Poker with a 60-card deck

[Siegmund]

I am not sure what forum is best to ask this in, but I came across an odd historical tidbit last night.

Among the books in my collection is one of those "Hoyle's Rules of Games" type books from 1924. (I drag it out this time of year each year, because I run an annual Auction Bridge game (the predecessor of modern Contract Bridge) late each July in conjuction with a local pioneer-days festival.)

This year I happened to look up the rules for poker.

The description of each game starts out with the usual details: how many decks, how many players, are the cards ranked in the usual order, and so on.

In that first paragraph of the poker section it says this: "Rank of cards. A(high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A (low). When a 60-card deck is used, 11s rank above 10s, and 12s rank above 11s."

Was poker with a 60-card deck really so common in the 1920s that it merited mention in the very first paragraph of a description of how the game is played? (By contrast, several pages later, after it goes through the standard 5-card draw and 5-card stud rules and moves on to exotic variations like deuces wild or treating a blaze as beating two pair, it briefly mentions a variant of playing with a deck with the 5s 4s and 3s removed is "sometimes done to throw off the scientifically minded players by making flushes much harder to make". )

Any card historians care to comment?

[AaronBrown]

I wouldn't call myself a card historian, but I've been interested in this stuff for a while.

The current 52-card deck we use is based on a French deck, that was adapted by England. 150 years ago, you would still find plenty of games played with special decks with all sorts of different numbers of cards and suits. We have that today, except the special decks are generally marketed as specific games like Crazy 8's, Uno, Authors and so forth.

Starting around 1900, there were a lot of efforts to rationalize play, it was part of a scientific movement to throw out superstition and tradition. The 60-card deck was part of it, because 60 is divisible by 2, 3 and 5; with an extra 2. You can divide the cards evenly for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15 and 30 players. A 52 card deck works only for 2, 4 and 13. There was also a 78-card deck (six suits, keeping the relatively large prime factor but giving more small ones to work with) and 84 cards (2, 3 and 7 instead of 2, 3 and 5).

In addition to the unusual numbers of cards, the makers used modern suits and personages, who remembers what a "jack" really is, and what is that weird thing he's holding?

I consider this part of the Poker tradition, in the sense that Poker insisted early that the hand rankings be based on simple mathematical principles, rather than the arbitrary and complex rankings of most traditional games.

Removing cards from a deck to change the game is an old habit applied to almost every game. I consider it an English practice. Of course it has the exact opposite effect as intended, experts can rapidly adjust to the change, other players cannot.

[Phat Mack]

I believe there is an Australian deck with 11's and 12's in it used for playing a form of Euchre. I've never seen a 60-card deck in the States, but have seen five-suited ones.

David Parlett would be the guy to ask. He used to hang out in rec.games.playing-cards, but that was years ago. His A History of Card Games is invaluable if you are interested in this sort of thing.

[Siegmund]

One of my favorite books.

Part of why I found this reference so strange is that 60 isn't a common size for any of the "usual suspects," 19th-century nonstandard-deck games. The fifteen-card suit is particularly odd (the tarot games have 14-card suits, but virtually all the other nonstandard decks have ranks removed.)

I corresponded with Parlett a few years back, via a mailing list for inventors of new solitaires. I probably have his address around somewhere if I dig....

[ramsclub]

I do remamber reading that in the early 20th century a fifth suite was introduced smething like stars.

[LomU]

we use 60 card decks here in New Zealand to play 500

[Jazza]

[ QUOTE ]
I believe there is an Australian deck with 11's and 12's in it used for playing a form of Euchre. I've never seen a 60-card deck in the States, but have seen five-suited ones.

David Parlett would be the guy to ask. He used to hang out in rec.games.playing-cards, but that was years ago. His A History of Card Games is invaluable if you are interested in this sort of thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, as lomu has said, there are decks with 11's 12's and red 13's

i was just thinking the other day about how playing with this deck would change holdem