Card game is a game of chance or skill played with oblong pieces of thin cardboard. Each piece, or card, has certain spots and figures. Hundreds of games can be played with cards. Various numbers of players take part, depending on the game. Solitaire, or patience, as it used to be called, provides entertainment for one person. Casino is usually played by two people. Two, three, or four may play cribbage or pinochle. Four people play bridge or whist. The game of canasta calls for from two to six players. Poker can be played by as many as 10.
Other popular card games include gin rummy, hearts, euchre, skat, blackjack, five hundred, red dog, and piquet. Each game has its own set of rules.
Playing cards.
There are 52 playing cards in a set, also called a deck or pack. The 52 cards are divided into four suits of 13 cards each. There are two black suits (spades and clubs) and two red suits (hearts and diamonds). Each suit includes 10 spot cards that range from 1 (ace) through 10. Each suit also has three face (picture) cards: jack (knave), queen, and king. These cards do not picture modern royalty but are stylized drawings that probably originated during the Middle Ages. In many games, such as poker, the ace is the highest card. But, in some, the ace is used as 1 and the king ranks highest. Some games, such as pinochle and canasta, use parts of two decks, or a combination of decks.
History.
Playing cards probably originated in China about A. D. 1100. How they came to Europe is not certain, but they had appeared in Italy and other European countries by the 1300’s. Soon after, cards spread to Germany, France, and Spain. The four suits originated in France in the 1500’s. An object shaped like a clover leaf marked the suit called trefle, now known as the club suit. The tip of a pike marked the pique suit, now called the spade. The third suit was called coeur, the French word for heart. The name of the fourth suit, carreau, means square, but the suit is called diamond because of its diamond-shaped spot.
