BS: Playing Cards--about

Subject: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Peace
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 11:15 AM

Well, I have come back to the Mudcat Living Encyclopaedia to ask another question--one with which the internet has been of little help. The standard deck of fifty-two cards comes packaged in a small box. When one first opens the deck, it will have four suits (C,D,H,S) of 13 cards each going from 2 to Ace. Also, there will be two jokers. Is there a 55th blank card in there too? That's the question. Will a brand new deck have 54 or 55 cards? Need to know. HELP.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 11:22 AM

Sometimes one with the list of what hands beat others in poker, if it's a poker size deck. Sometimes advertising for other products by the company that makes the cards. Sometimes, less often, just a blank card so you can draw on it to replace a missing card down the road.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: John Routledge
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 11:31 AM

A card giving the points for bridge contracts is sometimes a 55th card.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Peace
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 11:45 AM

Thank you both, very much. Parenthetically, have you ever heard of the following: Little Dog, Big Dog, Dutch Straight, Dutch Skip? They were poker hands used--if memory serves--during the Alaskan Gold Rush. Guys got bored with the regular hands and decided to spice up the game. Little Dod was a hand like 3,5,6,7,8,. Big Dog was a hand like 5,6,7,8,10. Dutch Straight was 2,4,6,8,10 and the DS was 3,5,7,9,J. Thank you for the info.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 12:04 PM

Dead Man's Hand is Aces and eights, all black. (The hand that Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot)

Parenthetically again, did you know that brand new playing cards make extremely accurate machinists's shims? They are all .011" thick. Bet that amazes you ...

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 12:18 PM

Sure, we used to play those hands. Also an Around-The-Corner Straight: e.g., K, A, 2, 3, 4. Also a Red-Black: 2h, 3s, 4d, 5c, 6h or whatever. We also used to play with aces, deuces, one-eyed jacks, threes, nines, and jokers wild -- what do you do when EVERYONE has a royal flush in spades?

Fella came up from Mexico to attend college where I did. One of his friends on the rancho (a very large one!) sent him a couple quarts of homemade tequila. So my youngest brother and a couple of friends took Jose up to a camp for an evening of poker and tequila.

They sat down at the battered old table and the drama began. Jim pulled out a Bowie knife with a blade about a foot long, stabbed it into the table, and growled "Okay, let's keep the game honest." Steve pulled out a HUGE blackpowder revolved and said, "Yeah!" Ted reached under the table and hauled out a double barreled shotgun. Jim counters with a blackjack, Steve with pair of brass knuckles, and so on. Poor Jose didn't know what to make of it until nobody could hold in the laughter any longer.

Jose took 'em for about fifty bucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Peace
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 12:39 PM

Can you name the three one-eyed cars in the deck?

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 12:42 PM

One-Eyed Jacks and Man-with-the-Axe.

A good game.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Peace
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 01:09 PM

Y'all gotta know that this site is fantastic. A guy or gal can ask the strangest questions and get answers that make sense in a very short time. Like, who in the world would know that a playing card is .011" thick? And look where that little piece of knowledge could go. Gapping a plug, for example. Need .044? Get four cards. Thank you all, again, very much.

When the Canadian government issued the no-longer-round penny, I weighed the new coin and compared it to the old. There was 6.5% less copper in the new one. Anything to make a buck. Y'all have a great day, and thanks for the info. Bruce M.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Pseudolus
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 04:20 PM

Three one eyed cards -

Jack of Spades, Jack of Hearts and King of Diamonds......

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 06:08 PM

Here's Les Barkers's Deck of Cards. Not to be confused with any other pack.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 06:20 PM

Oh please Kevin......Not that incredible piece of shit again........oy..........

HEY MURRAY......Regarding Aces and Eights...Supposedly Sir Donald Cambell drew that hand on the night before his last run in Bluebird where it disintegrated during a high speed crash. Dunno' if it's true, but since it happened up in your neck of the woods....

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 07:17 PM

Didn't know about that Spaw, although it certainly makes sense that Donald Campbell would have been a poker player.
btw, Coniston Water (where Campbell met his death) is not quite in my neck of the woods although I have enjoyed many a family vacation there in years gone by.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 07:54 PM

You clicked on that, spaw? Or am I right to suspect that you are confusing it with another piece with the same name, which Les Barker's version wickedly subverts?

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Hrothgar
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 12:16 AM

I have been accustomed to getting 52 cards, plus two jokers, plus TWO blanks. Wow!

Nobody around here plays solo whist ....... damn!

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 12:17 AM

You will find a version of Mr. Barker's song in Katherine Briggs "British Folktales" allegedly set during the English Civil Wars.

I didn't start dating until college, when I met a senior whose name was, so help me, Bill Bailey. (His mother named him Billy, so he couldn't even be Will!) He loved to play Euchre. I don't remember which cards are removed from the deck when you play. I just know that Euchre isn't played with a full deck.

I also know that if you always play your second highest card, you can play the game without concentrating on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Peace
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 12:29 AM

I gotta ask: did he, you know?

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 06:13 AM

Okay Kevin.....My real apologies!!! As soon as I read that I was sure that it was the one we are both thinking of and did not click!!! My fault entirely and again, I'm sorry....not that the BS one is your style or anything, but I figured that on any thread like this it would come up.....and now I'VE brought it up!!

Bad Spaw.....Bad Spaw.....**thwack**....*thwack*....Bad Spaw!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 02:52 PM

But Les Barker's version is pretty good - and it wouldn't exist without the crap version that provoked it, so maybe in the end that earned its keep.

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 03:36 PM

and Max Boyce's version

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Playing Cards--about
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 04:26 PM

B****r ! Nigel, yer just beat me to it !

Gareth