Suit (cards)
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Anglo-American_card_suits.png
In playing cards, a suit is one of the four categories into which the deck is divided. Suits are represented by various symbols on the cards. In a standard deck of cards each suit has thirteen cards. In some card games such as bridge or hearts suits play a very important role. In other games, such as blackjack, suits are meaningless. There are various ways of ranking the suits. For instance bridge ranks them alphabetically clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, with spades being the highest. In some games, color is important: in two color decks, diamonds and hearts are red cards, while spades and clubs are black cards. In four-color decks, as used in specific games (such as Barry's & Les's) or in places where visibility may not be ideal (or on a computer screen), diamonds are blue cards, hearts are red cards, spades are black cards and clubs are green cards.
The Spanish style suits are the original suits, the suits found on the 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.
| Anglo-American suits | Hearts (♥) | Diamonds (♦) | Clubs (♣) | Spades (♠) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| French suits | Hearts (coeurs) | Tiles (carreaux) | Clovers (trèfles) | Swords (piques) |
| Spanish suits | Cups (copas) | Coins (oros, "gold") | Clubs (bastos, "batons") | Swords (espadas) |
| Italian suits | Hearts (cuori) | Squares (quadri) | Flowers (fiori) | Pikes (picche) |
| German suits | Hearts (Herz) | Bells (Schellen) | Acorns (Eichel) | Leaves (Laub) |
| Swiss German suits | Shields (Schilten) | Bells (Schellen) | Acorns (Eicheln) | Flowers (Rosen) |
| Tarot suits | Cups | Pentacles | Wands | Swords |
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