A four-color deck (US) or four-colour pack (UK) is a deck of playing cards identical to the standard French deck except for the color of the suits. In a typical English four-color deck, hearts are red and spades are black as usual, but clubs are green and diamonds are blue.[2] However, other color combinations have been used over the centuries, in other areas or for certain games.
Four-color decks made for trick-taking games such as bridge, whist, or jass are often called no-revoke decks because they are perceived to reduce the risk of a player accidentally revoking (illegally playing a card of a suit other than that led). Dozens of card manufacturers have developed four-colored suit cards for bridge during the 1900s and continue into this century.
The earliest such deck in the US is by J. Y. Humphreys who created the "Seminole Wars Deck" in 1819, which had four colored suits of blue spades, green clubs, red hearts and yellow diamonds.[3]
In the German game of skat the official tournament standard since the 1990s is to use a no-revoke deck known as a Turnierbild deck. In these decks, spades are green and diamonds are yellow, the clubs and hearts being respectively black and red as normal, which also reflects the suit order: clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds. This is intended as a compromise for players (typically from former East Germany) who prefer German suits over French; the green spades translate to leaves and the yellow diamonds to bells in the German suits.[2]
In 1922, August Petryl & Son produced a tarock deck with black clubs, yellow diamonds, pink hearts, and green spades in the United States. They were sold in two versions, a full 78-card deck and a 54-card deck.[3] The smaller deck is structured the same as Industrie und Glück decks as it was designed to play a variant of Königrufen.[4]
The basic principle of this is to forestall any confusion of suits, especially in trick playing games in which following of suit led properly is a necessity, by altering one black suit and one red suit in some manner. The usual method of accomplishing this means is by alteration of color. Historically, the usual changes have been with diamonds yellow or orange and clubs green, although in more recent times, an increasingly large number of such decks have been produced in which diamonds are blue. Over the years, numerous other color changes have been used.
While change of color is the most usual method, it should be pointed out that other methods have been used. Below are some examples:
In 1906, the Willis W. Russell Co. of Milltown, N.J. produced a line of decks entitled, "Russell's Regulars," "Regents" and "Recruits" in which the spades and hearts had shaded out centers, with the suit symbols merely outlined. This was advertised as the "Decks with the Long Distance Pips," designed for a declarer at a game of Bridge playing from a dummy. However, the indexes were not included in this modification. As these decks were also produced in Pinochle format, it is difficult to see the advantages as this deck was designed.
The Le Febure Co. produced a deck in 1926 entitled "Nufashion" aimed at resolving this issue. In this deck the diamonds and clubs had hollowed out centers that could be very clearly seen' in addition, the indexes were included in this modification.
This was followed by John Waddington of London in 1936, with a deck in which the centers were shaded out, with miniature squares within the outlines of the diamonds and clubs. Also in 1936, the Universal Playing Card Co. of Leeds, in its Crown Point Works, produced a similar deck in which it was the hearts and clubs that exhibited shaded out centers, with the symbols merely outlined.
Yet other methods have been used to the same ends. In 1926, the United States Playing Card Co. produced its New Index Self Sorting deck, in which the indexes were altered so that on the spades and hearts the positioning of the designations were reversed; i.e., the suit symbol on those suits appeared above the rank rather than in the normal position below. On older editions of these cards, the full designation appears on each card around the edges as well as in the corner indexes.
The Household Paper Products Co. in its Western Playing Card Co. line produced a deck in 1935 in which the corners where the indexes are situated on the diamonds and clubs were shaded diagonally around the corners across the indexes, with pink shading on the diamonds and gray shading on the clubs. This was advertised as "The Deck with the Danger Signals."
More recently, in 1973, Öbergs of Sweden produced a deck in which the entire backgrounds of the diamond and club suit cards were flesh colored. However, the backs of these cards were variously numbered as 1 to 4 so this must have been intended for a special game.[citation needed][clarification needed]
In 1933, Grimaud of France, in its Olympic Piquet deck (32 cards, 7 low) produced a deck in which the indexes were enclosed in oblong boxes appearing in reverse shading, with white designations on a black or red background, on the spades and diamonds.
The Turbo deck currently on sale carries this idea a step further by modifying the entire face of the card in this manner, on the clubs and diamonds.
Much of this latter information was obtained by copying information from the playing card collection of Albert W. Field.
Poker
A four-color deck for poker using the black spades, red hearts, green clubs, and blue diamonds was developed and publicized by Mike Caro. It was introduced at his World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino in 1992. His original design was not a success as the colors were a surprise to players.[1] The World Poker Tour uses the same colors as Caro's deck to display the players' cards for increased visibility on small television screens.
Four-color decks have become a somewhat popular option in online poker software interfaces since often each player may use their preferred design of playing cards without affecting others' experience, and since visibility is not as good on a small screen as in face-to-face play, especially as many online players play multiple tables simultaneously, with shorter time limits in which to make decisions. Having each suit represented by a different color can allow players to more easily recognize a flush.
Related Research Articles
Sheepshead is an American trick-taking card game derived from Bavaria's national card game, Schafkopf, hence it is sometimes called American Schafkopf. Sheepshead is most commonly played by five players, but variants exist to allow for two to eight players. There are also many other variants to the game rules, and many slang terms used with the game.
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.
Black lady is an American card game of the hearts group for three to six players and the most popular of the group. It emerged in the early 20th century as an elaboration of hearts and was initially also called discard hearts. It is named after its highest penalty card, the queen of spades or "black lady". It is a trick-avoidance game in which the aim is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts or the black lady. American author and leading bridge exponent, Ely Culbertson, describes it as "essentially hearts with the addition of the queen of spades as a minus card, counting thirteen" and goes on to say that "black lady and its elaborations have completely overshadowed the original hearts in popularity".
An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades. This embellishment on the ace of spades started when King James VI of Scotland and I of England required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new stamp tax. Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers. In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.
Pips are small but easily countable items, such as the dots on dominoes and dice, or the symbols on a playing card that denote its suit and value.
Concentration is a round game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards.
In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it, except on face cards. Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game. In a single deck, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers.
Clubs is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. The symbol was derived from that of the suit of Acorns in a German deck when French suits were invented in around 1480.
The Joker is a playing card found in most modern French-suited card decks, as an addition to the standard four suits. Since the second half of the 20th century, they have also been found in Spanish- and Italian-suited decks, excluding stripped decks.
The king is a playing card with a picture of a king displayed on it. The king is usually the highest-ranking face card. In the French version of playing cards and tarot decks, the king immediately outranks the queen. In Italian and Spanish playing cards, the king immediately outranks the knight. In German and Swiss playing cards, the king immediately outranks the Ober. In some games, the king is the highest-ranked card; in others, the Ace is higher. Aces began outranking kings around 1500 with Trappola being the earliest known game in which the aces were highest in all four suits. In the ace–ten family of games such as pinochle and Schnapsen, both the ace and the 10 rank higher than the king.
Big two is a card game of Cantonese origin. It is similar to the games of Zheng Shangyou, daifugō, president, crazy eights, cheat, and other shedding games. The game is very popular in East Asia and in Southeast Asia, especially throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Macau, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. It is played both casually and as a gambling game. It is usually played with two to four players, the entire deck being dealt out in either case. The objective of the game is to be the first to play off all of one's cards.
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used alongside other traditional, often older, standard packs with different suit systems such as those with German-, Italian-, Spanish- or Swiss suits. The most common pattern of French-suited cards worldwide and the only one commonly available in English-speaking countries is the English pattern pack. The second most common is the Belgian-Genoese pattern, designed in France, but whose use spread to Spain, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and much of North Africa and the Middle East. In addition to those, there are other major international and regional patterns including standard 52-card packs, for example, in Italy that use Italian-suited cards. In other regions, such as Spain and Switzerland, the traditional standard pack comprises 36, 40 or 48 cards.
High card by suit and low card by suit refer to assigning relative values to playing cards of equal rank based on their suit. When suit ranking is applied, the most common conventions from lowest to highest are:
Spades is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. It has the same shape as the leaf symbol in German-suited playing cards but its appearance is more akin to that of an upside down black heart with a stalk at its base. It symbolises the pike or halberd, two medieval weapons, but is actually an adaptation of the German suit symbol of Leaves created when French suits were invented around 1480.
Diamonds is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. It is the only French suit to not have been adapted from the German deck, taking the place of the suit of Bells.
Rummoli is a family card game for two to eight people. This Canadian board game, first marketed in 1940 by the Copp Clark Publishing Company of Toronto requires a Rummoli board, a deck of playing cards, and chips or coins to play. The game is usually played for fun, or for small stakes. Rummoli is one of the more popular versions of the Stops Group of matching card games, in particular it falls into a subgroup of stops games based on the German Poch and falls into a family of Poch variants such as the French Nain Jaune, the Victorian Pope Joan but most like the American game Tripoley which debuted eight years earlier in Chicago in 1932.
The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is used for playing card games in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for divinatory purposes. This deck is most commonly found in France, Belgian Wallonia, Swiss Romandy and Canadian Québec for playing French Tarot; in southwest Germany for playing Cego and Dreierles; and in Denmark for Danish Tarok.
The queen of spades is one of 52 playing cards in a standard deck: the queen of the suit of spades. In Old Maid and several games of the Hearts family, it serves as a single, powerful card in the deck.
French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of trèfles, carreaux, cœurs, and piques. Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. In a standard 52-card deck these are the valet, the dame, and the roi (king). In addition, in Tarot packs, there is a cavalier (cavalier) ranking between the queen and the jack. Aside from these aspects, decks can include a wide variety of regional and national patterns, which often have different deck sizes. In comparison to Spanish, Italian, German, and Swiss playing cards, French cards are the most widespread due to the geopolitical, commercial, and cultural influence of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other reasons for their popularity were the simplicity of the suit insignia, which simplifies mass production, and the popularity of whist and contract bridge. The English pattern of French-suited cards is so widespread that it is also known as the International or Anglo-American pattern.
Five-suit bridge is a late 1930s variation of contract bridge played with a deck of 65 playing cards divided into five suits.
References
1 2 McHaffie, Diane (February 2006), "Mike Caro's Four Color Deck", Poker Player
1 2 3 Dawson, Tom; Dawson, Judy (2014). The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards (2nded.). New York: Conjuring Arts Research Center. pp.233–238.
↑ Dummett, Michael; McLeod, John (2009). A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack (Supplemented.). Oxford: Maproom Publications. pp.S 39-S 43.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
