A wild card in card games is one that may be used to represent any other playing card, sometimes with certain restrictions. Jokers are often used as wild cards, but other cards may be designated as wild by the rules or by agreement. In addition to their use in card games played with a standard pack, wild cards may also exist in dedicated deck card games, such as the 'Master' card in Lexicon.
In poker, the nut hand is the strongest possible hand in a given situation. The second-nut hand or third-nut hand may refer to the second and third best possible hands. The term applies mostly to community card poker games where the individual holding the strongest possible hand, with the given board of community cards, is capable of knowing that they have the nut hand.
In a poker game with more than one betting round, an out is any unseen card that, if drawn, will improve a player's hand to one that is likely to win. Knowing the number of outs a player has is an important part of poker strategy. For example, in draw poker, a hand with four diamonds has nine outs to make a flush: there are 13 diamonds in the deck, and four of them have been seen. If a player has two small pairs, and he believes that it will be necessary for him to make a full house to win, then he has four outs: the two remaining cards of each rank that he holds.
Omaha hold 'em is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make their best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd, who offered it as a game at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino. Omaha uses a 52-card French deck. Omaha hold 'em 8-or-better is the "O" game featured in H.O.R.S.E.
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.
Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River, is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was one of the most widely played poker variants in home games across the United States and in casinos in the eastern part of the country. Although seven-card stud is not as common in casinos today, it is still played online. The game is commonly played with two to eight players; however, eight may require special rules for the last cards dealt if no players fold. Playing with nine players is possible.
Skat, historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assess that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football.
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, where one side, usually bearing a colourful or complex pattern, is exactly identical on all playing cards, thus ensuring the anonymity and fungibility of the cards when their value is to be kept secret, and a second side, that, when apparent, is unique to every individual card in a deck, usually bearing a suit as well as a alphanumerical value, which may be used to distinguish the card in game mechanics. 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:
Polish Club is a bridge bidding system which was developed in Poland, where it is the most popular bidding system, and which is also used by players of other countries. It is a type of small club system.
In contract bridge, the trump squeeze is a variant of the simple squeeze in which one threat is a suit that if unguarded can be established by ruffing.
Zar Points (ZP) is a statistically derived method for evaluating contract bridge hands developed by Zar Petkov. The statistical research Petkov conducted in the areas of hand evaluation and bidding is useful to bridge players, regardless of their bidding or hand evaluation system. The research showed that the Milton Work point count method, even when adjusted for distribution, is not sufficiently accurate in evaluating all hands. As a result, players often make incorrect or sub-optimal bids. Zar Points are designed to take many additional factors into consideration by assigning points to each factor based on statistical weight. While most of these factors are already implicitly taken into account by experienced players, Zar Points provides a quantitative method that allows them to be incorporated into bidding.
Doppelkopf, sometimes abbreviated to Doko, is a trick-taking card game for four players.
The Useful Space Principle, or USP, in the game of contract bridge was first articulated in a series of six articles in The Bridge World, published from November 1980 through April 1981. The USP is expressed succinctly in The Bridge World glossary as "a partnership's assigning meanings to actions so that the remaining bidding space matches the needs of the auction."
Konter a Matt, Kontra a Matt or Konter a Midd is a Luxembourgish trick-taking card game played by four players. The game is popular enough to have been televised on RTL, Luxembourg's leading TV station and for tournaments to be organised. Konter a Matt is one of a family of similar games, known as the Couillon Group, played in the Benelux area. Other games in the family include the Belgian game of Couillon, known as Kwajongen in Flemish areas and Kujong in Luxembourg, the Dutch game of Troeven and the Belgian games of Brûte and Gamelle.
Gong Zhu (拱猪) is a Chinese four-player trick-taking card game that is similar to Black Lady, the leading member of the Hearts family. However, it differs in that it assigns quite different point values to cards. The objective of the game is to score positive points and avoid penalty points. Gong Zhu means: Push Out the Pig, for "pig" is the name given to the Q♠.
Machiavelli is an Italian card game derived from Rummy and is usually played by 2 up to 5 players, but can be played by even a higher number. Because of its characteristics, it is not generally associated with gambling, but is instead a party game.
Officers' Skat (Offiziersskat), is a trick-taking card game for two players which is based on the rules of Skat. It may be played with a German or French pack of 32 cards which, from the outset of the game, are laid out in rows both face down and face up. As in Skat, tricks are taken and card points counted to determine the winner of a round; game points are then awarded to decide the winner of a game. There are several local variations of the game, which differ mainly in the number of cards revealed or hidden and the calculation of points.
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