![4coloraces1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/4coloraces1.jpg)
A four-color deck (US) or four-colour pack (UK) is a deck of
playing cards
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...
identical to the standard
French deck
French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...
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.
[Pollett, Andrea]
Sizes, Shapes and Colours
at Andy's Playing Cards. Retrieved 15 March 2017. However, other color combinations have been used over the centuries, in other areas or for certain games.
No-revoke decks
![Tarok American Card](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Tarok_American_Card.jpg)
Four-color decks made for
trick-taking game
A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a ''hand'' centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called ''tricks'', which are each evaluated to determine a winner or ''taker'' of that trick. The object of such g ...
s such as
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
,
whist
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.
History
Whist is a descendant of the 16th-century game of ''trump'' ...
, or
jass
:Jass ''was also an early name for Jazz music. For other uses, see JASS.''
Jass ()David Parlett ''The Oxford guide to card games'', pg. 292-293, David Parlett (1990) is a family of trick taking, Ace-Ten card games and, in its key forms, a dis ...
are often called no-revoke decks because they are perceived to reduce the risk of a player accidentally
revoking
Revocation is the act of wikt:recall, recall or annulment. It is the cancelling of an act, the recalling of a grant or privilege, or the making void (law), void of some deed previously existing. A temporary revocation of a grant or privilege is c ...
(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.
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
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
) who prefer
German suits over French; the green spades translate to ''leaves'' and the yellow diamonds to ''bells'' in the German suits.
[
In 1922, August Petryl & Son produced a ]tarock
Tarot games are card games played with tarot decks, that is, decks with numbered permanent trumps parallel to the suit cards. The games and decks which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot are called Tarocchi in the original Italian, ...
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.[ The smaller deck is structured the same as '' Industrie und Glück'' decks as it was designed to play a variant of ]Königrufen
Königrufen or Königsrufen (German: "Call the King") is a four-player, trick-taking card game of the Tarot card games, tarot family, played in Austria and Southern Tyrol, with variants for two, three and six players. As with other regional tarot ...
.
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.
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
Mike A. Caro (born May 16, 1944) is an American professional poker player, pioneer poker theorist, author of poker books, and casino executive.
Author
In 1978 Caro contributed 50 statistical tables to Doyle Brunson's ''Super/System'' and wrote ...
. It was introduced at his World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino
Foxwoods Resort Casino is a hotel and casino complex owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on their reservation located in Ledyard, Connecticut. Including six casinos, the resort covers an area of . The casinos have more th ...
in 1992. His original design was not a success as the colors were a surprise to players.["Mike Caro's Four Color Deck" by Diane McHaffie, Poker Player February, 2006 issue] The World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the fi ...
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
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a huge increase in the number of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker revenues grew from $82.7 million in 2001 t ...
software interfaces since often each player may use their preferred design of playing cards
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...
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
Flush may refer to:
Places
* Flush, Kansas, a community in the United States
Architecture, construction and manufacturing
* Flush cut, a type of cut made with a French flush-cut saw or diagonal pliers
* Flush deck, in naval architecture
* Flu ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Four-Color Deck
Playing cards
Skat (card game)