The Low Rollers #278

Playing Card Nicknames

Nicknames. Almost everything of value has them. That goes for playing cards. This series lists and explains many you have heard — and some you haven’t.

Spots and Deck Designs

Any numerical card (rank 2-10) is called an x-spot. For example, a 2 can be called a 2-spot. A spot, or a pip, is one of the suit symbols (spade ♠, heart ♥, diamond ♦, club ♣) on the face (front side) of a card. Each face card (jack, queen, king) in the English deck has four pips: one at each end, outside the border, under the J, Q, or K representing the card’s rank and one more at each end, within the border, next to each royal head. Each ace has three pips, one in the center and one under the A at each end. Each card 2-10 (also known as a rank card or plain card) has two more pips than the number that represents its rank: the rank total in the central area, plus one more pip under the number at each end. (Some say that the smaller symbol beneath the number or letter designating the rank of the card is not a pip, but is part of the index, which is that number or letter plus the smaller suit symbol beneath it. In that reckoning, each face card has two pips, each ace has one, and each card, 2-10, has as many pips as the number that represents its rank.)

The rank is the denomination of a card, as 2, 10, or king. A standard deck (52 cards) has four cards of each rank, one in each suit.

The English deck is the deck of cards used by the English — and later, North Americans — and probably based on the designs of the French deck. The graphics of the English deck appear often somewhat different in design from the French deck. The face cards of the English deck probably do not represent anyone in particular, whereas those of the French deck do.

The French deck is the deck of cards used by the French, who have been designing and manufacturing playing cards since at least the 15th century, when they assigned to each of the court cards (face cards) names taken from history or mythology. These designs appear often somewhat different in design in the English deck. In the French deck, the face cards had specific meaning, whereas in the English deck, card historians generally accept that they do not. Confusion lies in the fact that the suits in the English deck came from the French deck.

We’ll examine the English and French face card designs later. Furthermore, there are other European deck designs. In addition, deck designs have changed over the years. So the deck you see today is very different from one of, say, three centuries ago.

2

A 2 is sometimes called a 2-spot. Of course everyone knows that a 2 is more commonly called a deuce.

It’s also called a duck, because the word deuce vaguely sounds like duck, or at least looks like it in print. Two or more 2s are sometimes called quackers. Baccarat expert and eccentric tournament player Paul Magriel is (in)famous for announcing “Quack quack” whenever he makes a bet that involves twos, like $2,200 or $22,000, or when he shows down deuces.

Continuing on this path, we have Dewey Duck (which is sometimes shortened simply to Dewey). In a pun built on this term, panguingue (pan) players sometimes called a deuce a Gooey Duck, which is how geoduck, an edible clam, is pronounced. (Panguingue, pronounced PAN-GHEE-NEE, is an old cardroom game that probably originated in the Philippines and was played mostly in western states until about the 1980s, sort of like gin rummy played among multiple players with eight decks of cards from which the 8s, 9s, and 10s have been removed.)

And, one more, three deuces are sometimes called Huey, Dewey, and Louie, that is, three ducks, from Donald Duck’s nephews.

In the same vein, two deuces, usually as a draw-poker hand (rather than a hold’em hand), are sometimes announced at the showdown as a paradox (pair o’ducks).

Specific 2s

Specific cards have special names. In the 2 rank, one card has at least two names. The 2♠ is sometimes called little casino. This comes from the game of casino, which is a card-accumulating game of Italian origin whose only interest to poker players is the names given to two of its cards, big casino (10♦, which we’ll encounter later) and little casino, both of which have value when captured and whose names have migrated to other games. It’s also spelled little cassino.

The 2♠ is sometimes also called the Curse of Mexico. The origin of this term is unknown, but I can speculate. It’s likely a play of words on the Curse of Scotland, more commonly called the Scourge of Scotland. That card, the 9♦, does have a known origin in history. It’s so called because every ninth Scottish king was (supposedly) a tyrant, and diamonds were a symbol of Scotland.

More ranks next time.

Michael Wiesenberg has been a columnist for Card Player since 1988. He has written or edited many books about poker, and has also written extensively about computers and computer languages. Michael constructs crossword puzzle collections for Puzzazz, a free interactive puzzle app for mobile devices. Send bravos, boos, and biddings to [email protected].