engaged in surveying and gold prospecting and then in manufacturing before turning to the memory training and writing businesses in 1893. Foster married Mary E. Johnson in 1891 and became card editor for the ''New York Sun'' in 1895. He filled that position to 1919''The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge''. Edited by Ely Culbertson. New York: The Bridge World, 1935; pp. 162–63. when he undertook the same role for the ''
New York Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...
''. He was also a columnist for '' Vanity Fair''. The treatise ''Foster's Complete Hoyle: An Encyclopedia of All the Indoor Games Played at the Present Day'', first published in 1897, has been called his great achievement. It provided descriptions and laws of more than 100 indoor games and was revised frequently during his lifetime, then by others after his death. One of his last editions was included in the 1939 New York World's Fair Westinghouse Time Capsule, to be opened in 5000 years. Having written numerous whist and bridge books by 1935, he was considered "the dean of living bridge authorities". At that time he directed
duplicate bridge Duplicate bridge is a variation of contract bridge where the same set of bridge deals (i.e. the distribution of the 52 cards among the four hands) are played by different competitors, and scoring is based on relative performance. In this way, eve ...
at the St. George Club in Brooklyn (
Hotel St. George Hotel St. George is a building in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, which was once the city's largest hotel. The hotel is within the Brooklyn Heights Historic District. The hotel was originally created by Union Navy Captain William T ...
). At some time he lived four years in Germany; at another time, "three years in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, where he lectured and taught bridge in sixty-five towns." He crossed the Atlantic 97 times in all. Foster was a member of several card, athletic, and golf clubs—including Knickerbockers Whist and the Cavendish Club—and a member of the
Society of American Magicians The Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and t ...
. He died December 25, 1945, in
Eastham, Massachusetts Eastham () is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, Barnstable County being coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 5,752 at the 2020 census. For geographic and demographic information about the village of North Eastham ...
, survived by one daughter.


Memory trainer

Foster left employment at one of the largest manufacturing houses in Baltimore to become the business manager for "Professor Alphonse Loisette" (later identified as Marcus Dwight Larrowe), a lecturer and promoter of systems and methods to develop and improve memory skills. Foster resigned in April 1888, wishing not to be associated with Loisette's unethical personal and business practices and accusing him of being a "humbug and a fraud". Foster subsequently joined William Joseph Ennever and others in a similar business venture, the Pelman School of Memory Training, a correspondence school based in Chicago and London. He delivered lectures and wrote training materials, most notably ''The Secret of Certainty in Recollection, plainly stated, simply taught: The Pelman–Foster System'', a book of five correspondence lessons dating from around 1905.


Fiction book author

Foster also wrote a detective novel titled ''Cab no. 44'', which was also translated into German.


Bibliography

Although he also wrote fiction and contributed short stories to magazines, his most prolific work was on the subject of card, dice and table games being author of over 50 such books covering every imaginable card game:
euchre Euchre or eucre () is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. Normally there are four players, two on e ...
,
poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
,
conquian Conquian, Coon Can or Colonel (the two-handed version) is a rummy-style card game. David Parlett describes it as an ancestor to all modern rummy games, and a kind of proto- gin rummy. Before the appearance of gin rummy, it was described as "an exc ...
,
rummy Rummy is a group of matching-card games notable for similar gameplay based on matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build '' melds'' which can be either sets (three or four of a k ...
,
whist Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the rules are simple, there is scope for strategic play. History Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of ''trump'' ...
,
auction bridge The card game auction bridge was the third step in the evolution of the general game of bridge. It was developed from bridge whist in 1904, possibly by 1900. Auction bridge was the precursor to contract bridge. Its predecessors were whist and brid ...
,
contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions o ...
and other bridge variations, and many more. Foster also wrote on other games such as
mahjong Mahjong or mah-jongg (English pronunciation: ) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is commonly played by four players (with some three-play ...
,
dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...
,
chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
, and
dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...
. * ''Foster's Whist Manual: A Complete System of Instruction in the Game'' (New York: Brentano's, 1890), ; (London: Mudie & Sons, 1890), ; expanded 3rd ed. "with American leads", 1894, Brentano's, , facsimile 2005, Cosimo Classics, , * ''Foster's Complete Hoyle: An Encyclopedia of All the Indoor Games Played at the Present Day With Suggestions for Good Play, a Full Code of Laws. Illustrative Hands. And a Brief Statement of the Doctrine of Chance as Applied to Games'' (1897), 625 pp. – after the 1740s–50s treatises by
Edmond Hoyle Edmond Hoyle (167229 August 1769) was an English writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" (meaning "strictly according to the rules") came into the language as a reflection of his gene ...
* ''Foster's Common Sense in Whist'' (1898)
facsimile
at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* ''Foster, Robert Frederick: Poker'' (1901) * ''Foster's Bridge'' (1902) * ''Foster, Robert Frederick: Foster's Practical Poker'' (1904) * ''Foster's Complete Hoyle: An Encyclopedia of Games'' (1909) * ''Foster, Robert Frederick: Pocket Laws of Poker'' (1910) * ''Cooncan (Conquián): A Game of Cards also Called "Rum"'' (NY: Frederick A. Stokes, 1913),
full-text reproduction
at rummy-games.com (now in the public domain); 2007 print edition, * ''Foster's Pirate Bridge: The Latest Development of Auction Bridge with the Full Code of the Official Laws'' (1917) *
Foster's Skat Manual
' (1922) * ''Foster's Modern Bridge Tactics: A Complete Exposition of the Lates Theories of Four-card Suit Bids, Approaching Bids, and Suit Distribution, Together with an Entirely New Theory of the No-trumper'' (1925)


Contributions to whist and bridge

Foster invented or developed: *Self-playing Cards for Whist, Self-playing Cards for Bridge, and an improved design for Whist Markers. *The Foster Echo, an unblocking play against notrump intended to show count. *The Rule of Eleven. Foster claims to have invented the Rule of Eleven in the winter of 1880-81. The rule is explained in the first edition of his ''Foster's Whist Manual'' of 1890Francis (2001), p. 399, notes that while Foster is generally credited with first writing about the rule in 1890, "it is said to have been discovered independently by E.M.F. Benecke of Oxford at about the same time". and is a means for opener's partner to infer how many cards held by declarer are higher in rank than the card led; likewise, declarer can infer the same information about his right-hand-opponent's holding. * The first set of laws for contract bridge.


Notelist


References


External links

* *
Robert Frederick Foster
at BridgeGuys.com. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, R.F. 1853 births 1945 deaths Contract bridge writers Card game book writers