Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.
Sheepshead is an American trick-taking card game derived from Bavaria's national card game, 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.
500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game developed in the United States from Euchre. Euchre was extended to a 10 card game with bidding and a Misere contract similar to Russian Preference, producing a good cut-throat three player game like Preference and a four player game played in partnerships like Whist which is the most popular modern form, although with special packs it can be played by up to six players. It arose in America before 1900 and was promoted by the US Playing Card Company, who copyrighted and marketed a deck with a set of rules in 1904. In 1906 the US Playing Card Company released the improved Avondale scoring table to remove bidding irregularities. 500 is a social card game and was highly popular in the United States until around 1920 when first auction bridge and then contract bridge drove it from favour. It continues to be popular in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where it has been taught through six generations community-wide, and in other countries: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Shetland. Despite its American origin, 500 is the national card game of Australia.
Euchre or eucre is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the Midwestern United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. Normally there are four players, two on each team, although there are variations for two to nine players.
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.
Spades is a trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s. It can be played as either a partnership or solo/"cutthroat" game. The object is to take the number of tricks that were bid before play of the hand began. Spades is a descendant of the Whist family of card games, which also includes Bridge, Hearts, and Oh Hell. Its major difference as compared to other Whist variants is that, instead of trump being decided by the highest bidder or at random, the Spade suit always trumps, hence the name.
A trick deck is a deck of playing cards that has been altered in some way to allow magicians to perform certain card tricks where sleight of hand would be too difficult or impractical.
Howard Thurston was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio, United States. His childhood was unhappy, and he ran away to join the circus, where his future partner Harry Kellar also performed. Thurston was deeply impressed after he attended magician Alexander Herrmann's magic show and was determined to equal his work. He eventually became the most famous magician of his time. Thurston's traveling magic show was the biggest one of all; it was so large that it needed eight train cars to transport his road show.
The Solitaire cryptographic algorithm was designed by Bruce Schneier at the request of Neal Stephenson for use in his novel Cryptonomicon, in which field agents use it to communicate securely without having to rely on electronics or having to carry incriminating tools. It was designed to be a manual cryptosystem calculated with an ordinary deck of playing cards. In Cryptonomicon, this algorithm was originally called Pontifex to hide the fact that it involved playing cards.
Out of This World is a card trick created by magician Paul Curry in 1942, in which an audience member is asked to sort a deck into piles of red and black cards, without looking at the faces. Many performers have devised their own variations of this trick. It is often billed as "the trick that fooled Winston Churchill" due to a story describing how it was performed for him during World War II. The method behind the trick is simple and essentially self-working, and can be enhanced by the presentation of the performer and the use of other principles of magic.
This is a glossary of conjuring terms used by magicians.
Spelling Bee may refer to one of several card tricks that revolve around the spelling of card types, audience member names, or words suggested by the audience. Many make use of decks prepared in advance in order to provide the illusion of spelling card names in a particular sequence. Jean Hugard's Encyclopedia of Card Tricks lists a number of such spelling-based tricks, many of which are considered to be self-working.
Juan Tamariz-Martel Negrón known professionally as Juan Tamariz or just Tamariz, is a Spanish magician.
In contract bridge, various bidding systems have been devised to enable partners to describe their hands to each other so that they may reach the optimum contract. Key to this process is that players evaluate and re-evaluate the trick-taking potential of their hands as the auction proceeds and additional information about partner's hand and the opponent's hands becomes available.
Switch, also called Two Four Jacks or Irish Switch, or Last Card, in New Zealand, is a shedding-type card game for two or more players that is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and as alternative incarnations in other regions. The sole aim of Switch is to discard all of the cards in one's hand; the first player to play his or her final card, and ergo have no cards left, wins the game. Switch is very similar to the games UNO, Flaps and Mau Mau, both belonging to the larger Crazy Eights or Shedding family of card games.
Agram is a popular trick-taking game within the last trick group. Agram originates from Niger and is related to card games in other regions of the world, including Spar or Sipa in Ghana and West Africa, and a variant Sink-Sink. In Cameroon it is called Fapfap.
A Gilbreath shuffle is a way to shuffle a deck of cards, named after mathematician Norman Gilbreath. Gilbreath's principle describes the properties of a deck that are preserved by this type of shuffle, and a Gilbreath permutation is a permutation that can be formed by a Gilbreath shuffle.
Russian Schnapsen, Thousand Schnapsen, 1000 or Tysiacha is a trick-taking game of the Ace-Ten family for three players, the aim of which is to score over 1000 points to win the game. It is a variant of the popular Austrian game of Schnapsen. Like its parent, Russian Schnapsen features "marriages" which are worth extra points.
The Rising Card is a popular category of magical illusion in which the magician causes randomly selected playing cards to spontaneously rise from the center of a deck. Many variations of this trick exist and are performed widely. The effect can be accomplished using a variety of methods and techniques, ranging from pure sleight of hand to complex electronic and mechanical solutions.
