The suits depend on where you live
Playing cards are thought to have begun in China during the Tang dynasty, over a thousand years ago, and travelled west through the Islamic world before reaching Europe in the 1370s. The designs changed on the way, and they are still not the same everywhere.
The four suits used in Britain and North America — HEARTS, SPADES, CLUBS and DIAMONDS — are French. In Italy and Spain a traditional pack has cups, coins, swords and batons, while German packs use hearts, bells, acorns and leaves. A standard French-style DECK has 52 cards: four of each SUIT from ACE to KING, with the QUEEN and JACK in between.
Why the jack has a J
The jack was long called the knave, meaning a servant. When printers began adding small letters in the corners in the nineteenth century, so a HAND could be read while fanned out, Kn for knave looked too much like K for king, and J for jack took over. The ACE of spades is usually the most decorated card because of tax: from 1711 packs sold in Britain had to carry a duty stamp, and for much of that time the ace of spades was printed by the government. Forging it was a serious crime, and at least one man was hanged for it in 1805. The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache and appears to be holding a sword behind his head, which has earned him the nickname the suicide king.
The JOKER is an American addition from the 1860s or 1870s, created as an extra-powerful TRUMP card for a game called euchre. Trump itself comes from the old word triumph. It names a suit that beats all the others, which is central to games like whist and BRIDGE, where players try to win each TRICK.
Seven shuffles and a unique deck
In 1992 the mathematicians Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis showed that it takes about seven ordinary riffle shuffles to mix a deck thoroughly; fewer leave detectable patterns. A 52-card deck can be arranged in more ways than there are seconds since the universe began, so a properly shuffled deck is almost certainly in an order that has never existed before.
Cards were shuffled and dealt by hand for centuries, and the DEAL rotates so no one player always goes first. To DISCARD is to throw a card away, as in RUMMY, where players try to collect sets and runs. POKER adds betting, and depends as much on reading people and the well-timed BLUFF as on the cards. Cards came to Europe from the same trade routes covered on our ancient China page.
A game made to teach the mouse
SOLITAIRE, called patience in Britain, is played alone. When Microsoft put a version into Windows in 1990, part of the reason was to get people used to a computer mouse: dragging a card from one pile to another taught the drag-and-drop movement without any instructions. It became one of the most-used programs ever made.
Many families learn a first card game such as snap or go fish, which teach matching and memory. SHUFFLE, DEAL and play is one of the oldest ways of passing an evening, and needs nothing but a pack in a pocket.