Man has always been a gambler. Since ancient times it is known many different games – dice, checkers, various types of resiblock, even "Rock, paper, scissors" originally arose as a way to pass the time and win a coin or two. But, undoubtedly, the Queen of excitement now began the card game.
Victorious procession of card games in Europe started from Italy of the XIII-XIV century. The first cards were introduced from Egypt, what is a legend as if they invented the Egyptian God of wisdom Thoth. But if you track the history of the world development maps, it becomes clear that the home of all card games is considered to be China.
In China, the cards originated in VII-VIII century, providing around the same time came to Japan and India. Mahjong and dominoes are the direct descendants of those first cards. Trade routes with merchant caravans they had reached the East, where they met the warriors of the Crusades.
Start a card game was started strong from the shores of Albion to the shores of the Baltic sea played by all classes, from the villeins serfs to kings. In the excitement on the line put all the money and weapons, race horses and mistresses, land and freedom. Many rulers tried to ban gambling, but to succeed in this and are unable.
Original card deck is very different from today. Even the icons of suits in different countries were drawn in different ways – for example, in France, diamonds were in the form of a rhombus, in Germany – ball, Spanish – dagger, and in Italy – wreath. The cards also was different: the main card were kings, then two marshals, and aces was not at all. Gradually the designation of colors came to a French inscription, familiar to us, the marshals replaced the jacks, the elder of whom later became the Queens. In the early XV century were introduced aces, which meant money (As is the Latin name of the small coins), as a reminder to rulers that coin without their authority is worth nothing.
The value of the suits was also symbolic:
Clubs — represented the peasantry, as well as meadow grass, as a reminder to the commander that his army should not need to forage.
Spades – represented the knights, armed with lances military bar. And, in addition, wine (hence the second name suits you) – the basis for the well-being of many castles.
Diamonds, diamonds is the townspeople, shot from a heavy crossbow arrows with heavy diamond-shaped tips, as well as the bricks making up the walls of cities.
Worms – the clergy, the heart of the medieval world order.
Each suit in order of seniority is divided as follows: the highest card is considered an ACE with only one icon corresponding suit. Then in descending order followed by king, then Queen, then Jack. All these maps are called figures. Behind them are maps of spectacle, with images of only the signs of the suit. The number of digits is considered to be seniority: ten is the largest valued cards, two is the smallest.
By the way, there is an opinion that thanks to the cards appeared so popular today gaming machines. Judge for yourself, the first one-armed bandit, "the Liberty Bell" had three reels, each of which were depicted in the card suit, add to that the fact that its inventor, car mechanic Charles August Fay, was an avid card player, and add 1 + 1! Today, however, types of slot machines divorced a great many sheep and making is not limited only by the playing cards take of the popular "one-armed bandit" of our time, Sizzling Hot Deluxe (details), the drums of which are different fruits.
This is all very interesting, but let's get back to the immediate subject of our article – card games!
For card game has two kinds of decks: complete, consisting of 52 cards and the so-called picket, which discarded all of the lower card, it has 32 sheets (in Russia – 36). In addition, in some card games can be 1 – 2 jokers, which can become any card in the deck.
By the nineteenth century, eventually formed the rules, which are the vast majority of card games: poker, black Jack, screw, whist,1000, rams, marriage, preference, Reversi, slide, 66, cribbage, Bulot, Polish banchke, 13, deberts, semerik, Piquet, Boston, Imperial, fly, Macau, baccarat, trynka, knocker, bezique, pie, salad.
