Card games are one of the most popular pass times in today’s time, especially after its introduction in the online world. There are hundreds of games you can play and master. Even though most of these games are made for fun, some of them even allow you to win some money. That said, more than winning a game, playing cards has also been a keen interest for a lot of people. They want to know more about the hidden patterns and resemblances in real life to these cards.
However, when it comes to playing cards, just knowing how many face cards are in a deck is not enough. Knowing the history and certain interesting facts about card games can not only help you better your game but also make you more knowledgeable and notice the hidden details and patterns in a deck. This article further aims at providing you with some fun facts about card games and cards in general. Keep reading to learn more. Learn Here in detail.
- Card Calendar:
The history of playing cards dates back to hundreds of years, and its exact origin has still not been determined. However, there are many fascinating facts that tell you how a card deck was developed & how many face cards are in a deck. Some interested people have found several similarities of a playing card deck with the yearly calendar everyone follows. This table mentioned here further shows how a card deck resembles a calendar.
- 2 colors: A card deck is mainly made up of two colors, red and black. Each of which denotes a part of the day; while the black is meant for nighttime, the red depicts day.
- 4 suits: as is common knowledge, there are mainly four seasons in the calendar, namely summer, winter, fall, and spring. It is thought that each of the 4 seasons corresponds to the four suits in each deck.
- 13 values: A card deck begins with an ace and ends at a King, with a total of 13 denominations in each suit. This further corresponds to the 13 weeks in each quarter of the year and the 13 lunar cycles as well.
- 12 courts: This is a rather simple takeaway, with each court representing a month in the year.
- 52 cards: The presence of 52 cards in a whole deck is also not just a coincidence but matches the 52 weeks in a whole year.
While there is not a lot of proof saying If this resemblance is simply a coincidence or deliberate, either way, it does make for a lot of great stories.
- Mathematical magic:
Unknown to people, playing cards essentially have a lot of mathematical secrets built into it. Further mentioned here are some of the more popular patterns you can notice.
- Perfect shuffles:
More commonly known as faro shuffles, these are an extraordinary way of shuffling your cards, where the cards get inter-weaved precisely one at a time. This means, if you do a total of eight faro shuffles, your deck will return to exactly how it was in the beginning.
- Possible shuffles:
It can seem quite overwhelming when you think about the possible ways you can shuffle a deck of cards. The number is actually higher than the number of atoms on earth. To be exact, this number starts with an 8 and has 67 zeros after it. This also means that if you shuffle a deck of cards with a new arrangement every second, it will take you a few million years to get each one of them. Knowing this, every time you shuffle a deck of cards, just imagine how unique and special that arrangement actually is.
- Infinite eights:
Another fascinating fact about playing cards is that the negative spaces between the pips in the Eight of diamonds actually depict figure eight. Now that you have noticed it, you cannot unsee it!
- Addition test:
It has been seen that if you add up the values of each card in a deck, with numbers 11 for the Jack, 12 for the Queen and 13 for the King, and 1 for the joker, the total will always be 365, which also happens to be the total number of days in a year. This just adds to the speculation of there being a card calendar.
To sum up
These are only some of the many fascinating things you can learn about playing cards. While some of these observations might be coincidences, it is always fun to stay on top with this lesser-known trivia. Perhaps knowing about some of the more intricate details can help you perceive a game differently. To say the least, you will always have interesting things to say at a card games like how many face cards are in a deck & other facts with your friends and family.