Poker originated from China

 

Poker originated from China

 

If playing mahjong is the most Chinese scene during the Chinese Spring Festival, then playing cards will be another scene where Chinese and Western cultures collide during the Chinese Spring Festival.

It is said that as early as the end of the Qin Dynasty during the conflict between Chu and Han, the general Han Xin invented a card game in order to relieve the homesickness of his soldiers. Because the cards were only the size of leaves, it was called "Leaf Play". The "leaf card" is about the size of two fingers. The "leaf plaque", which is 8 centimeters long and 2.5 centimeters wide, is made of silk and paper, and the pattern is printed with a woodblock print.

It is said that leaf cards are the prototype of playing cards. In the twelfth century, Marco Polo brought this card game to Europe, which immediately aroused great interest among Westerners.

In the beginning, leaf cards made in China were only a luxury product for the aristocrats, but because they were low-cost, versatile, and easy to learn, they quickly became popular among the people.

The design of the playing cards is amazing.

Why is a deck of cards divided into four suits? People of various countries give different cultural explanations to the four colors based on their own national culture. The French understand the four colors as spears, squares, lilac leaves and red hearts; the Germans understand the four colors as leaves, bells, acorns and hearts; the Italians understand the four colors as swords, coins, walking sticks and wine glasses. The Swiss understand the four colors as acorns, bells, flowers and shields; the British understand the four colors as shovels, diamonds, clovers and hearts.

There are two more concentrated statements:

One theory is that these four colors represent the four main industries of the society at that time. Among them, spades represent spears, symbolizing soldiers; plum blossoms represent clover, symbolizing agriculture; diamonds represent bricks and tiles used by craftsmen; and hearts represent hearts, symbolizing priests. .

Another theory is that these four colors are derived from the patterns of ancient European divination utensils. The spades represent olive leaves, symbolizing peace; the plum blossoms are clover, symbolizing luck; the squares are diamond-shaped, symbolizing wealth; and the hearts are heart-shaped. , symbolizing wisdom and love.

The 54-card pattern of playing cards is also very wonderful to explain: the big king represents the sun, the small king represents the moon, and the remaining 52 cards represent the 52 weeks of the year; the four suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades symbolize spring respectively. There are four seasons: , summer, autumn and winter; each suit has 13 cards, which means there are 13 weeks in each season.

If J, Q, and K are regarded as 11, 12, and 13 points, and the big king and small king are half points, the total points of a deck of playing cards is exactly 365 points. In leap years, the big and small kings are counted as 1 point each, for a total of 366 points.

Experts generally believe that the above explanation is no coincidence, because the design and invention of playing cards are inextricably linked to astrology, divination, astronomy, and calendars.

There was a legend that Henry VIII was the model for the pattern of four K's; the portraits of the four K's on the oldest surviving British playing cards all have the same curly mustache and sideburns as Henry VIII's. beard.

It is also said that the model of the portrait pattern on the four Qs is probably Queen Elizabeth of the York Dynasty, the queen of Henry VII. The manufacturing of French playing cards has always been developed along the lines of each manufacturer. In 1813, the government promulgated an officially approved design and gave each head card a name. To this day, many playing cards still use this name. : Spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs.

What do A, J, Q, and K in playing cards stand for? What is their meaning and origin?

Our current poker cards usually have 54 cards, two of which are JOKER, which are called the two king cards. In fact, these two poker cards did not exist at the beginning.

The traditional cards with spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds as their suits were invented by the French in the 14th century, and there were only 52 cards at the beginning. Around 1850, some poker manufacturers began to add the 53rd card to the cards. At that time, this card was only used as a replacement card or advertisement. The 53rd card mainly had the following forms:

1. Blank card, that is, a card without any printing on the front. This card is mainly used as a replacement card. When a card in the card is lost, it can be replaced with this card.

2. Trademark card. This card is printed with the trademark of the poker factory. It can be used as a replacement card and also plays an advertising role.

3. Billboard, a pair of ordinary playing cards plus a product advertisement. This card may be the predecessor of today's advertising poker. This form of billboard can still be seen today.

4. Rule cards. Whist bridge was already very popular at that time. The scoring method printed on this card was very popular among players. Many foreign poker cards today also have this card.

At that time, this card was not called JOKER, but called: Extra card, which means extra card.

Since many cards have 53 cards, there are many card games played with 53 cards. Among them, a card game using 53 cards appeared in Mississippi in the United States and soon became popular throughout North America. At that time, poker produced in the United States usually had 53 cards.

The names of the 53rd card are not unified. There are many names such as "Extra card", "Wild card", "Best card", "Best Bower", "Life Card", etc. These names are printed on the card. From these names, we can see that this card has the functions of replacement card, wild card and trump card.

Traditional British playing cards, like those in France, all have 52 cards. Around the 1870s, in order to expand sales in North America, some British manufacturers officially produced 53-card playing cards.

According to research by some foreign experts, the name JOKER appeared between 1860 and 1880. As for where this name came from? Some people say that this is related to the No. 0 card in the main Tarot deck. This card is called Fool, and its pattern is a homeless man. This card is also quite special in Tarot. Some people say that this title is related to a kind of card game at that time. Regardless, this designation eventually became the standard.

After 1900, most poker manufacturers produced JOKER.

In the early days of the JOKER card, the JOKER mark was not printed on the corner of the card. It was usually printed below the clown image. The most commonly used words were: The Jolly Joker, which is the happy clown. It was gradually simplified to The Joker and Joker, and This word is printed on the corner of the card, and some cards are even simplified to the letter "J".

Not all JOKERs are printed with the word "JOKER". Another common marking method is a circled five-pointed star on the corner of the card. We still habitually call it JOKER.

The development of card games promoted the development of cards. At the beginning of the 20th century, the second JOKER appeared in poker. The now popular 54-card poker game was formed.

Poker cards produced in Asia and North America have two JOKERs, but in poker cards produced in Asia, the two JOKERs are usually divided into different sizes, that is, the red JOKER is used to mark the king. This card is usually a colored card, and the other one is called the small king. The JOKER pattern is usually the same as the King, but it is a black and white pattern. In the poker cards we bought back from Europe and the United States, we sometimes find that the two JOKERs are not necessarily different. This is because the popular card games in the two places are different.

After World War II, with the development of card games, more JOKER pokers appeared in Europe. According to reports, Zwicker, a card game now popular in Denmark and Germany, requires 6 JOKERs. Among the cards I have ever seen, the largest deck even has 8 JOKER.

The pattern of JOKER is not static. Although the JOKER of traditional standard poker has many changes, the card usually has the image of a clown. Nowadays, the JOKER in some standard cards is no longer necessarily a clown, but has various variations, such as cartoons, animals, etc., which greatly enriches the content of JOKER.

In 1428, a famous painter named Miguel Arcanyis was commissioned by Queen Mary of Spain to draw a deck of playing cards for her. A businessman specially presented a beautiful box to hold the deck of playing cards. As you can imagine, this must have It's a very beautiful pair of playing cards.

In France, it is preserved that in 1392, King Charles VI of France ordered J. Gringonneur to draw a deck of playing cards by hand.

In Germany, museums house hand-painted hunting-themed playing cards from 1427 to 1445.

Needle holes can be found on some playing cards preserved in ancient times. After investigation, it was found that the owners of the playing cards at that time nailed the playing cards to the wall for display as works of art. This proves that these playing cards were very valuable at that time.

In the 15th century, due to the development of woodblock printing, poker could be industrialized and the game of poker was rapidly promoted. At that time, the wooden molds used for printing were mainly made of boxwood and pear wood.

At that time, poker was first printed with black and white patterns on cardboard with black ink, and then manually colored according to the printed lines. However, when coloring, it was not necessarily colored according to the printed lines. This coloring method was fast. It is very fast and has high production efficiency. It is popular with some painters who are good at mixing colors.

 

Later, a new coloring method was invented, using perforated thin cardboard to cover the black and white of the printed pattern, and then using red, blue, yellow and other colors to sweep over the cardboard, and the colors were printed through the holes in the cardboard When it comes to poker, this method has greatly improved production efficiency and played an important role in popularizing poker. In all countries this method was used until the 19th century.

At the same time, poker manufacturers used copper plate printing to produce high-quality playing cards that were still hand-colored by artists and produced very beautiful patterns. This high-quality poker could be found in almost all European countries before the 17th century.

Due to technical limitations, it is still difficult to color playing cards and the price is relatively high. Therefore, playing cards before the 19th century have always been out of the reach of ordinary people, and only the middle and upper classes can enjoy them.

In 1832, a poker printer named Thomas in London, England invented a new printing technology that greatly improved the printing quality. For this, the British royal family specially commended him.

In 1833, B. Dondorf of Germany invented lithographic printing technology and applied this technology to print pokers in 16 colors at the same time. The use of this technology enabled the rapid development of poker production and truly became popular, entering thousands of households. , enter the lives of ordinary people.

The earliest round playing cards were produced in Germany in the 15th century. The United States produced round playing cards for the first time in 1874, followed by the United Kingdom, Spain and other countries. However, it must be noted that the traditional playing cards in India are round, but it is difficult to verify its earliest production date.

In the beginning, the backs of playing cards were not printed with patterns. It was not until the mid-17th century that manufacturers began to print some simple geometric patterns on the backs of playing cards.

Early Spanish poker merchants printed their names on the poker cards as a quality guarantee. Beginning in the 17th century, some manufacturers began to use some astronomical symbols, such as the sun, stars, moon and other patterns as trademarks.

In Spain, in the 16th century, poker manufacturers began to produce playing cards with gaps on the upper and lower edges to facilitate the card holders to distinguish between the four suits when playing cards. No notch represents a "coin", one notch represents a "cup", two notches represent a "sword", and three notches represent a "stick". This type of poker soon became the standard for poker at the time, and other manufacturers rushed to imitate it. At the end of the 18th century, Roman numerals from 1 to 12 began to be printed on the corners of the cards, and later Arabic numerals were used. Different from the corner codes invented in the United States in the 19th century, only numbers are printed but no pattern marks. In the 18th century, Spain first printed two-way face cards that could be read upside down. The earliest two-way face card poker currently in collection was produced in 1790. It was only in the 19th century that this printing method was popularized in other countries.

In 1778, Spain first produced small playing cards specifically for children to play.

In Spanish poker before the 18th century, the words "AI VA" or "AHI VA" were printed on the "cup" knight cards of the suit.

Since Columbus discovered the American continent, a large number of themes about the New World have appeared on poker designs.

In the 18th century, playing cards inlaid with silver appeared.

Since the 17th century, the educational and commemorative poker cards have been widely popular. Almost all historical events have been reflected in the cards, and a large number of other informative and educational poker cards have also been produced. Such as caricatures, mythological stories, astronomical knowledge, music, geography, animals, opera and other themes. These playing cards are very popular and collected by collectors.

In 1840, after the Opium War, foreign poker also entered China with foreigners. At that time, imported poker cards were mainly from the United States and Japan. Japanese poker cards were popular because of their low price. In 1931, a boycott of Japanese goods movement was launched across the country to advocate domestic products and develop industry. Shanghainese Huang Jinsheng founded Cuihua Card Factory and trial-produced China's first batch of playing cards, Red Lion playing cards.

Poker culture carries not only astronomy, mathematics, politics, and culture, but also scientific manufacturing technology. More importantly, it gathers human wisdom and is a combination of world cultures.