history of poker Archives - Page 2 of 2

The diamond suit in a pack of cards is thought to have evolved from another shape in use over 500 years ago in France.

Playing cards are a lot older than the game of poker, almost a thousand years older, and they originated in China. But because of trading routes like the silk road, cards made their way to the middle east and then to Europe by the middle of the last millennium, if not earlier than that. They came via Egypt. Swords, cups, coins and polo-sticks were the suits used in Egypt, and a lot of countries in Europe used some of those suits, and still do. But the French chose differently.
Traditional French playing cards still have these four suits – pike heads, hearts, clover, and paving tiles. And as you read these, you can see how close they are to the suits in the international deck of cards that is in use nowadays. Pike heads became spades in the British/American deck. Spades coming from the Spanish word spado meaning sword, so similar to pikes. Hearts remained hearts, so no explanation needed. The design of the clover has been kept for the suit we now know as clubs. But the name clubs refers to the suit bastoni or bastos still used in Spanish and Italian decks, which actually still depicts a club. So clubs is a hybrid of French and Italian/Spanish. The last of the four suits is the hardest to explain. Paving tiles were indeed rhombus shaped in those days, unlike nowadays when they tend to be square or rectangle. And nowadays, because of the playing card that came to be known as diamonds, we associate a diamond shape with a rhombus too. But we still don’t know why the card known as paving tile came to be known as a diamond. Because hundreds of years ago there wasn’t that association between the rhombus shape and the diamond precious stone. The stone was 3D, a hugely complex shape. A mystery. If you have an idea why – get in touch!

Poker chips are now almost always plastic with ridges in them to allow them to be stacked easily on top of each other. However, that wasn’t always the most popular material.

In the 19^th century, poker games weren’t always played with chips. Stakes were raised often with material that had some intrinsic value like gold and so represented a certain amount of money. However, the need for standardisation in a game that was getting more and more popular was obvious. Hence the arrival of the commercially made poker chip whose value people could recognise from town to town.
The first poker chips used in Louisiana in the 19^th century though were made of various materials and they were made from a mixture of all sorts of different things – like ivory, bone, wood for example – and a clay that held it together. Later on in the 19^th century, those former materials were got rid of, leaving chips that were made purely from clay. That was the case until half way through the last century. From after the Second World War, you began to see other things mixed in with the clay to make the chips more durable. Nowadays you only see clay as part of a chip in casinos, and even then casinos often use a ceramic material for them. It is easier to print words and designs on a ceramic chip than it is on a clay one, so you can understand why they are popular. Clay composite chips are much more expensive and labour intensive to make than the plastic chips that are found everywhere else outside of casinos. This of course does not hold for people who play poker online! But for the purists and lovers of tradition – a clay chip is still the only way to go!

Why does the Ace of Spades often have the manufacturer’s logo on it?

In Texas Holdem poker, the suits have the same value as each other. So a straight flush 45678 of hearts has exactly the same ranking as the same hand in spades. In many card games though, the spades are the highest ranking suit. And therefore the Ace of spades is the highest ranking card out of the 52 standard ones in the deck. While this does not hold in Texas Holdem poker games, this is true in Bridge for example, one of the most popular card games in the English speaking world. It’s use in popular culture – songs, and the Second World War when soldiers put the card in the side of their helmets to indicate good luck – just carried on that perception. It’s the highest value card in many games, so you are lucky if you have been dealt it in the casino.
But the Ace of spades isn’t important for just that reason. It’s also the card that has traditionally carried the manufacturer’s logo on it. The reason for this goes back to the time of the reign of James 1^st of England (who was also James 6^th of Scotland) in the early 17^th century. He introduced a new tax on playing cards, and decided that the Ace of spades should carry a logo showing the maker of the pack. This was proof that the tax had been paid. So it was lucky for both soldiers in the 20^th century, and kings in the 17^th!