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Cards

Cards are a set of $n$ rectangular pieces of cardboard with markings on one side and a uniform pattern on the other. The collection of all cards is called a ``deck,'' and a normal deck of cards consists of 52 cards of four different ``suits.'' The suits are called clubs ($\clubsuit$), diamonds ($\diamondsuit$), hearts ($\heartsuit$), and spades ($\spadesuit$). Spades and clubs are colored black, while hearts and diamonds are colored red. The cards of each suit are numbered 1 through 13, where the special terms ace (1), jack (11), queen (12), and king (13) are used instead of numbers 1 and 11-13.


The randomization of the order of cards in a deck is called Shuffling. Cards are used in many gambling games (such as Poker), and the investigation of the probabilities of various outcomes in card games was one of the original motivations for the development of modern Probability theory.

See also Bridge Card Game, Clock Solitaire, Coin, Coin Tossing, Dice, Poker, Shuffle




© 1996-9 Eric W. Weisstein
1999-05-26