Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.
Card game: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Card game
In the year 868, Princess Tongchang, daughter of Emperor Yizong of the Tang dynasty, sat down to play a game that would eventually evolve into the modern card game. This was not a game of dice or dominoes, but a 'leaf game' played with paper sheets, a technological marvel made possible by the woodblock printing innovations of the era. The earliest known reference to this activity appears in the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by the Tang writer Su E, who described the princess playing with her husband's family. While the exact rules remain lost to history, the existence of such a game suggests that the concept of playing with paper cards was already established in China by the mid-9th century. By 1294, the Yuan dynasty Department of Punishments had caught two gamblers, Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Zhugou, playing with paper cards, and impounded the wood blocks used to print them. These early cards did not feature suits or numbers; instead, they bore instructions or forfeits for whoever drew them, serving as tools for drinking games rather than strategic contests. The game of leaves, as it was called, was so significant that a book titled the Yezi Gexi was allegedly written by a Tang woman, receiving commentary from scholars of subsequent dynasties. Song dynasty historian Ouyang Xiu asserted that the game existed since the mid-Tang dynasty, linking its invention to the development of printed sheets as a writing medium, though he also claimed the rules were lost by 1067.
The European Arrival
Playing cards first appeared in Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century, arriving through maritime trade with the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. The earliest European mention of playing cards appears in 1371 in a Catalan language rhyme dictionary, suggesting that cards were reasonably well known in Catalonia by that time. An almost complete Mamluk Egyptian deck of 52 cards has survived from around the same time, featuring four suits: swords, polo sticks, cups, and coins, with ranks including king, governor, second governor, and ten to one. By 1408, the first card game is described in a document about the exploits of two card sharps, though the game itself remains unnamed. The earliest game to be mentioned by name is Karnöffel, first mentioned in 1426 and still played in several forms today, including Bruus, Knüffeln, Kaiserspiel, and Styrivolt. The 1430s in Italy saw the invention of the tarot deck, a full Latin-suited deck augmented by suitless cards with painted motifs that played a special role as trumps. The first known example of such cards was ordered by the Duke of Milan around 1420 and included 16 trumps with images of Greek and Roman gods. The concept of trumps was sufficiently powerful that it was soon transferred to games played with far cheaper ordinary packs of cards, as opposed to expensive Tarot cards. The first of these was Triomphe, the name simply being the French equivalent of the Italian trionfi, though not testified before 1538, its first rules were written by a Spaniard who left his native country for Milan in 1509 never to return.
When did Princess Tongchang play the earliest known card game in China?
Princess Tongchang played the earliest known card game in the year 868 during the Tang dynasty. This activity was recorded in the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang written by the Tang writer Su E. The game used paper sheets created through woodblock printing innovations of the era.
When did playing cards first appear in Europe and what was the earliest European mention?
Playing cards first appeared in Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century arriving through maritime trade with the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. The earliest European mention of playing cards appears in 1371 in a Catalan language rhyme dictionary. An almost complete Mamluk Egyptian deck of 52 cards has survived from around the same time.
When was the first card game described in a document about card sharps?
The first card game is described in a document about the exploits of two card sharps by 1408. The game itself remains unnamed in that document. The earliest game to be mentioned by name is Karnöffel first mentioned in 1426.
When were the French suits introduced and when did they become popular in English playing cards?
The French suits were introduced around 1480 and mostly replaced the earlier Latin suits of swords clubs cups and coins in France. The French suits became popular in English playing cards in the 16th century. They were subsequently introduced to British colonies including North America.
When did Collectible card games emerge as a distinct genre and what is the earliest example?
Collectible card games emerged as a distinct genre not recorded before 1970. The earliest example is Cuttle and the best known is Magic: The Gathering. Pokemon is another famous example of this genre.
The 17th century witnessed the second of the two great innovations in trick-taking games: the concept of bidding. This first emerged in the Spanish game of Ombre, an evolution of Triomphe that in its time was the most successful card game ever invented. Ombre's origins are unclear and obfuscated by the existence of a game called Homme or Bête in France, ombre and homme being respectively Spanish and French for 'man'. In Ombre, the player who won the bidding became the 'Man' and played alone against the other two. The game spread rapidly across Europe, spawning variants for different numbers of players and known as Quadrille, Quintille, Médiateur, and Solo. Quadrille went on to become highly fashionable in England during the 18th century and is mentioned several times, for example, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The first rules of any game in the German language were those for Rümpffen published in 1608 and later expanded in several subsequent editions. In addition, the first German games compendium, Palamedes Redivivus appeared in 1678, containing the rules for Hoick, Ombre, Picquet, Rümpffen, and Thurnspiel. The 17th century also saw an upsurge in the number of new games being reported as well as the first sets of rules, those for Piquet appearing in 1632 and Reversis in 1634. The first French games compendium, La Maison Académique, appeared in 1654 and it was followed in 1674 by Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester, although an earlier manuscript of games by Francis Willughby was written sometime between 1665 and 1670.
The Standardization Era
In the 18th century, the card images of the traditional Italian tarot decks became popular in cartomancy and evolved into 'esoteric' decks used primarily for the purpose of fortune telling. In Europe, 'playing tarot' decks remain popular for games, and have evolved since the 18th century to use regional suits such as spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs in France, or leaves, hearts, bells, and acorns in Germany. The French suits were introduced around 1480 and, in France, mostly replaced the earlier Latin suits of swords, clubs, cups, and coins. The suit symbols, being very simple and single-color, could be stamped onto the playing cards to create a deck, thus only requiring special full-color card art for the court cards. This drastically simplifies the production of a deck of cards versus the traditional Italian deck, which used unique full-color art for each card in the deck. The French suits became popular in English playing cards in the 16th century, and from there were introduced to British colonies including North America. The rise of Western culture has led to the near-universal popularity and availability of French-suited playing cards even in areas with their own regional card art. The best-known deck internationally is the English pattern of the 52-card French deck, also called the International or Anglo-American pattern, used for such games as poker and contract bridge. It contains one card for each unique combination of thirteen ranks and the four French suits spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs.
The Social Fabric
Card games have historically served as a medium for social interaction, with any specific card game imposing restrictions on the number of players. The most significant dividing lines run between one-player games and two-player games, and between two-player games and multi-player games. Card games for one player are known as solitaire or patience card games, generally in many ways special and atypical, although some of them have given rise to two- or multi-player games such as Spite and Malice. In card games for two players, usually not all cards are distributed to the players, as they would otherwise have perfect information about the game state. Two-player games have always been immensely popular and include some of the most significant card games such as piquet, bezique, sixty-six, klaberjass, gin rummy, and cribbage. Many multi-player games started as two-player games that were adapted to a greater number of players. For such adaptations a number of non-obvious choices must be made beginning with the choice of a game orientation. One way of extending a two-player game to more players is by building two teams of equal size. A common case is four players in two fixed partnerships, sitting crosswise as in whist and contract bridge. Partners sit opposite to each other and cannot see each other's hands. If communication between the partners is allowed at all, then it is usually restricted to a specific list of permitted signs and signals. 17th-century French partnership games such as triomphe were special in that partners sat next to each other and were allowed to communicate freely so long as they did not exchange cards or play out of order.
The Rules Of Play
A new card game starts in a small way, either as someone's invention, or as a modification of an existing game. Those playing it may agree to change the rules as they wish. The rules that they agree on become the 'house rules' under which they play the game. A set of house rules may be accepted as valid by a group of players wherever they play, as it may also be accepted as governing all play within a particular house, café, or club. When a game becomes sufficiently popular, so that people often play it with strangers, there is a need for a generally accepted set of rules. This need is often met when a particular set of house rules becomes generally recognized. For example, when Whist became popular in 18th-century England, players in the Portland Club agreed on a set of house rules for use on its premises. Players in some other clubs then agreed to follow the 'Portland Club' rules, rather than go to the trouble of codifying and printing their own sets of rules. The Portland Club rules eventually became generally accepted throughout England and Western cultures. There is nothing static or 'official' about this process. For the majority of games, there is no one set of universal rules by which the game is played, and the most common ruleset is no more or less than that. Many widely played card games, such as Canasta and Pinochle, have no official regulating body. The most common ruleset is often determined by the most popular distribution of rulebooks for card games. Perhaps the original compilation of popular playing card games was collected by Edmund Hoyle, a self-made authority on many popular parlor games. The U.S. Playing Card Company now owns the eponymous Hoyle brand, and publishes a series of rulebooks for various families of card games that have largely standardized the games' rules in countries and languages where the rulebooks are widely distributed.
The Modern Landscape
Collectible card games (CCGs) are proprietary playing card games that emerged as a distinct genre not recorded before 1970. The earliest example is Cuttle and the best known is Magic: The Gathering. Pokemon is another famous example. It is a genre that has become popular in indie gameplay, with games like Yomi, Mage Knight, and Slay the Spire. Living card games (LCGs) are similar to collectible card games, with their most distinguishing feature being a fixed distribution method, which breaks away from the traditional collectible card game format. While new cards for CCGs are usually sold in the form of starter decks or booster packs, LCGs thrive on a model that requires players to acquire one core set in order to play the game, which players can further customize by acquiring extra sets or expansions featuring new content in the form of cards or scenarios. No randomization is involved in the process, thus players that get the same sets or expansions will get the exact same content. The term was popularized by Fantasy Flight Games and mainly applies to its products, however some tabletop gaming companies can be seen using a very similar model. Fictional card games, including card games, are fabricated by science fiction authors and screenwriters to distance a culture depicted in the story from present-day Western culture. They are commonly used as filler to depict background activities in an atmosphere like a bar or rec room, but sometimes the drama revolves around the play of the game. Some of these games become real card games as the holder of the intellectual property develops and markets a suitable deck and ruleset for the game, while others lack sufficient descriptions of rules, or depend on cards or other hardware that are infeasible or physically impossible.