Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although most variations can accommodate between three and six players. It was first recorded in America in the 1880s and has many variants, some of which are also referred to as "Hearts", especially the games of Black Lady and Black Maria. The game is a member of the Whist group of trick-taking games, but is unusual among Whist variants in that it is a trick-avoidance game; players avoid winning certain penalty cards in tricks, usually by avoiding winning tricks altogether. The original game of Hearts is still current but has been overtaken in popularity by Black Lady in the United States and Black Maria in Great Britain.
Oh Hell or Contract Whist is a trick-taking card game of British origin in which the object is to take exactly the number of tricks bid. It was first described by B. C. Westall around 1930 and originally called Oh! Well. It was said to have been introduced into America via the New York clubs in 1931. Phillips and Westall describe it as "one of the best round games."
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."
Pig is a simple, collecting card game of early 20th century American origin suitable for three to thirteen players that is played with a 52-card French-suited pack. It has two very similar and well known variants – Donkey and Spoons. It is often classed as a children's game. It may be descended from an old game called Vive l'Amour.
500 rum, also called pinochle rummy, Michigan rummy, Persian rummy, rummy 500 or 500 rummy, is a popular variant of rummy. The game of canasta and several other games are believed to have developed from this popular form of rummy. The distinctive feature of 500 rum is that each player scores the value of the sets or cards they meld. It may be played by 2 to 8 players, but it is best for 3 to 5.
Thirty-one or Trente et un is a gambling card game played by two to seven people, where players attempt to assemble a hand which totals 31. Such a goal has formed the whole or part of various games like Commerce, Cribbage, Trentuno, and Wit and Reason since the 15th century. 31 is popular in America and Britain.
Gnav is a traditional Danish and Norwegian social game that has been played with either special cards or wooden pieces with similar motifs. Gnav packs appeared after 1820 and the game was popular until c. 1920. The game can be played by 20 or more players, and a minimum of two. Today, only the playing card version is available in Norway.
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.
Toepen is a trick-taking Dutch card game for three to eight players, and is often played as a drinking game. Typically the number of players is 4.
Napoleon or Nap is a straightforward trick-taking game in which players receive five cards each and whoever bids the highest number of tricks chooses trumps and tries to win at least that number of tricks. It is often described as a simplified version of Euchre, although David Parlett believes it is more like "an elaboration of Rams". It has many variations throughout Northern Europe, such as Fipsen. The game has been popular in England for many years, and has given the language a slang expression, "to go nap", meaning to take five of anything. It may be less popular now than it was, but it is still played in some parts of southern England and in Strathclyde. Despite its title and allusions, it is not recorded before the last third of the nineteenth century, and may have been first named after Napoleon III.
The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but apply to a wide range of card games. For glossaries that relate primarily to one game or family of similar games, see Game-specific glossaries.
Tablanette, Tablanet, Tabinet or Tablić is a popular fishing-style card game usually played by two players or two teams of two that is popular in a wide area of the Balkans. It is similar to the English game of Cassino.
Scarto is a three player trick-taking tarot card game from Piedmont, Italy. It is a simple tarot game which can serve as an introduction to more complex tarot games. The name comes from the discarded cards that were exchanged with the stock, which is also the origin of the name for the Skat card game.
Lupfen is a card game for 3–5 players that is played mainly in west Austria and south Germany, but also in Liechtenstein. The rules vary slightly from region to region, but the basic game in each variation is identical. It is one of the Rams group of card games characterised by allowing players to drop out of the current game if they think they will be unable to win any tricks or a minimum number of tricks.
Schwimmen or Einunddreißig is a social card game for two to nine players, played with a 32-card Piquet pack, that is popular in Austria and Germany. Although it is also called Einunddreißig, this should not be confused with a predecessor of Siebzehn und Vier (Twenty-One), also called Einunddreißig. Schwimmen is German for "swimming" which refers to the last chance that a player gets before they drop out.
Pontoon, formerly called Vingt-Un, is a card game of the banking family for three to ten players and the "British domestic version of Twenty-One," a game first recorded in 17th-century Spain, but which spread to France, Germany and Britain in the late 18th century, and America during the early 19th century. It is neither a variant of nor derived from Blackjack. Both are descended from the early British version of Vingt-Un. In Britain, it first became known as Pontoon during the First World War, the name apparently being a soldier's corruption of its former French name. The game has no official rules and varies widely from place to place. It is a popular family game, but also widely played by children, students, and members of the armed forces. In 1981, Pontoon was the third most popular card game in Britain after Rummy and Whist. It has been described as "an amusing round game and one which anyone can learn in a few minutes."
Coucou ("Cuckoo") is an historical French card game that uses a pack of 32 or 52 cards and is played by five to twenty players. It is unusual for being played with only a single card in hand. As a shedding game, there is only one winner who may claim the stakes, if there are any. The game has also been called As Qui Court or Hère.
Kille, also called Harlequin, Cambio, Campio, Kambio or Kamfio, is a game played with special playing cards, dating from a mediaeval French gambling game. In Sweden, the game had its heyday during the 1750s, but it is one of the oldest card games still played.
Six-Bid Solo, Six Bid Solo or just Six-Bid for short, is a trick-taking, card game from the western United States for 3 players and is often associated with Salt Lake City. It is a member of the German Tarok group of games that originated in an attempt to play a tarot card game with standard, non-tarot cards. Six Bid Solo itself is a variant of Frog, a game very similar to south German Tapp, the Swabian version of German Tarok.
Cuccù or Cucù ("Cuckoo") is an Italian card game, over 300 years old, that is playable by two to twenty players and which uses a special pack of 40 cards. It is a comparing game in which there is only one winner, and is unusual in that each player only receives one card.
