Glossary

All 86 card game words used on Pips, in plain English.

Bags: Tricks won above your contract. Each is worth 1 point, but every 10 bags your team collects costs 100 points.
Bid: Your prediction of how many tricks you will win this hand, said out loud before play starts.
Black three: Discarding a 3 of clubs or spades blocks the next player from taking the discard pile. You can only meld black threes when going out.
Blackjack, or natural: An ace plus a 10, jack, queen or king as your first two cards. It beats every other hand and pays 3 to 2.
Blinds: In Hold’em: the two forced bets before any cards are dealt. The small blind sits left of the dealer button, the big blind (usually twice as much) left of that.
Book: In Go Fish: all four cards of one rank, such as four 7s. You lay a finished book face up in front of you.
Breaking hearts: You may not lead a heart until a heart has been played on another suit, unless you hold nothing but hearts.
Breaking spades: You may not lead a spade until someone has played a spade on another suit, unless you hold nothing but spades.
Bust: In Blackjack: a hand worth more than 21. It loses straight away, whatever the dealer does later.
Calling “Cheat!”: In Cheat: challenging the last play. The cards are turned up. If they were not what the player said, the player takes the whole pile; if they were, the caller does.
Canasta: A meld of seven or more cards. With no wild cards it is natural (500 bonus points); with wild cards it is mixed (300).
Card exchange: In President: after the deal, the Scum hands their two highest cards to the President and gets back any two. The Vice-Scum and Vice-President swap one card the same way.
Climbing game: A shedding game where each play must beat the one before it. When nobody can or will beat it, the pile is cleared and the last player to play starts again.
Contract: The two partners’ bids added up: the number of tricks your team must win together.
Crib: In Cribbage: the four cards the two players throw away after the deal, two each. It belongs to the dealer and is scored after both hands.
Deadwood: In Gin Rummy: the cards in your hand that are not part of a set or run. Their value counts against you.
Dealer: The player who deals the cards. In Blackjack the dealer is also the bank: everyone else plays against the dealer, not against each other.
Discard pile: The face-up pile where played or discarded cards land. Its top card matters for what you can do next.
Double down: In Blackjack: on your first two cards, add a second bet equal to your first, take exactly one more card, and stand.
Draw pile: In Speed: your own face-down pile of 15 cards. You refill your hand from it, up to five cards.
Empty column: In solitaire: a column with no cards left in it. In Spider any card, or any suited run, may go there.
Euchred: In Euchre: when the makers win fewer than three tricks. The defenders score 2 points.
Fifteen: In Cribbage: cards adding up to exactly 15. Each different combination scores 2. Picture cards count 10, aces 1.
Flop, turn and river: In Hold’em: the shared cards in the middle. Three at once (the flop), then a fourth (the turn), then a fifth (the river).
Follow suit: Play a card of the suit that was led, if you have one. Only when you have none may you play something else.
Foundation: In solitaire: the four piles you build up by suit, from ace to king. Filling them is how you win.
Frozen pile: When the discard pile is frozen, you can only take it with two natural cards from your hand that match its top card. A wild card in the pile freezes it for everyone.
Gin: In Gin Rummy: a hand where all ten cards are in sets and runs, with no deadwood at all.
Go: In Cribbage: what you say during the play when every card you hold would take the count past 31. Your opponent keeps playing, and whoever plays the last card scores 1, or 2 for exactly 31.
Going alone: In Euchre: the player who made trump plays without their partner, whose cards stay face down. Win all five tricks alone for 4 points.
Going out: Getting rid of your last card. It ends the round.
His heels: In Cribbage: when the starter card is a jack, the dealer scores 2 straight away.
His nobs: In Cribbage: a jack in your hand (or in the crib) of the same suit as the starter card. It scores 1 in the show.
Hit: In Blackjack: ask the dealer for one more card. You may hit as often as you like, until you stand or go over 21.
Hole cards: In Hold’em: your two private cards, dealt face down.
Initial meld: Your team’s first meld of a hand. Its cards must add up to a minimum count: 50 points at the start of a game, more as your score grows.
Insurance: In Blackjack: an optional side bet when the dealer’s face-up card is an ace. You put in up to half your bet; it pays 2 to 1 if the dealer has blackjack.
Knock: In Gin Rummy: ending the hand when your deadwood adds up to 10 or less.
Laying off: Adding a card from your hand to a meld that is already on the table.
Lead: The first card of a trick. Everyone else responds to its suit.
Left bower: In Euchre: the other jack of the same colour as trump. It is the second-highest trump and counts as a trump card for every purpose, not as its own suit.
Makers: In Euchre: the team that chose trump. They must win at least three of the five tricks. The other team are the defenders.
Match: In Crazy Eights, your card matches when it has the same suit or the same rank as the top card of the discard pile.
Meld: A set of cards you lay face up on the table. In Canasta: three or more cards of the same rank, with at least two natural cards.
Natural card: In Canasta, any card that is not wild: everything except the 2s, the jokers and the threes.
Nil: A bid of zero tricks. Take no tricks at all and your team scores 100. Take even one and your team loses 100.
Odd trick: In Whist: every trick a team wins above six. Each one scores a point. The first six tricks, the book, score nothing.
Ordering up: In Euchre: accepting the up-card’s suit as trump in the first round of bidding. The dealer then picks up the up-card.
Pair: Two cards of the same rank, such as two 7s. Suits and colours don’t matter.
Pair royal: In Cribbage: three cards of the same rank, worth 6 points. Four of a kind is a double pair royal, worth 12.
Partnership: Two players on one team. Partners sit opposite each other and score together.
Pegging: In Cribbage: scoring points by moving your pegs along the board. You peg during the play and again in the show.
Pot: All the chips bet in one hand. The winner takes it.
President and Scum: In President: the titles for the finishing order. First out is President, second Vice-President, last is Scum and second-to-last Vice-Scum. Anyone in between is a neutral Citizen.
Push: In Blackjack: a tie with the dealer. Nobody wins, and you keep your bet.
Red three: The 3 of hearts and 3 of diamonds are bonus cards in Canasta: put them face up in front of you (a dealt one on your first turn) and draw a replacement. Each is worth 100.
Right bower: In Euchre: the jack of the trump suit, the highest card in the game.
Rummy game: A game where you draw and discard to collect sets of the same rank or runs in the same suit, and put them on the table as melds.
Run: Three or more cards in a row in the same suit, such as the 5, 6 and 7 of hearts.
Run (Cribbage): In Cribbage: three or more cards of consecutive rank, in any suit, such as 4, 5, 6. It scores 1 point per card. Aces are low only.
Set: Three or four cards of the same rank, such as three queens.
Shedding game: A game you win by getting rid of all your cards first.
Shooting the moon: In Hearts: taking every heart and the queen of spades in one hand. Instead of 26 points against you, everyone else gets 26.
Showdown: The moment the remaining players show their cards and the best hand wins the pot.
Side piles: In Speed: the two face-down piles of five cards at the ends of the middle row. When both players are stuck, you each turn one of their cards onto the centre piles.
Soft hand: In Blackjack: a hand with an ace counted as 11, like ace and 6 (soft 17). One more card can never bust it, because the ace can drop to 1.
Split: In Blackjack: when your first two cards have the same rank, you may put in a second, equal bet and play them as two separate hands.
Stand: In Blackjack: take no more cards and keep the total you have. Your turn ends.
Starter: The first card turned face up from the stock. It starts the discard pile.
Starter card: In Cribbage: the card turned up from the deck after the discards. It counts as a fifth card for both hands and for the crib.
Stock: The face-down pile left over after the deal. You draw from it.
Suited run: In Spider: cards in order down from high to low, all of one suit. Only a suited run can be moved as one unit. A full one, king down to ace, comes off the table.
Tableau: In solitaire: the columns of cards you build on. Klondike has seven, Spider ten.
Taking the pile: Instead of drawing from the stock, you pick up the whole discard pile. You must meld its top card straight away.
The hook: In Oh Hell: the dealer bids last and may not make the bids add up to the number of tricks in the hand, so at least one player must miss.
The Old Maid: The one queen that has no partner, because a queen was taken out of the deck. Whoever holds it at the end loses.
The pass: In Hearts: before play, each player gives three cards to another player. Left, then right, then across, then no pass.
The show: In Cribbage: counting the hands after the play. Non-dealer first, then the dealer’s hand, then the crib, each together with the starter card.
Trick: One card from each player, played in turn. The best card wins all of them, and the winner leads the next trick.
Trick-taking game: A game played in tricks, where you score for the tricks you win (or, in some games, avoid).
Trump: A suit that beats all others. In Spades, spades are always trump: the lowest spade beats the ace of any other suit.
Undercut: In Gin Rummy: when the player who did not knock ends up with less deadwood than the knocker. They score the bonus instead.
Up-card: A card turned face up after the deal. In Euchre it proposes a trump suit; in Whist and Oh Hell its suit simply is trump.
War: In the game War: what happens when both flipped cards have the same rank. Each player adds one card face down and one face up; the higher face-up card takes everything.
Waste pile: In solitaire: where the cards you turn from the stock land face up. Its top card can be played.
Wild card: A card that can stand in for another. In Crazy Eights every 8 is wild; in Canasta the 2s and jokers are.