A standard deck has 52 cards: four suits of thirteen cards each, plus usually two jokers that most games leave in the box.
Four suits, two colours
The suits are hearts ♥, diamonds ♦, clubs ♣ and spades ♠. Hearts and diamonds are red; clubs and spades are black. In most games the suits are equal. A few games rank them: in Bridge bidding, for example, spades rank highest, then hearts, diamonds and clubs.
Thirteen ranks
Each suit runs ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king. The number cards show their value in suit symbols, called pips, which is where this website gets its name. Whether the ace counts high (above the king) or low (below the 2) depends on the game: in War and most trick-taking games it is high, in Cribbage it is always low, and in Blackjack it can be worth 1 or 11.
The court cards
The jack, queen and king of each suit are the court cards, also called face cards or picture cards. Look closely and you will notice a few quirks in the standard design:
- The jack of spades, the jack of hearts and the king of diamonds are drawn in profile. The two jacks are known as the “one-eyed jacks”, which some home games make wild.
- The king of hearts holds his sword behind his head, which earned him the nickname “suicide king”.
- The king of hearts is also the only king without a moustache. He once had one, but it was lost through careless copying of the design.
Court cards are double-ended, printed the same way up from both ends, so you can hold them either way round.
The corners
The small rank and suit in the corners are called indices. They let you fan your cards tightly and still read every one. Most decks have “standard index” corners; “jumbo index” decks print them much larger, which helps younger and older players alike.
Jokers
Most decks include two jokers, often one more colourful than the other. They were invented in the United States in the 1860s for Euchre. Canasta uses four of them as wild cards; most other games on Pips leave them out.
Sizes
| Size | Millimetres | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Poker size | 63.5 × 88.9 | Most games, poker, blackjack |
| Bridge size | 57.2 × 88.9 | Games with big hands: Bridge, Canasta, Spades |
The two sizes are the same height; bridge cards are just narrower, which makes a hand of 13 or more cards easier to hold.
How many shuffles?
There are 52! (52 factorial) possible orders of a deck: about 8 × 1067, an 8 followed by 67 zeros. Shuffle a deck well and the order in your hands has almost certainly never existed before. See how to shuffle and deal for how many shuffles it takes to get there.