"Black Suit" redirects here. For the Spider-Man black suit see Symbiote (comics)

The four French playing card suits used primarily in the English-speaking world: spades(♠), hearts(♥), diamonds(♦) and clubs(♣).

In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card. Most card decks also have a rank for each card, and may include special cards in the deck that belong to no suit. In card games, trumps frequently figure in trick-taking games such as bridge, euchre, and spades. ... Spider-Man swinging around his hometown, New York City. ... A symbiote, in Marvel Comics fictional universe, is a living alien organism that bonds with another living organism (usually a human, although it may bond with non-human animals) in order to survive. ... Image File history File links 4suits. ... Image File history File links 4suits. ... For the Russian group of artists, see Jack of Diamonds (artists). ... Spades (â™ ) is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Hearts (♥) is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Diamonds () is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Clubs (♣) is one of the four suits found in playing cards, marked with a black trefoil; the term is translated from the Spanish basto (clover). ... Some typical modern playing cards. ...

Traditional Western playing cards

A set of 52 playing cards.

Although many different types of deck have been known and used in Europe since the introduction of playing cards around the 14th century (see playing cards)—and several different ones are still used in various regions for various games—almost all of them have in common that: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1542x756, 1089 KB) I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I AM A VISITOR AND THAT EVERYONE CAN EDIT THIS PAGE File links The following pages link to this file: Playing card Suit (cards) ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1542x756, 1089 KB) I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I AM A VISITOR AND THAT EVERYONE CAN EDIT THIS PAGE File links The following pages link to this file: Playing card Suit (cards) ... For the Russian group of artists, see Jack of Diamonds (artists). ...

• there are exactly four suits (possibly with the addition of some non-suited cards, see below);
• the cards within each suit are distinguished from one another by bearing different numbers or names, known as ranks;
• the ranks serve the explicit purpose of indicating which cards within a suit are "better", "higher" or "more valuable" than others, whereas there is no order between the different suits; and
• there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit.

The differences between European decks are mostly in the number of cards in each suit (for example, thirteen in the commonly-known Anglo-American deck, fourteen in the French Tarot, eight in some games in Germany and Austria, ten in Italy, five in Hungarian Illustrated Tarock) and in the inclusion or exclusion of an extra series of (usually) twenty-one numbered cards known as tarocks or trumps, sometimes considered as a fifth suit, but more properly regarded as a group of special suitless cards, to form what is known as a Tarot deck. It has been suggested that Tarocchi be merged into this article or section. ... Tarocchi, also known as tarock, is a trick-taking game, and one of the oldest card games known. ... Tarocchi, also known as tarock, is a trick-taking game, and one of the oldest card games known. ... This article is about the general history, iconography, and uses of tarot cards. ...

The four aces of the Italo-Spanish deck.

The Spanish-style suits are the original suits (which is why the English term 'spade' refers not to the tool, but derived from the Spanish word for sword, which this suit represents), the suits found on the divinatory Tarot deck, and the suits found in the oldest surviving European decks. The French style suits became popular after they were introduced, largely because cards using those suits were less expensive to manufacture; the traditional suits required a woodcut for each card, while with the French suits the "pip" cards—the cards containing only a certain number of the suit objects—could be made by stencils, and only the "court" cards, the cards with human figures, required woodcuts. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (824x1118, 153 KB)[edit] Summary The four aces present in the baraja, from the deck made by Heraclio Fournier. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (824x1118, 153 KB)[edit] Summary The four aces present in the baraja, from the deck made by Heraclio Fournier. ... The four aces of the Spanish playing cards (naipes), as styled in the best-selling deck made by Heraclio Fournier. ... Four horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Dürer Ukiyo-e woodcut, Ishiyama Moon by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1889) Woodcut is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface... Visual diagram of a basic stencil. ...

The following table shows the original equivalence between various names and designs used for the suits in traditional decks in different parts of Europe. It does not show every country individually (for example, France and Denmark have 78-card Tarot decks, but they use the familiar hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs), although Anglo-American decks are known in every country, and would be used for imported games such as bridge.

Traditional Western Playing Cards
Culture	Suit
Anglo-Hispano*-French suits	Hearts (♥) (Cœurs, Corazones Hearts)	Diamonds (♦) (Carreaux, Diamantes Squares, Diamonds)	Clubs (♣) (Trèfles, Tréboles Clovers)	Spades (♠) (Piques, Espadas or Picas Pikes)
German suits	Hearts (Herz)	Bells (Schellen)	Acorns (Eichel)	Leaves, Grass or Green (Laub, Gras, Grün or Blatt)
Swiss German suits	Roses (Rosen)	Bells (Schellen)	Acorns (Eicheln)	Shields (Schilten)
Italo-Spanish* suits	Cups (coppe / copas)	Coins (denari / oros)	Clubs (bastoni / bastos)	Swords (spade / espadas)
Tarot suits	Cups	Pentacles, Coins	Wands, Rods	Swords
Unicode black symbols (with HTML names)	♥ U+2665 (♥)	♦ U+2666 (♦)	♣ U+2663 (♣)	♠ U+2660 (♠)
Unicode white symbols	♡ U+2661	♢ U+2662	♧ U+2667	♤ U+2664

*In Spanish-speaking countries, the use of words varies. For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Motto (Latin) Further Beyond Anthem  1(Spanish) Royal March Spain() – on the European continent() – in the European Union() Capital (and largest city) Madrid Official languages Spanish2 Demonym Spanish, Spaniard Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Head of State King Juan Carlos I  -  President of the Government Formation 15th century   -  Dynastic union 1516   -  Unification... Hearts (♥) is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Diamonds () is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Clubs (♣) is one of the four suits found in playing cards, marked with a black trefoil; the term is translated from the Spanish basto (clover). ... Spades (â™ ) is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ... Image File history File links I got the picture from de. ... Image File history File links I got the picture from de. ... Image File history File links I got the picture from de. ... Image File history File links I got the picture from de. ... Swiss redirects here. ... “Italian Republic” redirects here. ... This article is about the general history, iconography, and uses of tarot cards. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ...

Suits in games with traditional decks

Trumps

Main article: trumps

In a large and popular category of trick-taking games, traditionally called whist-style games although the best-known example may now be bridge, one suit is designated in each hand of play to be trump and all cards of the trump suit rank above all non-trump cards, and automatically prevail over them, losing only to a higher trump if one is played to the same trick. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Trick-taking games are card games with a distinct and common play structure: Each round of play is divided into units called tricks, during which each player selects one card from his or her hand. ... Whist is a classic trick-taking card game which was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries. ... Contract bridge, more usually known as Bridge, is a trick_taking card game for four players who form two partnerships, or sides. The partners on each side sit opposite one another. ...

Special suits

Some games treat one or more suits as being special or different from the others. A simple example is Spades, which uses spades as a permanent trump suit. A less simple example is Hearts, which is a kind of point trick game in which the object is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts. With typical rules for Hearts (rules vary slightly) the queen of spades and the two of clubs (sometimes also the jack of diamonds) have special effects, with the result that all four suits have different strategic value. Spades is a trick-taking game somewhat akin to Hearts but more closely related to bridge. ... Hearts is a trick-taking card game normally played by four players but it can be modified for other numbers of players. ...

Ordering suits

Whist-style rules generally prevent the necessity of determining which of two cards of different suits has higher value, because a card played on a card of a different suit either automatically wins or automatically loses depending on whether the new card is a trump. However, some card games also need to make a definition of which suit is intrinsically the most valuable. An example of this is in auction games such as bridge, where if one player bids to make some number of heart tricks and another bids to make the same number of diamond tricks, there must be a mechanism to determine which takes precedence.

As there is no truly standard way to order the four suits, each game that needs to do so has its own convention; however, the ubiquity of bridge has gone some way to make its ordering a de facto standard. Typical orderings of suits include (from highest to lowest):

• Bridge: spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs (for bidding and scoring);
• Five Hundred: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades (for bidding and scoring);
• Ninety-nine: clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds (supposedly mnemonic as they have respectively 3, 2, 1, 0 lobes; see article for how this scoring is used);
• Skat: clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds (for bidding and to determine which Jack beats which in play);
• Big Two and occasionally in poker: spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds (alternates by color).

Contract bridge, more usually known as Bridge, is a trick_taking card game for four players who form two partnerships, or sides. The partners on each side sit opposite one another. ... Five hundred is the natural number following four hundred ninety-nine and preceding five hundred one. ... Ninety-nine is a card game for 2, 3, or 4 players. ... For other uses, see Mnemonic (disambiguation). ... Skat is (along with Doppelkopf) the most popular card game in Germany. ... The card game Big Two (Chinese: 大二; pinyin: dà èr; Cantonese: 鋤大D) is a card game similar to the game of President, Crazy Eights, I Doubt It, Winner, and other shedding games. ... High card by suit refers to assigning relative values to playing cards of equal rank based on their suit. ...

Pairing or ignoring suits

In some games, such as blackjack, suits are completely meaningless and are ignored. In a few games, such as Canasta, only the color (red or black) is relevant—thus, hearts and diamonds are equivalent to each other, but not to spades or clubs. This article is about the gambling game. ... Canasta is a matching card game in which the object is to create melds of cards of the same rank and then go out by playing or discarding all the cards in your hand. ...

Bridge players constructing complex bidding systems have found it useful to give names to every possible pair of suits (so that they can agree that a particular bid means, for example, that they hold "five of a red suit": see also two suiter). There are three ways to divide four suits into pairs: by color, by rank and by shape. Color is used to denote the red suits (hearts and diamonds) and the black suits (spades and clubs). Rank is used to indicate the major (spades and hearts) versus minor (diamonds and clubs) suits. Shape is used to denote the pointed (diamonds and spades, which visually have a sharp point uppermost) versus rounded (hearts and clubs) suits. See also CRASH convention. In contract bridge, a two suiter is a hand containing cards mostly from two of the four suits. ... CRASH is an acronym for Color-RAnk-SHape. ...

In the event of widespread introduction of four-color decks, it has been suggested that the red/black distinction could be replaced by pointed bottoms (hearts and diamonds visually have a sharp point downwards, whereas spades and clubs have a blunt stem). A four-color deck is identical to the standard Anglo-American playing cards except for the color of the suits. ...

Adding extra suits to the Anglo-American deck

Various people have independently suggested expanding the Anglo-American deck to five, six or even more suits, and have proposed rules for expanded versions of popular games such as rummy, hearts, bridge, and poker that could be played with such a deck (see external links). Rummy is a generic term for card games of the same family as gin rummy. ... Hearts is a trick-taking card game normally played by four players but it can be modified for other numbers of players. ... Contract bridge, more usually known as Bridge, is a trick_taking card game for four players who form two partnerships, or sides. The partners on each side sit opposite one another. ... For the domestic fireplace tool, see fireplace poker. ...

In America, in 1895, Hiram Jones created a deck called "International Playing Cards" and it had two additional suits, a red suit with crosses and a black suit of bullets. (The bullets of that period were round, hence the pip looks like a circle.) Other attempts over the years, by many card manufacturers, experimented with either suit substitutions, or additional suits added to decks of playing cards. Most of these did not last long and some such as Civil War era card decks, enjoyed limited success and are reprinted today. For a brief time in the 1930s, the Hamilton Playing Card Company produced a five-suit deck for ladies' social clubs; the fifth suit was green and its icon was the eagle. Some, for example the 'Roodles' deck, have in recent times been prohibited for their use of a Swastika in countries which have banned the symbol due to its modern association with Nazism. This article is about the symbol. ... Nazism, or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ...

Commercial decks

A commercially available five-suit poker (65-card) deck is Stardeck, which introduces "stars" as a fifth suit. In the Stardeck cards, the fifth suit is colored a mixture of black and red. This fifth suit can be counted as either a Red or a Black suit dependent upon the game being played.

Another five suited deck is Don't Quote Me, with single quotations as the fifth suit. The cards themselves are pentagonal.

Five Crowns is yet another five-suited deck, with no-revoke suits and stars as the fifth suit. The deck does not contain aces or twos. Five Crowns is a proprietary card game for two to seven players created by Set Enterprises. ...

A commercially available six-suited (78-card) deck of poker sized playing cards is the Empire Deck. It has three red suits and three black suits, introducing crowns in red and anchors in black as in the dice game Crown and Anchor. Crown and Anchor is a simple dice game, traditionally played for gambling purposes by sailors in the British Navy. ...

The Fat Pack Playing Card Company produces an eight suit pack of cards with four additional suits; Roses, Axes, Tridents and Doves.

A number of the following out of print decks may be found, especially through on-line auctions. Previously, Five Star Playing Cards poker sized, was manufactured by Five Star Games, which had a gold colored fifth suit of five pointed stars. The court cards are almost identical to the diamond suit in a Gemaco Five-Star deck. Cadaco manufactured a game "Tripoley Wild" with a fifth suit, (and other Wild Cards,) which contain pips of all four standard suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs) on one card. That poker sized deck is not sold separately, but as part of boxed game. Five suited decks include Cinco-Loco Poker Playing Cards, produced by the USA Playing Card Company (not the United States Playing Card Company,) which introduces a new suit design. The Cinco-Loco fifth suit uses a complicated pattern, with color designs in a repeating circular series of pentagrams with four traditional suits in a four color pattern, inner circles get increasingly smaller, the fifth symbol in the circle of pentagrams is a yellow pentagram. There are then a total of ten symbols in each of the outer and repeated in inner circles. The other suits use a four-color design as noted on this page elsewhere. (Refer to archival web sites where the image can still be found.) The Eight of Clubs from a typical Anglo-American deck of cards. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with U.S. Playing Card Company. ...

The mid to late 1930s saw a huge increase in the popularity of Bridge. Thought up one summer night by Austrian Gamester Walther Marseille, Ph.D., rules were first devised for a fifth suit based on a "green" or invulnerable suit. In 1937, a book for rules using the fifth suit was written in Vienna, Austria, and patented for this set of rules. This fifth suit was produced by a number of companies. In 1938, De La Rue of Great Britain created a Bridge deck called "De La Rue's Five Suit Contract Bridge Playing Cards." This deck contained cards using grey-blue colored crowns called "Royals" as a fifth suit. According to the rules published by Parker Brothers, credit is given to Ammiel F. Decker for the rules in 1933. The fifth suit of "Greens" was called "Blätter", or sheets. In 1938, Waddington's of London created a fith suit of more detailed crowns also called "Royals". In the same year there were three American decks that included a green "Eagle" as a fifth suit in similar Bridge decks of playing cards. The deck published by United States Playing Card Company used the Eagle in a medium green and the pips in the corners were inside green circles. The second deck was by Russell Playing Cards (owned by the United States Playing Card Company) used the same Eagle but in a darker shade and the pips in the corners were devoid of the circle. The third deck was by Arrco in 1938 and used an Eagle as well. At least five other bridge books were subsequently published to support playing Bridge with rules for this fifth suit, including one by Arrco in 1938. It is more than likely the book that Arrco published was for their own deck. Parker Brothers created a fifth-suit Bridge deck in 1938 called "Castle Bridge", in which the fifth suit of Castles looked like a Rook chess piece and was colored green. The rules are still available from the Hasbro website. After 1938, the popularity of this fifth suit fell off and the decks were no longer produced for Bridge. Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depend on the variant played). ... De La Rue is a British commercial printer and paper maker headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire. ... De La Rue is a British commercial printer and paper maker headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with U.S. Playing Card Company. ... Genera Several, see below. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with U.S. Playing Card Company. ... Genera Several, see below. ... The Parker Brothers logo. ... This article describes the fortified buildings. ... A rook (â™– ♜,borrowed from Persian رخ rokh, Sanskrit roth, chariot) is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. ...

Out of print is the Sextet Bridge Deck, produced for Secobra Cards by the United States Playing Card Company (copyright Ralph E. Peterson 1964, 1966) The suits are comprised of two red suits, two black suits, and two blue suits. The two new blue suits are Rackets and Wheels, the Rackets being a pair of crossed tennis rackets and the Wheels from a ship's steering wheel design. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with U.S. Playing Card Company. ...

Home-made decks

If extra-suited decks are not readily available or are too expensive, an easier way to create a deck with up to eight suits is to buy two identical decks and modify the suit symbols throughout one of them with a marker. R. Wayne Schmittberger in New Rules for Classic Games originated the idea of drawing an arrow through each heart to create "valentines" and a cross through each diamond to create "kites". Another suggestion is that clubs could have their stem rounded to create "cloverleaves" and spades could have horns and tail added to become "devils".

Other modern suited decks

Suit-and-value decks

A large number of games are based around a deck in which each card has a value and a suit (usually represented by a color), and for each suit there is exactly one card having each value, though in many cases the deck has various special cards as well. Examples include Mü und Mehr, Lost Cities, DUO, Sticheln, Rage, Schotten Totten, UNO, Oh-No!, Skip-Bo, and Rook. Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. ... Oh Hell is an easy-to-learn trick-taking card game. ... A deck of English Uno cards from 1995. ... SKIP-BO is a card game. ... Rook is a trick-taking game played with a deck of Rook playing cards. ...

Other suited decks

Decks for some games are divided into suits, but otherwise bear little relation to traditional games. An example would be the game Taj Mahal, in which each card has one of four background colors, the rule being that all the cards played by a single player in a single round must be the same color. The selection of cards in the deck of each color is approximately the same and the player's choice of which color to use is guided by the contents of their particular hand. Taj Mahal is a German-style board game for 3–5 players designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 2000 by Alea in German. ...

One card game published in the United States in Kalamzoo, Michigan by the A.J.Patterson and later Flinch Card Co. (copyright 1912,) was Roodles. The deck consists of 14 cards in each of four suits, Wishbones, Horseshoes, Shamrocks, and Swastikas. Roodles was purported on the box cover as simple, instructive, scientific and entertaining. The Joker had the name of "Roodles" on the card, instead of "Joker". These suits were all printed in black.

In the trick-taking card game Flaschenteufel (The Bottle Imp) players must follow the suit led, but if they are void in that suit they may play a card of another suit and this can still win the trick if its value is high enough. For this reason every card in the deck has a different number to prevent ties. A further strategic element is introduced since one suit contains mostly low cards and another, mostly high cards. In the trick-taking card game Flaschenteufel (German for the Bottle Imp) players must follow the suit led, but if they are void in that suit they may play a card of another suit and this can still win the trick if its value is high enough. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Bottle Imp The Bottle Imp (1893) is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson about a working class native of Hawaii, Keawe, who buys a strange bottle from a sad, elderly gentleman who credits the bottle with his...

A special mention should be made of the card game Set. Whereas cards in a traditional deck have two classifications—suit and rank—and each combination is represented by one card, giving for example 4 suits × 13 ranks = 52 cards, each card in a Set deck has four classifications each into one of three categories, giving a total of 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81 cards. Any one of these four classifications could be considered a "suit", but this is not really enlightening in terms of the structure of the game. Three cards from a Set deck. ...

Fictional decks

Several people have invented decks which are not meant to be seriously played. The Double Fanucci deck from Zork takes the most imaginative licence with the suits: it has no fewer than fifteen, with the names Mazes, Books, Rain, Bugs, Fromps, Inkblots, Scythes, Plungers, Faces, Time, Lamps, Hives, Ears, Zurfs, and Tops. Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar Zorkmid... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I • Zork II • Zork III Beyond Zork • Zork Zero Enchanter trilogy Enchanter • Sorcerer • Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer • Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis • Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters • Kings • Creatures Timeline • Magic • Calendar Zorkmid...

The Cripple Mr. Onion deck uses eight suits, combining the standard Anglo-American French suits with the traditional Latin suited ones. Cripple Mr Onion was originally a fictional card game played by characters in Terry Pratchetts novels Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad. ...

The Discordian deck is a parody of the Tarot deck, its five suits corresponding to the five Discordian elements. Discordianism has been described as both an elaborate joke disguised as a religion and a religion disguised as an elaborate joke. ... In contemporary usage, a parody (or lampoon) is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ...

The card game of Sabacc from the Star Wars universe has the suits of staves, flasks, sabers, and coins, with cards ranked one through fifteen, plus two each of eight other cards which have no suit. This article is about the series. ...

See also

• Heart (symbol)

The traditional heart shape appears on a 1910 St. ...

External links

• The Games Journal article on card decks
• Playing Card Picture Gallery (warning: Tripod page, popups)
• Stardeck (with rules for 5-suited Poker and Spades)
• Empire Deck (with rules for 5- and 6-suited Rummy and Hearts)
• The Fat Pack Playing Card Company An eight suit pack of cards useful for playing Cripple Mr Onion
• Super-Bridge A reprinted article by Time Magazine from 1938, describing origins of five-suited bridge decks