Card game

The Card Players, 17th century painting by Theodoor Rombouts

 A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules, but most are folk games whose rules vary by region, culture, and person.
Many games that are not generally placed in the family of card games do in fact use cards for some aspect of their gameplay. Similarly, some games that are placed in the card game genre involve a board. The distinction is that the gameplay of a card game primarily depends on the use of the cards by players (the board is simply a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement), while board games (the principal non-card game genre to use cards) generally focus on the players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose.

Three Spanish playing cards, c.1500

Playing cards

Blue Rider back Bicycle Playing Cards byUSPCC

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games. Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling.

A complete set of cards is called a pack or deck, and the subset of cards held at one time by a player during a game is commonly called a hand. A deck of cards may be used for playing a great variety of card games, with varying elements of skill and chance, some of which are played for money. Because playing cards are both standardized and commonly available, they are used for other purposes, such as magic tricks, cartomancy, or building a house of cards.

The front (or "face") of each card carries markings that distinguish it from the other cards in the deck and determine its use under the rules of the game being played. The back of each card is identical for all cards in any particular deck, and usually of a single color or formalized design. Usually every card will be smooth; however, some decks have braille to allow blind people to read the card number and suit. The backs of playing cards are sometimes used for advertising.^[1] For most games, the cards are assembled into a deck, and their order is randomized by shuffling.

Some typical English-style playing cards from the Bicycle brand

A Chinese playing card dated c. 1400 AD,Ming Dynasty

A card game is played with a deck or pack of playing cards which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the face and the back. Normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are shuffled together to form a single pack or shoe.

The first playing cards appeared in the ninth century during Tang dynasty China. The first reference to the card game in world history dates no later than the 9th century, when the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Tang Dynasty writer Su E, described Princess Tongchang (daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang) playing the "leaf game" in 868 with members of the Wei clan (the family of the princess' husband). The Song dynasty statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu (simplified Chinese: 欧阳修; traditional Chinese: 歐陽脩) has noted that paper playing cards arose in connection to an earlier development in the book format from scrolls to pages.  During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), characters from popular novels such as the Water Margin were widely featured on the faces of playing cards. A precise description of Chinese money playing cards (in four suits) survived from the 15th century. Mahjong tiles are a 19th century invention based on three-suited money playing card decks, similar to the way in which Rummikub tiles were derived recently from modern Western playing cards.

The same kind of games can also be played with tiles made of wood, plastic, bone, or similar materials. The most notable examples of such tile sets are dominoes, mahjong tiles and Rummikub tiles. Chinese dominoes are also available as playing cards. It is not clear whether Emperor Muzong of Liao really played with domino cards as early as 969, thought. Legend dates the invention of dominoes in the year 1112, and the earliest known domino rules are from the following decade. 500 years later domino cards were reported as a new invention.

Mamluk playing card (king of cups), c.15th century

Playing cards first appeared in Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century. ^:35 The earliest European references speak of a Saracen or Moorish game called naib, and in fact an almost complete Mamluk Egyptian deck of 52 cards in a distinct oriental design has survived from around the same time, with the four suits swords, polo sticks, cups and coins and the ranks king, governor, second governor, and ten to one.

The 1430s in Italy saw the invention of the tarot deck, a full Latin-suited deck augmented by suitless cards with painted motifs that played a special role as trumps. Tarot, tarock and tarocchi games are still played with (subsets of) these decks in parts of Central Europe. A full tarot deck contains 14 cards in each suit; low cards labeled 1-10, and court cards Valet (Jack), Chevalier (Cavalier/Knight),Dame (Queen), and Roi (King), plus the Fool or Excuse card, and 21 trump cards. In the 18th century the card images of the traditional Italian tarot decks became popular in cartomancy and evolved into "esoteric" decks used primarily for the purpose; today most tarot decks sold in North America are the occult type, and are closely associated with fortune telling. In Europe, "playing tarot" decks remain popular for games, and have evolved since the 18th century to use regional suits (Spades/Hearts/Diamonds/Clubs in France, Leaves/Hearts/Bells/Acorns in Germany) as well as other familiar aspects of the Anglo-American deck such as corner card indices and "stamped" card symbols for non-court cards. Decks differ regionally based on the number of cards needed to play the games; the French tarot consists of the "full" 78 cards, while Germanic, Spanish and Italian Tarot variants remove certain values (usually low suited cards) from the deck, creating a deck with as few as 32 cards.
The French suits were introduced around 1480 and, in France, mostly replaced the earlier Latin suits of swords, clubs, cups and coins (which are still common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries as well as in some northern regions of Italy). The suit symbols, being very simple and single-color, could be stamped onto the playing cards to create a deck, thus only requiring special full-color card art for the court cards. This drastically simplifies the production of a deck of cards versus the traditional Italian deck, which used unique full-color art for each card in the deck. The French suits became popular in English playing cards in the 16th century (despite historic animosity between France and England), and from there were introduced to British colonies including North America. The rise of Western culture, predominantly American, has led to the near-universal popularity and availability of French-suited playing cards even in areas with their own regional card art.
After the French Revolution some games started to use the ace or 1 as the highest card which symbolized the lowest in society rising above the King.
In Japan, a distinct 48-card hanafuda deck is popular. It is derived from 16th century Portuguese decks, after undergoing a long evolution driven by laws enacted by the Tokugawa Shogunate attempting to ban the use of playing cards.
The best-known deck internationally is the Anglo-American poker deck, which is a French-suited deck of 52 cards. This deck contains 4 × 13 = 52 unique cards – one for each combination of the four French suits spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs and the thirteen ranks running from king, queen, knave, ten, nine down to two (or deuce) and ace; the trump cards and knight cards from the French playing tarot are not included. The Knave had been called a Jack as part of the terminology of All-Fours since the 17th century, but this was not common usage because the word was considered vulgar. However, because the card abbreviation for knave ("Kn") was so close to that of the King, it was very easy to confuse them, especially after suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card in order to enable people to fan them in one hand and still see all the values. The earliest known deck to place suits and rankings in the corner of the card is from 1693, but these cards did not become common until after 1864 when Hart reintroduced them along with the knave-to-jack change. However, books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century evidently still referred to the "knave", and the term with this definition is still recognized in the United Kingdom. (Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations: "He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!")
Since the 19th century some decks have been specially printed for certain games. Old Maid, Phase 10, Rook and Uno are examples of games that can be played with one or more 52 card decks but are usually played with custom decks. Cards play an important role in board games like Risk and Monopoly.

Typical structure of card games

Number and association of players

The Card Players - a painting by Paul Cézanne, 1895.

Any specific card game imposes restrictions on the number of players. The most significant dividing lines run between one-player games and two-player games, and between two-player games and multi-player games. Card games for one player are known as solitaire or patience card games. (See list of solitaire card games.) Generally speaking, they are in many ways special and atypical, although some of them have given rise to two- or multi-player games such as Spite and Malice.

In card games for two players, usually not all cards are distributed to the players, as they would otherwise have perfect information about the game state. Two-player games have always been immensely popular and include some of the most significant card games such as piquet, bezique, sixty-six, klaberjass,gin rummy and cribbage. Many multi-player games started as two-player games that were adapted to a greater number of players. For such adaptations a number of non-obvious choices must be made beginning with the choice of a game orientation.

One way of extending a two-player game to more players is by building two teams of equal size. A common case is four players in two fixed partnerships, sitting crosswise as in whist and contract bridge. Partners sit opposite to each other and cannot see each other's hands. If communication between the partners is allowed at all, then it is usually restricted to a specific list of permitted signs and signals. 17th century French partnership games such astriomphe were special in that partners sat next to each other and were allowed to communicate freely so long as they did not exchange cards or played out of order.

Another way of extending a two-player game to more players is as a cut-throat game, in which all players fight on their own, and win or lose alone. Most cut-throat card games are round games, i.e. they can be played by any number of players starting from two or three, so long as there are enough cards for all.

For some of the most interesting games such as ombre, tarot and skat (card game), the associations between players change from hand to hand. Ultimately players all play on their own, but for each hand, some game mechanism divides the players into two teams. Most typically these are solo games, i.e. games in which one player becomes the soloist and has to achieve some objective against the others, who form a team and win or lose all their points jointly. But in games for more than three players, there may also be a mechanism that selects two players who then have to play against the others.

Direction of play

The players of a card game normally form a circle around a table or other space that can hold cards. The game orientation or direction of play, which obviously is only relevant for three or more players, can be either clockwise or counter-clockwise. It is the direction in which various roles in the game proceed. Most regions have a traditional direction of play, such as:

• Counter-clockwise in most of Asia and in South America.
• Clockwise in North America and Australia.

Europe is roughly divided into a clockwise area in the north and a counter-clockwise area in the south. The boundary runs between France, Germany, Austria (mostly), the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia (clockwise) and Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey (counter-clockwise).

Games that originate in a region with a strong preference are often initially played in the original direction, even in regions that prefer the opposite direction. For games that have official rules and are played in tournaments, the direction of play is often prescribed in those rules.

Determining who deals

Most games have some form of asymmetry between players. The roles of players are normally expressed in terms of the dealer, i.e. the player whose task it is to shuffle the cards and distribute them to the players. Being the dealer can be a (minor or major) advantage or disadvantage, depending on the game. Therefore, after each played hand, the deal normally passes to the next player according to the game orientation.

As it can still be an advantage or disadvantage to be the first dealer, there are some standard methods for determining who is the first dealer. A common method is by cutting, which works as follows. One player shuffles the deck and places it on the table. Each player lifts a packet of cards from the top, reveals its bottom card, and returns it to the deck. The player who reveals the highest (or lowest) card becomes dealer. In case of a tie, the process is repeated by the tied players. For some games such as whist this process of cutting is part of the official rules, and the hierarchy of cards for the purpose of cutting (which need not be the same as that used otherwise in the game) is also specified. But in general any method can be used, such as tossing a coin in case of a two-player game, drawing cards until one player draws an ace, or rolling dice.

Hands, rounds and games

A hand is a unit of the game that begins with the dealer shuffling and dealing the cards as described below, and ends with the players scoring and the next dealer being determined. The set of cards that each player receives and holds in his or her hands is also known as that player's hand. The hand is over when the players have finished playing their hands. Most often this occurs when one player (or all) has no cards left. The player who sits after the dealer in the direction of play is known as eldest hand (or in two-player games as elder hand). A game round consists of as many hands as there are players. After each hand, the deal is passed on in the direction of play, i.e. the previous eldest hand becomes the new dealer. Normally players score points after each hand. A game may consist of a fixed number of rounds. Alternatively it can be played for a fixed number of points. In this case it is over with the hand in which a player reaches the target score.

Shuffling

Main article: Shuffling

Shuffling is the process of bringing the cards of a pack into a random order. There is a large number of techniques with various advantages and disadvantages. Riffle shuffling is a method in which the deck is divided into two roughly equal-sized halves that are bended and then released, so that the cards interlace. Repeating this process several times randomizes the deck well, but the method is harder to learn than some others and may damage the cards. The overhand shuffle and the Hindu shuffle are two techniques that work by taking batches of cards from the top of the deck and reassembling them in the opposite order. They are easier to learn but must be repeated more often. A method suitable for small children consists in spreading the cards on a large surface and moving them around before picking up the deck again. This is also the most common method for shuffling tiles such as dominoes.

For casino games that are played for large sums it is vital that the cards be properly randomised, but for many games this is less critical, and in fact player experience can suffer when the cards are shuffled too well. The official skat rules stipulate that the cards are shuffled well, but according to a decision of the German skat court, a one-handed player should ask another player to do the shuffling, rather than use a shuffling machine, as it would shuffle the cards too well. French belote rules go so far as to prescribe that the deck never be shuffled between hands.

Deal

In games where cards are distributed among players, the "deal" is the act of that distribution.

The dealer takes all of the cards in the pack, arranges them so that they are in a uniform stack, and shuffles them. In strict play, the dealer then offers the deck to the previous player (in the sense of the game direction) for cutting. If the deal is clockwise, this is the player to the dealer's right; if counterclockwise, it is the player to the dealer's left. The invitation to cut is made by placing the pack, face downward, on the table near the player who is to cut: who then lifts the upper portion of the pack clear of the lower portion and places it alongside. (Normally the two portions have about equal size. Strict rules often indicate that each portion must contain a certain minimum number of cards, such as three or five.) The formerly lower portion is then replaced on top of the formerly upper portion. Instead of cutting, one may also knock on the deck to indicate that one trusts the dealer to have shuffled fairly.

The actual deal (distribution of cards) is done in the direction of play, beginning with eldest hand. The dealer holds the pack, face down, in one hand, and removes cards from the top of it with his or her other hand to distribute to the players, placing them face down on the table in front of the players to whom they are dealt. The cards may be dealt one at a time, or in batches of more than one card; and either the entire pack or a determined number of cards are dealt out. The undealt cards, if any, are left face down in the middle of the table, forming the stock (also called the talon, widow, skat or kitty depending on the game and region).

Throughout the shuffle, cut, and deal, the dealer should prevent the players from seeing the faces of any of the cards. The players should not try to see any of the faces. Should a player accidentally see a card, other than one's own, proper etiquette would be to admit this. It is also dishonest to try to see cards as they are dealt, or to take advantage of having seen a card. Should a card accidentally become exposed, (visible to all), any player can demand a redeal (all the cards are gathered up, and the shuffle, cut, and deal are repeated) or that the card be replaced randomly into the deck ("burning" it) and a replacement dealt from the top to the player who was to receive the revealed card.

When the deal is complete, all players pick up their cards, or 'hand', and hold them in such a way that the faces can be seen by the holder of the cards but not the other players, or vice versa depending on the game. It is helpful to fan one's cards out so that if they have corner indices all their values can be seen at once. In most games, it is also useful to sort one's hand, rearranging the cards in a way appropriate to the game. For example, in a trick-taking game it may be easier to have all one's cards of the same suit together, whereas in a rummy game one might sort them by rank or by potential combinations.

Rules

A new card game starts in a small way, either as someone's invention, or as a modification of an existing game. Those playing it may agree to change the rules as they wish. The rules that they agree on become the "house rules" under which they play the game. A set of house rules may be accepted as valid by a group of players wherever they play, as it may also be accepted as governing all play within a particular house, café, or club.

When a game becomes sufficiently popular, so that people often play it with strangers, there is a need for a generally accepted set of rules. This need is often met when a particular set of house rules becomes generally recognized. For example, when Whist became popular in 18th-century England, players in the Portland Club agreed on a set of house rules for use on its premises. Players in some other clubs then agreed to follow the "Portland Club" rules, rather than go to the trouble of codifying and printing their own sets of rules. The Portland Club rules eventually became generally accepted throughout England and Western cultures.

It should be noted that there is nothing static or "official" about this process. For the majority of games, there is no one set of universal rules by which the game is played, and the most common ruleset is no more or less than that. Many widely played card games, such as Canasta and Pinochle, have no official regulating body. The most common ruleset is often determined by the most popular distribution of rulebooks for card games. Perhaps the original compilation of popular playing card games was collected by Edmund Hoyle, a self-made authority on many popular parlor games. The U.S. Playing Card Company now owns the eponymous Hoyle brand, and publishes a series of rulebooks for various families of card games that have largely standardized the games' rules in countries and languages where the rulebooks are widely distributed. However, players are free to, and often do, invent "house rules" to supplement or even largely replace the "standard" rules.

If there is a sense in which a card game can have an "official" set of rules, it is when that card game has an "official" governing body. For example, the rules of tournament bridge are governed by the World Bridge Federation, and by local bodies in various countries such as the American Contract Bridge League in the U.S., and the English Bridge Union in England. The rules of skat are governed byThe International Skat Players Association and in Germany by the Deutscher Skatverband which publishes the Skatordnung. The rules of French tarot are governed by the Fédération Française de Tarot. The rules of Poker's variants are largely traditional, but enforced by the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour organizations which sponsor tournament play. Even in these cases, the rules must only be followed exactly at games sanctioned by these governing bodies; players in less formal settings are free to implement agreed-upon supplemental or substitute rules at will.

Rule infractions

An infraction is any action which is against the rules of the game, such as playing a card when it is not one's turn to play or the accidental exposure of a card.

In many official sets of rules for card games, the rules specifying the penalties for various infractions occupy more pages than the rules specifying how to play correctly. This is tedious, but necessary for games that are played seriously. Players who intend to play a card game at a high level generally ensure before beginning that all agree on the penalties to be used. When playing privately, this will normally be a question of agreeing house rules. In a tournament there will probably be a tournament director who will enforce the rules when required and arbitrate in cases of doubt.

If a player breaks the rules of a game deliberately, this is cheating. Most card players would refuse to play cards with a known cheat. The rest of this section is therefore about accidental infractions, caused by ignorance, clumsiness, inattention, etc.

As the same game is played repeatedly among a group of players, precedents build up about how a particular infraction of the rules should be handled. For example, "Sheila just led a card when it wasn't her turn. Last week when Jo did that, we agreed ... etc." Sets of such precedents tend to become established among groups of players, and to be regarded as part of the house rules. Sets of house rules become formalized, as described in the previous section. Therefore, for some games, there is a "proper" way of handling infractions of the rules. But for many games, without governing bodies, there is no standard way of handling infractions.

In many circumstances, there is no need for special rules dealing with what happens after an infraction. As a general principle, the person who broke a rule should not benefit by it, and the other players should not lose by it. An exception to this may be made in games with fixed partnerships, in which it may be felt that the partner(s) of the person who broke a rule should also not benefit. The penalty for an accidental infraction should be as mild as reasonable, consistent with there being no possible benefit to the person responsible.

Poker

A game of Texas hold 'em in progress. "Hold 'em" is the most popular form of poker.

Poker is a family of card games involving betting and individualistic play whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of their cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or "community" cards and the number of cards that remain hidden. The betting procedures vary amongst different poker games in such ways as betting limits and splitting the pot between a high hand and a low hand. The most popular form of poker is Texas Hold'em.^{[citation needed]}

In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with some form of forced bet by one of the players. In standard poker, each player is betting that the hand he has will be the highest ranked. The action then proceeds clockwise around the table and each player in turn must either match the maximum previous bet or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further interest in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise," or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either matched the last bet or folded. If all but one player fold on any round, then the remaining player collects the pot and may choose to show or conceal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, the hands are revealed and the player with the winning hand takes the pot. With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who, at least in theory, rationally believes the bet has positive expected value. Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology and game theory.

Poker has gained in popularity since the beginning of the twentieth century, and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small groups of mostly male enthusiasts, to a widely popular spectator activity with international audiences and multi-million dollar tournament prizes, with women being a constantly growing part of that audience.

History

Main article: History of poker

English actor Joseph Crowell reported that the game was played in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable.Jonathan H. Green's book, An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (G. B. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843), described the spread of the game from there to the rest of the country by Mississippiriverboats, on which gambling was a common pastime. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, it is thought to have become a part of the frontier pioneerethos.

Soon after this spread, the full 52-card English deck^{[citation needed]} was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850 (when it was first mentioned in print in a handbook of games).^[1] During the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker (specifically five-card stud), and the straight. Further American developments followed, such as the wild card(around 1875), lowball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and community card poker games (around 1925).

Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.^[2] Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss,Amarillo Slim, Bobby Baldwin, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson. Later in the 1970s, the first serious poker strategy books appeared, notably Super/System by Doyle Brunson (ISBN 1-58042-081-8) and Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN 0-89746-100-2), followed later by The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN 1-880685-00-0). By the 1980s, poker was being depicted in popular culture as a commonplace recreational activity. For example, it was featured in at least 10 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a weekly event of the senior staff of the fictional ship's crew.^[3]In the 1990s, poker and casino gambling spread across the United States, most notably to Atlantic City, New Jersey.^[4]

Poker's popularity experienced an unprecedented spike at the beginning of the 21st century, largely because of the introduction of online poker and hole-card cameras, which turned the game into aspectator sport. Not only could viewers now follow the action and drama of the game on television, they could also play the game in the comfort of their own home.

Following the surge in popularity, new poker tours soon emerged, notably the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour, both televised and the latter sponsored by online poker company PokerStars. Subsequent tours have since been created by PokerStars, such as Latin American Poker Tour and Asia Pacific Poker Tour, as well as other national tours.

In 2009 the International Federation of Poker was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, becoming the official governing body for poker and promoting the game as a Mind Sport. In 2011 is announced plans for two new events. The Nations Cup, a duplicate poker team event, to be staged on the London Eye on the banks of the River Thames, and “The Table”, the invitation only IFP World Championship, featuring roughly 130 of the world’s best poker players, in an event to find the 2011 official World Champion.

Gameplay

In casual play, the right to deal a hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a dealer button (or buck). In a casino, a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, but the button (typically a white plastic disk) is rotated clockwise among the players to indicate a nominal dealer to determine the order of betting. The cards are dealt clockwise around the poker table, one at a time.

One or more players are usually required to make forced bets, usually either an ante or a blind bet (sometimes both). The dealer shuffles the cards, the player on the chair to their right cuts, and the dealer deals the appropriate number of cards to the players one at a time, beginning with the player to their left. Cards may be dealt either face-up or face-down, depending on the variant of poker being played. After the initial deal, the first of what may be several betting rounds begins. Between rounds, the players' hands develop in some way, often by being dealt additional cards or replacing cards previously dealt. At the end of each round, all bets are gathered into the central pot.

At any time during a betting round, if one player bets and no opponents choose to call (match) the bet and all opponents instead fold, the hand ends immediately, the bettor is awarded the pot, no cards are required to be shown, and the next hand begins. This is what makes bluffing possible. Bluffing is a primary feature of poker, one that distinguishes it from other vying games and from other games that make use of poker hand rankings.

At the end of the last betting round, if more than one player remains, there is a showdown, in which the players reveal their previously hidden cards and evaluate their hands. The player with the best hand according to the poker variant being played wins the pot. A poker hand comprises five cards; in variants where a player has more than five cards, the best five cards play.

Variants

WSOP Main Event TablePoker has many variations, all following a similar pattern of play and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are four main families of variants, largely grouped by the protocol of card-dealing and betting:

Poker has many variations, all following a similar pattern of play and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are four main families of variants, largely grouped by the protocol of card-dealing and betting:

Straight

A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as now played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, a very popular gentleman's game around the time of theAmerican Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is almost always played in a more complex form to allow for additional strategy.

Stud poker

Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.

Draw poker

A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.

Community card poker (also known as flop poker)

A variation of Stud, players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make a 5-card hand. Texas hold-em and Omaha are two most well-known variants of the community card family.

Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as poker. Video poker is a single-player video game that functions much like a slot machine; most video poker machines play draw poker, where the player bets, a hand is dealt, and the player can discard and replace cards. Payout is dependent on the hand resulting after the draw and the player's initial bet.

Strip poker is a traditional poker variation where players remove clothing when they lose bets. Since it depends only on the basic mechanic of betting in rounds, strip poker can be played with any form of poker; however, it is usually based on simple variants with few betting rounds, like five card draw.

Another game with the poker name, but with a vastly different mode of play, is called Acey-Deucey or Red Dog poker. This game is more similar to Blackjack in its layout and betting; each player bets against the house, and then is dealt two cards. For the player to win, the third card dealt (after an opportunity to raise the bet) must have a value in between the first two. Payout is based on the odds that this is possible, based on the difference in values of the first two cards. Other poker-like games played at casinos against the house include three card poker and pai gow poker.

Tarot, tarock and tarocchi games

Modern tarot deck used for French tarot

Tarot, tarock, tarocchi, (and various other spellings) are a group of card games that are played with a tarot deck. The basic rules first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425. The game of Tarot is known in many variations, mostly cultural and regional.

Tarot card games

The pack with which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot is called Tarocco in Italian, Tarock in German and various similar words in other languages. Tarot games spread to most parts of Europe, notable exceptions being the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, and the Balkans. Contrary to popular belief, Tarot cards did not precede ordinary playing cards, and they were invented not for occult but for purely gaming purposes. Only later were they used for cartomancy and divination, and also as a field for artists to display specific iconographies, often connected to some ideological system. Concrete forms appear at least since the article of Court de Gebelin in the year 1781.

Tarocchi

Italian suits are still used for games likeTarocchini.

Tarocchi (Italian, plural form of Tarocco), and similar names in other languages, is a specific form of playing card deck used for different trick-taking games. This earlier name of the game is first documented in February 1442, Ferrara.

The first basic rules for the game of Tarocco appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, the next are known from the year 1637. In Italy the game has become less popular, although one version named Ottocento, Tarocco Bolognese, has still survived. There are still other tarot games like Scarto played in Piedmont, especially Pinerolo and Turin, but the number of tarot games played outside Italy is much higher.

There seems to be a connection between the words Tarot (French) and Tarock (Germanic-Slavic) for the final name Tarocchi developed from French influence. Italian speakers of today claim that French words with an ending "-ot" had been commonly transformed in endings with "-occo" and "-occhi". The poet Francesco Berni still mocked on this word in his Capitolo del Gioco della Primiera written in 1526.

Tarocchini (or Partita) can also be played with a Tarot deck with the numbers 2-5 removed.

Tarot

Main article: French tarot

The French game of Tarot, also Jeu de Tarot, is one which uses the full 78-card Tarot deck. A typical type of Tarot playing card deck is that of the standard French design, the so-called "Tarot Nouveau", which is French-suited and has face and number layouts similar to the common 52-card deck. The "Tarot Nouveau" deck has trumps which depict scenes of traditional French social activities, in increasing levels of wealth; this differs from the character and ideological cards of the standard Italian-suited Tarot decks such as the Tarocco Piedmontese, the Tarocco Bolognese, the Rider-Waite or even the Tarot de Marseille well-known in cartomancy.

A Tarot deck corresponds in every particular with those called Tarocchi by writers of the 16th century. It consists of 56 numeral cards of four suits and 22 emblematic cards called atouts (trumps). Each suit consists of fourteen cards: ten "number" or "pip" cards, and four "court" cards, the Roi (King), Dame, (Queen), Chevalier (Knight), and Valet (Jack). Of the atouts, 21 are numbered from 1 to 21, and a non-numbered card called "Fou" ("Fool", also called "Mat" or "L'Excuse" in play) has various meanings depending on the particular Tarot variant being played (in the French game it "excuses" the player from following suit and affects scoring, while in the Italian variant it augments the value of cards captured in tricks).

According to the current state of research, the game of Tarot became known in the year 1505, in parallel in France as Taraux and in Italy as Tarocchi. An earlier form of the game had the name Trionfi or triumphs, developed later as a general term for trick-taking games (Trumpfen in German and Trump in English), although it has almost completely disappeared in its original function as deck name.

Tarock

Tarock, recorded as one of the oldest types of card games known, is extensively played in Austria and makes a good introduction to the general principles of Tarot play, serving as a springboard to more advanced 54-card, French-suited card games such as Point Tarock and Königsrufen. The game is widely played in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, and especially in the countries on the area of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, for which even the name Tarockanien has been coined: the Austrian variation of the game is thus still widely popular among all classes and generations in Slovenia and Croatia, while in Hungary different rules are applied.

The tarock decks, popular in Germany and Switzerland, use either the Latin suits of cups, coins, batons and swords, or the German suits of hearts, bells, acorns and leaves (in Switzerland, Roses and Shields are common substitutes for Hearts and Leaves). The character representations of the trump cards in non-gaming divinatory tarot is based on representations similar to those found in the Italian tarot decks; Germanic Tarot playing card decks are less likely to feature these characterizations.

Common features

Deck of cards

A complete Tarot deck such as one for French Tarot contains the full 78-card complement and can be used to play any game in the family. Austrian-Hungarian Tarock and Italian Tarocco decks, however, are a smaller subset (of 56, 54, 40, or even 36 cards) suitable only for games of a particular region. Regional tarot decks commonly feature culture-specific suits; the German suits of Hearts, Bells, Acorns and Leaves are used through most of Germanic Europe (Switzerland substitutes Hearts for Roses and Shields for Leaves), the Latin suits of Cups, Coins, Staves and Swords are common in Italy and Spain, and the French suits familiar to most English speakers are seen in France, Quebec, West Germany and most of the English-speaking world. This trend continues even to non-Tarot decks such as for the German game of Skat (played with a deck of similar-value cards as in the French piquet deck used for Belote; players in most of western Germany use French suits while players in Bavaria and eastern Germany use German suits).

Austrian-style 40-card Tarock hand: the Skys (Fool) as highest trump, trump 21 (the second highest), five other trumps, King, Queen, 1 ♥.

The 78-card tarot deck contains:

• 14 cards each in four suits (Anglo-French, German or Latin depending on the region): "pip" cards numbered one (sometimes Ace) through ten; plus four court cards, a Jack (or Knave or Valet), a Knight (or Cavalier), a Queen, and a King.
• The 21 tarots, (known in non-gaming divinatory tarot as the Major Arcana), function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps.
• The Fool, also known as the Excuse, is an unnumbered card that excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump in some variations, and that acts as the strongest trump in others.

Basic rules of play

• Play is typically counter-clockwise; the player to the right of the dealer plays to the first trick. The players must follow suit if they have the card of the suit led, otherwise either trumps or a card from another suit is played. The winner of each trick then leads to the next.
• After the hand has been played, a score is taken based on the point values of the cards in the tricks each player has managed to capture.

Common value of cards

• Oudlers (Trull) - Trumps 1, 21 and the Fool: 5 points
• Kings: 5 points
• Queens: 4 points
• Cavaliers (Knights): 3 points
• Knaves (Jacks): 2 points
• Pip cards: fraction of a point

The cards are usually counted in groups of two or three depending on the game. After the hand has been played, a score is taken based on the point values of the cards in the tricks each player has managed to capture.

For the purpose of the rules, the numbering of the trumps are the only thing that matters. The symbolic tarot images customary in non-gaming divinatory tarots have no effect in the game itself. The design traditions of these decks subsequently evolved independently and they often bear only numbers and whimsical scenes arbitrarily chosen by the engraver. However there are still traditional sequences of images in which the common lineage is visible; e.g. the moon that is commonly visible at the bottom left corner of the trump card 21 stems from confusion of the German wordMond, meaning Moon, with Italian mondo and French monde, meaning "world", the usual symbol associated with the trump card 21 on Italian suited tarots and in non-gaming divinatory tarot.

In tarot decks made for playing the game, as opposed to those made for divination or other esoteric uses, the four Latin suits are replaced in many regions with the French suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Some variations of the game are played with a 54-card deck (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of hearts and diamonds and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of spades and clubs are discarded).

References

1. ^ Description of the Michelino deck - Translated text at Trionfi.com
2. ^ ^a b c David Parlett, Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, pg. 300 Oxford University Press (1996) ISBN 0-19-869173-4
3. ^ "The Tarot pack was invented in northern Italy in about 1425 [...]. A plethora of references to the cards, from Italy in the XV century [...] testify to their use as instruments in a special kind of card game. None associates them with the occult, and only one very dubious one hints at a use of them to read individual characters. It was not until the XVIII century that the use of them for divination became widespread in Bologna and France. Their association with the occult originated exclusively in France; neither it nor their use in fortune-telling was propagated in print until 1781." Dummett & McLeod 2004a, p. 1f
4. ^ "A third particularity [...] is how widespread is the blanket of darkness enveloping everything to do with Tarots in particular. [...] The ignorance is largely fostered and reinforced by writers of books on the mystic side of tarot who assert without evidence that tarot-cards were originally invented for fortune telling and only subsequently adapted to the 'less serious' business of gaming – whereas, as our authors patiently explain, the fact of the matter is precisely the reverse." David Parlett in the preface to Dummett & McLeod 2004a.
5. ^ Samuel Weller Singer, Researches into the history of playing cards pg. 28 London 1816
   "Let him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the only signification of this word Tarocco,
   is stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by bakers, cobblers, and the vulgar."
6. ^ Italian-suited Tarot decks at Pagat.com

Illuminati (Card game)

Illuminati is a standalone card game made by Steve Jackson Games (SJG), inspired by The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. The game has ominous secret societies competing with each other to control the world through sinister means, including legal, illegal, and even mystical. It was designed as a "tongue-in-cheek rather than serious" take on conspiracy theories. It contains groups named similarly to real world organizations, such as the Society for Creative Anachronism. It can be played by two to eight players. Depending on the number of players, a game can take between one and six hours.

German Illuminati game components
Designer(s)	Steve Jackson
Publisher(s)	Steve Jackson Games
Players	2–8 (4–6 recommended)
Age range	8 +
Setup time	1–5 minutes
Playing time	1 to 6 hours
Random chance	Medium
Skill(s) required	Strategic thought, Deal Making,Bluffing

German Illuminati game components

Steve Jackson

Steve Jackson Games

2–8 (4–6 recommended)

8 +

1–5 minutes

1 to 6 hours

Medium

Strategic thought, Deal Making,Bluffing

Genesis of game

In September 1981, Steve Jackson and his regular freelance cover artist Dave Martin discussed their shared admiration of the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the latter suggested a game. Steve Jackson decided against adapting the novel because of the expense of game rights, and the difficulty of adapting a novel with such convoluted plots. He decided "a game about the secret-conspiracy idea behind Illuminatus!" was doable. After doing research on the Illuminatiand conspiracy theories, and "extensive and enthusiastic playtesting" it went on the market in July 1982 in the Pocket Box format (a plastic box the size of a mass-market paperback) which was at the time the usual for SJG. Over the next few years, three expansions for the Pocket Box Illuminati game were published—the first two were substantially incorporated into the deluxe edition, while the third was an earlier version of what would become Illuminati: Brainwash.

Robert Shea provided a four-paragraph introduction to the rulebook for the Illuminati Expansion Set 1 (1983), in which he wrote, "Maybe the Illuminati are behind this game. They must be—they are, by definition, behind everything." Despite this initial involvement, Wilson later criticized some of these products for exploiting the Illuminatus! name without paying royalties (taking advantage of what he viewed as a legal loophole). Later commentators have attributed both the game and the Illuminatus! Trilogy as using real conspiracies as "targets of ridicule."

Illuminati card

Iluminati card

Description

A game of Illuminati in progress.

The game is played with a deck of special cards, money chips (representing millions of dollars in low-denomination unmarked banknotes) and two six-sided dice. There are three types of cards:

• Illuminati
• groups
• special cards

The players take role of Illuminati societies that struggle to take over the world. The Pocket Box edition depicted six Illuminati groups: The Bavarian Illuminati, The Discordian Society, The UFOs, The Servants of Cthulhu, The Bermuda Triangle, and The Gnomes of Zürich. The deluxe edition added the Society of Assassins and The Network, and the Illuminati Y2K expansion added the Church of The SubGenius and Shangri-La.

The world is represented by group cards such as Secret Masters of Fandom, the CIA, The International Communist Conspiracy, Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow, California, and many more – there are over 300 official cards available. Every group and Illuminati has some Power, Resistance and Income values; most of the world groups have an Alignment. The game is written with the usual SJG humor. The game uses a multitude of conspiracy theory in-jokes, with cards such as the Boy Sprouts (where sinister youth leaders influence the world leaders of tomorrow), the Orbital Mind Control Lasers, the Mafia, two headed Anti-Nuclear Activists, or Trekkies.

Special cards represent unexpected phenomena and features, for example increasing Income or Resistance of a group.

The game is played in turns. The primary Illuminati (player) activity is taking control of groups. During an attack to take control, the attacker must overcome the Resistance of attacked groups with combined Power of his groups (affected by Alignment of attacker and attacked), money spent, and influence of special cards. The attacked group can be defended by spending money and special cards by other players (especially by the controlling Illuminati if the group is already controlled). After a successful attack to take control, the card is placed (along the special markers) next to Illuminati, or another already controlled group forming a power structure.

Each group has its own money, best marked by placing each group's money counters on that group. Money is moved slowly, only one step at a time between groups once per turn. Money in the Illuminated group is accessible for defense of or attacks on all groups in the entire world. Money in the groups can only be used in attacks by or against that group, but gives double defense bonus when spent.

Other types of attacks are attacks to neutralize (a neutralized group is removed from attacked Illuminati power structure and returns to the table - to the world) and attack to destroy (destroyed groups are removed from the game).

Besides attacking groups and themselves the players can trade, form alliances, and many other activities. In one variant of the game, players are allowed to cheat, steal money from the table and do anything it takes to win.

The aim of the game is fulfilled when Illuminati build a power structure consisting of given number of cards (depending on number of players), or when Illuminati fulfill its special goal, such as controlling at least one card of each alignment (the Bermuda Triangle), controlling a combined power of 35 (the Bavarian Illuminati) or hoarding 150 megabucks of money (the Gnomes of Zürich).

Although the game can support two to ten players, a group of four or five is considered ideal. Some Illuminati might seem unbalanced, such as the extremely high-income Gnomes and the low-level Discordians, but sometimes their true value is not visible at first or valuable only in certain circumstances. Planning the power structure is important, since groups close to the Illuminated core have a defense bonus. Also, groups can "block" each others control arrows, through which groups control other groups. The flow of money is also important, as a large lump of it will boost defensive/offensive of the owning group when spent. Tactics such as playing opponents off each other, backstabbing and concealing your true motives are encouraged in this game.

The game has attained cult status in some circles, been referenced in some geek media (like User Friendly comic strip). It is also mentioned in Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons, which concerns an apparent attack by the revived Illuminati; the game is referred to as an online computer game, but references to Steve Jackson make clear that the reference is to this game. 

Illuminati Card Game release in 1994.

Expansions

Available expansion sets are:

• Illuminati: Brainwash
• Illuminati: Y2K
• Illuminati: Bavarian Fire Drill

Illuminati: Y2K brought two new Illuminati groups to the deck (Shangri-La and The Church of the SubGenius), many non-Illuminated new groups, and a minor optional rule of canceling privilege status in attacks for control.

Brainwash is a set of optional rules for brainwashing (altering the alignment of one group), propaganda (represented by an included special gameboard - altering the power and Income of all groups of given Alignment), adding attributes to groups, and a few minor optional rules.

Bavarian Fire Drill adds 110 new cards, including Artifacts (a new type of card) and several new groups.

In issue #72 of Space Gamer, Bill Cassel presented an unofficial expansion entitled "The Pythonated Illuminati", which added cards based on the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Related games

Steve Jackson Games also released a collectible card game version called Illuminati: New World Order and a stand-alone version called Illuminati: Crime Lords. SJG also developed some Illuminated role-playing game modules for its GURPS system, including GURPS Illuminati, GURPS Illuminati University and GURPS Warehouse 23.

SJG also released two related games. One is the recent Illuminati: Crime Lords where the players control mobs in attempt to take over a city. This is a separate game based on a similar rules set. The other one is Hacker which is also similar to the original Illuminati (modulo terminology), but the players fight for the control of computer networks. It is more loose, and based primarily on interlocking access to different computer systems in the web. Players are not set directly towards each other, and several players can share access to a system.

Adventure Systems created a Play-by-mail game (PBM) version of Illuminati, based on and licensed from the Steve Jackson game, with many modifications. The game was eventually purchased, and is now run, by Flying Buffalo. The designer, Draper Kauffman, had been trying to develop a "global strategy game" for many years when he received a copy of Illuminati. Recalling the creation of the PBM version, Kauffman wrote, "It wasn't long before I found that every problem in my own game design had a suspiciously similar solution: 'Hey, how about if we just handle that like they did in Illuminati?"

Awards

• Illuminati won the Origins Award for Best Science Fiction Boardgame of 1982.
• GURPS Illuminati won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1992.
• Illuminati: New World Order won the Origins Award for Best Card Game of 1994.
• Illuminati PBM won the Origins Award for Best Play-by-Mail Game of 1985, 1990–1994, tied in 1995 with Middle-earth PBM, and was then added to their Hall of Fame in 1997.

References

1. ^ Jackson, Steve. "Illuminati Designer Article". Steve Jackson Games. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
2. ^ Sarrett, Peter. "Desert Island Games". The Game Report.
3. ^ Disinformation Website: In the RAW: Necessary Heresies originally published in REVelation magazine (#13, Autumn, 1995) pp. 36–40 "RAW recently criticised several games companies who have marketed products exploiting Illuminatus! and the Discordians, and are able to escape paying royalties through legal loop-holes." (URL accessed 28 February)
4. ^ Payne, Pat (2001-05-22). "Illuminating paranoia". Oregon Daily Emerald. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
5. ^ Dan Brown, Angels & Demons (paprback edition) (New York: Pocket Books, 2001), 99, 257-258.

• Jackson, Steve (1982). "The Truth Behind ILLUMINATI". Adventure Gaming 2 (3): 11–13.
• Kauffman, Draper (1985). "Illuminati PBM Designer's Notes". Space Gamer 72: 29.
• Award Winners - Origins International Game Expo

External links

• The official Illuminati game home page
• The official Illuminati PBM game home page
• Illuminati: Deluxe Edition at BoardGameGeek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Google.com