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66-661: Concentration can be played with any number of players or as a solitaire or patience game. It is a particularly good game for young children, though adults may find it challenging and stimulating as well. The scheme is often used in quiz shows (in fact, several game shows have used its name in their titles) and can be employed as an educational game . Concentration is also known by a variety of other names including Memory , Matching Pairs , Match Match , Match Up , Pelmanism , Pexeso or simply Pairs . Any deck of playing cards may be used, although there are also commercial sets of cards with images. The rules given here are for

132-448: A deck or pack of playing cards which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the face and the back . Normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are shuffled together to form a single pack or shoe . Modern card games usually have bespoke decks, often with

198-446: A family running from ace to king. Normally the ace is the base card or foundation on which a two of the same suit is placed, followed by a three and so on. This is building and all such games are, technically, builders. However, in many, the cards must be assembled in reverse order on that part of the layout called the tableau . They can then be built in the right sequence on the foundations. This intermediate step of reverse building

264-434: A century and measuring about 45 x 32 mm. They are frequently sold as twin packs in a single box, since many patiences and solitaires require two full decks of cards. The two packs may have different back designs which, however, does not affect the play. Patience or solitaire games may be grouped together in various ways as follows: Most patience or solitaire games involve building sequences of cards in suit in order in

330-471: A descendant of Noddy , and Whist , a development of English Trump or Ruff ('ruff' then meaning 'rob') in which four players were dealt 12 cards each and the dealer 'robbed' from the remaining stock of 4 cards. Piquet was a two-player, trick-taking game that originated in France, probably in the 16th century and was initially played with 36 cards before, around 1690, the pack reduced to the 32 cards that gives

396-665: A game between two players playing alternately. Before this, there were no literary mentions of such games in large game compendia such as Charles Cotton 's The Compleat Gamester (1674) and Abbé Bellecour's Academie des Jeux (1674). Books were also reported to appear in Sweden and Russia in the early 1800s and the earliest book of patience games was published in Russia in 1826. More followed, especially in Sweden. There are additional references to Patience in French literature. Patience

462-501: A lost book called Patience by 'Perseverance', a pseudonym for by William Henry Cremer, was published in London in 1860 and is listed in bibliographies. The earliest American treatise is Patience: A Series of Games with Cards by Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney (1869), which was followed in 1870 by Patience: A Series of Thirty Games with Cards , and later Dick's Games of Patience (1883). More books on patience were written towards

528-408: A match. There are some exceptions to this rule that apply on the fringe cases, where n = 0 or 1 or towards the end of the game. Many of these may be played in combination with one another: If one of the players has a particularly good memory, she could play blindfolded. In this case, her opponent must say which cards have been turned up, turn the cards back down if she doesn't get a pair and take

594-557: A move if possible or desired, and then discard a card to a discard pile . Almost all the games of this group are in the rummy family, but Golf is a non-rummy example. As the name might suggest, players exchange hand cards with a common pool of cards on the table. Examples include Schwimmen , Kemps , James Bond and Whisky Poker. They originated in the old European games of Thirty-One and Commerce . A very old round game played in different forms in different countries. Players are dealt just one card and may try and swap it with

660-455: A neighbor to avoid having the lowest card or, sometimes, certain penalty cards. The old French game is Coucou and its later English cousin is Ranter Go Round , also called Chase the Ace and Screw Your Neighbour. A family of such games played with special cards includes Italian Cucù , Scandinavian Gnav , Austrian Hexenspiel and German Vogelspiel . Games involving collecting sets of cards,

726-554: A new sequence. This concept spread to other 17th and 18th century games including Poque , Comete , Emprunt , Manille , Nain Jaune and Lindor , all except Emprunt being still played in some form today. It was the 17th century that saw the second of the two great innovations being introduced into trick-taking games: the concept of bidding. This first emerged in the Spanish game of Ombre , an evolution of Triomphe that "in its time,

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792-542: A renaissance as a result of being readily transferable to a software format and playable on computers or other electronic media. Perhaps the most influential initially was Microsoft's "Solitaire", actually the well known game of Klondike . Its inclusion with Windows as Microsoft Solitaire from 1990 onwards had an especially big impact in popularizing patience and solitaire games with the general public. A plethora of electronic versions of these games has been produced, some, like "Solitaire" under proprietary names different from

858-458: A sheet of paper). The object is to clear the tableau in the fewest turns, or to get the lowest possible score. With perfect memorization and using an optimal strategy, the expected number of moves needed for a game with n {\displaystyle n} cards converges to ≈ 0.8 n {\displaystyle \approx 0.8n} , with n → ∞ {\displaystyle n\to \infty } . For

924-417: A standard deck of 52 cards, the expected value is ≈ 41.6 {\displaystyle \approx 41.6} moves. Over the course of the game, it becomes known where certain cards are located, and so upon turning up one card, players with good memory will be able to remember where they have already seen its pair. It is common for many players to think they know where pairs are and to turn over

990-405: A standard deck of 52 cards, which are normally laid face down in four rows of 13 cards each. The two jokers may be included for a total of six rows of nine cards each. Additional packs can be used for added interest. Standard rules need not be followed: the cards can be spread out anywhere, such as all around a room. In turn, each player chooses two cards and turns them face up. If they are of

1056-494: A vast amount of cards, and can include number or action cards. This type of game is generally regarded as part of the board game hobby. Games using playing cards exploit the fact that cards are individually identifiable from one side only, so that each player knows only the cards they hold and not those held by anyone else. For this reason card games are often characterized as games of chance or "imperfect information"—as distinct from games of strategy or perfect information , where

1122-428: A wastepile from which they may, potentially, not be accessible again. Closed games are subdivided as follows: In open games, the entire pack of cards is visible at the outset and continue to be visible throughout the game. Games of perfect information (like chess), they require careful analysis to achieve success. Open games may be divided into: Half-open games are those which start 'closed' and become 'open' as

1188-419: A worldwide market. However, in a few instances they are sometimes retained, for example, where the name is an adjective e.g. "The Blind Patience" or the definite article seems more evocative or meaningful e.g. "The Plot". American sources sometimes change the names of games where the title has a European theme e.g. "British Constitution" is just "Constitution" and "Duchess of Luynes" is "Grand Duchess". Patience

1254-474: Is François Rabelais , whose fictional character Gargantua played no less than 30 card games, many of which are recognisable. They include: Aluette , Bête , Cent, Coquimbert , Coucou , Flush or Flux, Gé (Pairs), Gleek , Lansquenet , Piquet , Post and Pair , Primero , Ronfa , Triomphe , Sequence, Speculation , Tarot and Trente-et-Un ; possibly Rams , Mouche and Brandeln as well. Girolamo Cardano also provides invaluable information including

1320-410: Is also popular. Most patience or card solitaire games are designed to be played by one player, but some are designed for two or more players to compete. Patience games originated in northern Europe and were designed for a single player, hence its subsequent North American name of solitaire. Most games begin with a specific layout of cards, called a tableau , and the object is then either to construct

1386-521: Is any game played with playing cards in which the object is to arrange the cards... in some systematic order." They note that "there are excellent games of Patience for two or more players; but most... are designed for one player" and that "Solitaire...properly applies to any game that one player can play alone." In practice, in North America the name 'solitaire' is often used totum pro parte to refer to single-player card games, although sometimes

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1452-412: Is called packing , and games using this technique are called "packers". Games that use neither technique are "non-builders". There are also special kinds of packer known as 'blockades', 'planners' and 'spiders'. These games may be classified by the degree to which the cards are revealed. In "open games", all the cards are visible throughout the game and the player has to use powers of analysis to solve

1518-633: Is considered one of the national card games of Italy. Cassino is the only fishing game to be widely played in English-speaking countries. Zwicker has been described as a "simpler and jollier version of Cassino", played in Germany. Tablanet (tablić) is a fishing-style game popular in Balkans . The object of a matching (or sometimes "melding") game is to acquire particular groups of matching cards before an opponent can do so. In Rummy , this

1584-413: Is done through drawing and discarding, and the groups are called melds. Mahjong is a very similar game played with tiles instead of cards. Non-Rummy examples of match-type games generally fall into the "fishing" genre and include the children's games Go Fish and Old Maid . In games of the war group, also called "catch and collect games" or "accumulating games", the object is to acquire all cards in

1650-483: Is first mentioned in a French translation of a 1440 sermon by the Italian, Saint Bernadine , the name actually referring to two different card games: one like Pontoon and one like Commerce . In the 16th century printed documents replace handwritten sources and card games become a popular topic with preachers, autobiographists and writers in general. A key source of the games in vogue in France and Europe at that time

1716-479: Is probably of German or Scandinavian origin, the earliest records appearing in there in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The game became popular in France in the early 19th century, reaching Britain and America in the latter half. The earliest known description of a game of patience appeared in the 1783 edition of the German game anthology Das neue Königliche L'Hombre-Spiel , where it is called Patience and describes

1782-456: Is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are intended for play by a single player, but there are also "excellent games of patience for two or more players". 'Patience' is the earliest recorded name for this type of card game in both British and American sources. The word is French in origin, these games being "regarded as an exercise in patience." Although

1848-408: Is the game of President , which is probably derived from an Asian game. Card exchange games form another large category in which players exchange a card or cards from their hands with table cards or with other players with the aim, typically, of collecting specific cards or card combinations. Games of the rummy family are the best known. In these games players draw a card from stock , make

1914-674: Is used instead. The earliest English and American sources tended to use the definite article before the names of games e.g. "The Beleaguered Castle", "The Clock", "The Gathering of the Clans", "The House on the Hill", etc. The word "Patience" or, in American sources, "Solitaire" was also often appended to names e.g. "The Baroness Patience", "Czarina Patience", "Gateway Solitaire", "Missing Link Solitaire", etc. These tendencies have largely been dropped in modern sources, especially where books are aimed at

1980-517: The Piquet pack its name. Reversis is a reverse game in which players avoid taking tricks and appears to be an Italian invention that came to France around 1600 and spread rapidly to other countries in Europe. In the mid-17th century, a certain game named after Cardinal Mazarin , prime minister to King Louis XIV , became very popular at the French royal court. Called Hoc Mazarin , it had three phases,

2046-666: The 18th century and is mentioned several times, for example, in Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice . The first rules of any game in the German language were those for Rümpffen published in 1608 and later expanded in several subsequent editions. In addition, the first German games compendium, Palamedes Redivivus appeared in 1678, containing the rules for Hoick ( Hoc ), Ombre, Picquet (sic), Rümpffen and Thurnspiel. The evolution of card games continued apace, with notable national games emerging like Briscola and Tressette (Italy), Schafkopf (Bavaria), Jass (Switzerland), Mariage ,

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2112-522: The actual cards. In point-trick games, the number of tricks is immaterial; what counts is the value, in points, of the cards captured. Many common Anglo-American games fall into the category of plain-trick games . The usual objective is to take the most tricks, but variations taking all tricks, making as few tricks (or penalty cards) as possible or taking an exact number of tricks. Bridge , Whist and Spades are popular examples. Hearts , Black Lady and Black Maria are examples of reverse games in which

2178-607: The actual name. Card game A card game is any game that uses playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, whether the cards are of a traditional design or specifically created for the game (proprietary). Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker ). A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules with international tournaments being held, but most are folk games whose rules may vary by region, culture, location or from circle to circle. Traditional card games are played with

2244-472: The aim is to avoid certain cards. Plain-trick games may be divided into the following 11 groups: Point-trick games are all European or of European origin and include the Tarot card games . Individual cards have specific point values and the objective is usually to amass the majority of points by taking tricks, especially those with higher value cards. There are around nine main groups: In beating games

2310-462: The ancestor of Austria's Schnapsen and Germany's Sixty-Six , and Tapp Tarock , the progenitor of most modern central European Tarot games . Whist spread to the continent becoming very popular in the north and west. In France, Comet appeared, a game that later evolved into Nain Jaune and the Victorian game of Pope Joan . Card games may be classified in different ways: by their objective, by

2376-440: The best known of which is Happy Families . Highly successful is its German equivalent, Quartett, which may be played with a Skat pack , but is much more commonly played with proprietary packs. Games involving passing cards to your neighbors. The classic game is Old Maid which may, however, be derived from German Black Peter and related to the French game of Vieux Garçon . Pig , with its variations of Donkey and Spoons ,

2442-404: The cards out for her if she does get a pair. Concentration is not limited to playing cards. Many versions of the game that are designed for children may have different themes. In some computer versions, the cards may randomly move to increase the difficulty. Solitaire (game) Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature

2508-514: The current position is fully visible to all players throughout the game. Many games that are not generally placed in the family of card games do in fact use cards for some aspect of their play. Some games that are placed in the card game genre involve a board. The distinction is that the play in a card game chiefly depends on the use of the cards by players (the board is a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement), while board games (the principal non-card game genre to use cards) generally focus on

2574-399: The deck. Examples include most War type games, and games involving slapping a discard pile such as Slapjack . Egyptian Ratscrew has both of these features. Climbing games are an Oriental family in which the idea is to play a higher card or combination of cards that the one just played. Alternatively a player must pass or may choose to pass even if able to beat. The sole Western example

2640-518: The earliest rules of Trappola . Among the most popular were the games of Flusso and Primiera, which originated in Italy and spread throughout Europe, becoming known in England as Flush and Primero . In Britain the earliest known European fishing game was recorded in 1522. Another first was Losing Loadum , noted by Florio in 1591, which is the earliest known English point-trick game . In Scotland,

2706-464: The early 20th century, the name "solitaire" became established in North America; "patience" continues to be used elsewhere in the world. Patience or card solitaire games are usually intended for a single player, although a small number have been designed for two and, in rare cases, three or even four players. They are games of skill or chance or a combination of the two. There are three classes of patience grouped by aim or object. It will be obvious that

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2772-540: The end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. The most prolific and original author was Mary Whitmore Jones whose first book, Games of Patience for One or More Players , appeared in 1888 and was followed by four more volumes by 1900 and another two entitled New Games of Patience by 1911. Together her works contain around 250 different games. Other authors of books on patience included H. E. Jones (a.k.a. Cavendish ), Angelo Lewis (a.k.a. Professor Hoffmann ), Basil Dalton, Ernest Bergholt and "Tarbart". In

2838-674: The endeavour to arrange, pair, or combine the cards of a whole pack is a difficult task, varying in degree according to the rules of the particular game. The player must therefore be prepared for a good many failures, sometimes when he or she has all but reached the goal of success. Hence why the name 'patience games' has been given to recreations of this description. The cards are normally smaller than standard cards measuring about 67 x 42 mm. However, packs labelled 'Patience' have also been produced in standard size (c. 88 x 58 mm) and are also marketed as mini-patience cards at 54 x 36 mm. Even smaller cards have been produced for at least

2904-400: The equipment used (e.g. number of cards and type of suits), by country of origin or by mechanism (how the game is played). Parlett and McLeod predominantly group cards games by mechanism of which there are five categories: outplay, card exchange, hand comparison, layout and a miscellaneous category that includes combat and compendium games. These are described in the following sections. Easily

2970-462: The far more interesting games of Costly Colours and Cribbage . Players play in turn and add the values of the cards as they go. The aim is to reach or avoid certain totals and also to score for certain combinations. In fishing games, cards from the hand are played against cards in a layout on the table, capturing table cards if they match. Fishing games are popular in many nations, including China, where there are many diverse fishing games. Scopa

3036-409: The final one of which evolved into a much simpler game called Manille that was renamed Comète on the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1682. In Comète the aim is to be first to shed all one's hand cards to sequences laid out in rows on the table. However, there are certain cards known as ' stops ' or hocs : cards that end a sequence and give the one who played it the advantage of being able to start

3102-423: The first sets of rules, those for Piquet appearing in 1632 and Reversis in 1634. The first French games compendium, La Maison Académique , appeared in 1654 and it was followed in 1674 by Charles Cotton 's The Compleat Gamester , although an earlier manuscript of games by Francis Willughby was written sometime between 1665 and 1670. Cotton records the first rules for the classic English games of Cribbage ,

3168-450: The game of Mawe , testified in the 1550s, evolved from a country game into one played at the royal Scottish court, becoming a favorite of James VI . The ancestor of Cribbage – a game called Noddy – is mentioned for the first time in 1589, "Noddy" being the Knave turned for trump at the start of play. The 17th century saw an upsurge in the number of new games being reported as well as

3234-470: The game progresses. They may be divided as follows: Competitive patiences are games of a patience or card solitaire character that are not played solitarily, but by two or more players in competition with each other. The earliest ones go back to the late 19th century. Examples include Conjugal Patience, Cribbage Patience , Pirate, Progressive Patience, Racing Demon , Russian Bank , Spit and Spite and Malice . Patience and solitaire games have enjoyed

3300-430: The idea is to beat the card just played if possible, otherwise it must be picked up, either alone or together with other cards, and added to the hand. In many beating games the objective is to shed all one's cards, in which case they are also "shedding games". Well known examples include Crazy Eights , Mau Mau , Durak , and Skitgubbe . This is a small group whose ancestor is Noddy , now extinct, but which generated

3366-415: The known cards, the match is next chosen. Less obviously, if the card does not match any known card, one of the n known cards should still be chosen to minimize the information provided to other players. The mathematics follow: If a remaining unknown card is chosen randomly, there is a 1/(t−1−n) chance of getting a match, but also a n/(t−1−n) chance of providing opponents with the information needed to make

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3432-409: The largest category of games in which players have a hand of cards and must play them out to the table. Play ends when players have played all their cards. Trick-taking games are the largest category of outplay games. Players typically receive an equal number of cards and a trick involves each player playing a card face up to the table – the rules of play dictating what cards may be played and who wins

3498-410: The latter being the game played by the aforementioned card cheats. All three are recorded during the 15th century, along with Karnöffel , first mentioned in 1426 and which is still played in several forms today, including Bruus , Knüffeln , Kaiserspiel and Styrivolt . Since the arrival of trick-taking games in Europe in the late 14th century, there have only been two major innovations. The first

3564-492: The name solitaire became common in North America for this type of game during the 20th century, British games scholar David Parlett notes that there are good reasons for preferring the name 'patience'. Firstly, a patience is a card game, whereas a solitaire is any one-player game, including those played with dominoes or peg and board games. Secondly, any game of patience may be played competitively by two or more players. American games authors Wood and Goddard state that "Patience

3630-749: The notable exceptions of the British Isles , the Iberian Peninsula , and the Balkans . However, we do not know the rules of the early Tarot games; the earliest detailed description in any language being those published by the Abbé de Marolles in Nevers in 1637. The concept of trumps was sufficiently powerful that it was soon transferred to games played with far cheaper ordinary packs of cards, as opposed to expensive Tarot cards. The first of these

3696-602: The one they are sure of first, then be stumped finding its mate. A better strategy is to turn over a less certain card first, so that if wrong, one knows not to bother turning a more certain card over. An ideal strategy can be developed if we assume that players have perfect memory. For the One Flip variation below, this strategy is fairly simple. Before any turn in the game, there are t cards still in play, and n cards still in play but of known value. The current player should flip over an unknown card. If this card matches one of

3762-471: The patience. In "closed" games, cards are drawn from a face-down stock and the player has to use judgement because the sequence of cards is unknown until they appear. In between is a hybrid group which David Parlett calls "half-open". Closed games are those in which, throughout the game, not all the cards are visible. They require more judgment because the sequence of cards is unknown. As cards appear, if they cannot be played straight away they are put into

3828-428: The players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose. Despite the presence of playing cards in Europe being recorded from around 1370, it is not until 1408 that the first card game is described in a document about the exploits of two card sharps ; although it is evidently very simple, the game is not named. In fact the earliest games to be mentioned by name are Gleek , Ronfa and Condemnade,

3894-407: The same rank and color (e.g. six of hearts and six of diamonds, queen of clubs and queen of spades, or both jokers , if used) then that player wins the pair and plays again. If they are not of the same rank and color, they are turned face down again and play passes to the player on the left. Rules can be changed here too: it can be agreed before the game starts that matching pairs be any two cards of

3960-490: The same rank, a color-match being unnecessary, or that the match must be both rank and card suit. The game ends when the last pair has been picked up. The winner is the person with the most pairs. There may be a tie for first place. Concentration may be played solo either as a leisurely exercise, or with the following scoring method: play as normal, but keep track of the number of non-matching pairs turned over (this may be done using poker chips , pennies or by making marks on

4026-411: The term 'card solitaire' is used for clarity. Meanwhile, in other countries 'solitaire' specifically refers to one-player board and table games, especially peg solitaire and marble solitaire . Solitaire is often used worldwide just to refer to the game of Klondike . Authors writing internationally tend to include both "patience" and "solitaire" in the title, but sometimes the phrase "card games for one"

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4092-406: The trick. There are two main types of trick-taking game with different objectives. Both are based on the play of multiple tricks , in each of which each player plays a single card from their hand, and based on the values of played cards one player wins or "takes" the trick. In plain-trick games the aim is to win a number of tricks, a specific trick or as many tricks as possible, without regard to

4158-506: Was Triomphe , the name simply being the French equivalent of the Italian trionfi . Although not testified before 1538, its first rules were written by a Spaniard who left his native country for Milan in 1509 never to return; thus the game may date to the late 15th century. Others games that may well date to the 15th century are Pochen – the game of Bocken or Boeckels being attested in Strasbourg in 1441 – and Thirty-One , which

4224-642: Was first mentioned in literature shortly after cartomantic layouts were developed circa 1765, suggesting a connection between the two. This theory is supported by the name of the game in Danish and Norwegian , kabal(e) . An 1895 account describes a variant of the game exclusively used for cartomancy. The first collection of patience card games in the English language is often attributed to Lady Adelaide Cadogan through her Illustrated Games of Patience , published in about 1870 and reprinted several times. However,

4290-568: Was the introduction of trump cards with the power to beat all cards in other suits. Such cards were initially called trionfi and first appeared with the advent of Tarot cards in which there is a separate, permanent trump suit comprising a number of picture cards. The first known example of such cards was ordered by the Duke of Milan around 1420 and included 16 trumps with images of Greek and Roman gods. Thus games played with Tarot cards appeared very early on and spread to most parts of Europe with

4356-537: Was the most successful card game ever invented." Ombre's origins are unclear and obfuscated by the existence of a game called Homme or Bête in France, ombre and homme being respectively Spanish and French for 'man'. In Ombre, the player who won the bidding became the "Man" and played alone against the other two. The game spread rapidly across Europe, spawning variants for different numbers of players and known as Quadrille , Quintille, Médiateur and Solo . Quadrille went on to become highly fashionable in England during

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