Why is the king of size in poker called Joker?

Our current poker is usually 54 cards, two of which are wild cards, that is, two cards called the king of size. In fact, these two cards did not exist at first.

The traditional cards with the colors of spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds were invented by the French in the14th century, with only 52 cards at the beginning. Around 1850, some poker manufacturers began to add the 53rd card to their cards. At that time, this card was only used as a replacement card or as an advertisement. The fifty-third card mainly takes the following forms:

1, blank card, that is, there is no printed card on the front. This card is mainly used as a replacement card. When one of the cards is lost, you can replace it with this card.

2, trademark card, this card is printed with the trademark of the poker factory, which can be used as a replacement card and also plays the role of advertising.

3, billboards, a pair of ordinary poker to join a commodity advertisement. This card may be the predecessor of advertising poker now. You can also see this form of billboard now.

4. Ordinary card. Whistler Bridge was very popular at that time. Printing this card with scoring method is very popular with players. Now many foreign playing cards also have this kind of cards.

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

Because many cards have 53 cards, there are many card games played with 53 cards. Among them, a 53-card card game appeared in Mississippi, USA, which quickly swept across North America. At that time, there were generally 53 poker cards made in America.

The names of card No.53 are not uniform, including "extra card", "wild card", "best card", "best pavilion" and "life card", all of which are printed on the card. From these appellations, we can see that this card has the function of replacing cards, wild cards and trump cards.

Like France, traditional poker in Britain has 52 cards. In 1970s, in order to expand sales in North America, some British manufacturers formally produced 53 playing cards.

According to the research of some foreign experts, the name "Clown" appears between 1860 and 1880. How did this name come from? Some people say that this has something to do with the number 0 of the tarot card. This card is called "fool" and the design is tramp. This card is also quite special in tarot cards. Others said that this title was related to a card game at that time. In any case, this title finally became the standard.

After 1900, most of the poker cards produced by manufacturers have JOKER.

The "JOKER" logo of the early clown brand was not printed on the corner, but usually printed under the clown pattern. The word "Jolly Joker", that is, the happy clown, is gradually simplified to "The Joker" and "Joker", and the word is printed in the corner, and some cards are even simplified to the letter "J".

Not all JOKERs are printed with the word "joker". Another common marking method is to draw a five-pointed star and a circle on the corner of the card, which we still call joker.

The development of card games has promoted the development of cards. At the beginning of the 20th century, a second clown appeared in poker. Formed a popular 54 cards.

There are two clowns in poker produced in Asia and North America, but in poker produced in Asia, these two clowns are usually divided into different sizes, that is, the red clown marks the king, usually a colored card, and the other clown named Xiao Wang is usually the same as the king, but it is black and white. In the poker we bought in Europe and America, we sometimes find that the two players are not necessarily different, because the popular cards in the two places are different.

After World War II, with the development of card games, more wild poker appeared in Europe. It is reported that Zwicker, a card game popular in Denmark and Germany, needs six clowns. Among the cards I have seen, the most deck even has eight wild cards.

The clown's pattern is not static. Although the wild cards of traditional standard poker have changed a lot, the cards are generally clown images. Nowadays, some clowns in standard cards are not necessarily clowns, but have various changes, such as cartoons and animals, which greatly enrich the content of clowns.

Here, I have to mention the relationship between poker and astronomical calendar. Some people study that in poker, the king represents the sun and Xiao Wang represents the moon. If the size of a king is half a point, it only means 265 days a year, and a point means 366 days a year. I have always disagreed with these statements. Although I dare not deny that poker has something to do with astronomical calendar, from the development history of JOKER, some of the above statements are problematic.

collect

Although the card game with JOKER is very popular, there are still many people who like to play the traditional 52 cards, such as bridge. When playing cards, players usually take JOKER out and put it aside. Because of the unique design of this card, some people came up with the idea of collecting, so they began to collect single and versatile people. Many foreign clown collectors I know have similar experiences. For a long time, one of the collectors thought he was the only one who collected a single clown in the world because of lack of communication. It was not until later, with the popularity of the Internet, that I realized that there are not a few people who collect a wild card alone in the world.

Of course, more collectors start by collecting the whole deck of poker. Because the other cards of the standard card have not changed much, it is easier to collect and exchange a single wild card, so they not only collect the whole deck of cards based on colors, but also collect a single wild card.

Because singles and jokers are easier to exchange by mail, the mailing price is very cheap. So the communication between collectors is even more active than the whole deck of poker in the world. If you open the Internet, you will find that there are more clown websites on the Internet, whose main function is communication.

Clowns are mainly divided into three categories:

1, standard wild. The wild card of standard poker (note 1) is the most traditional wild card, and it is also the favorite category of collectors. Some people even only collect this kind of joker.

2. Advertising is versatile. There are many kinds of jokers in billboards, and different products have different jokers. This kind of wild cards are usually printed with products or trademarks, and some cards are very unique in design and very popular with collectors.

3. Wild cards of suit poker (Note 2). There are many changes in this JOKER, and the contents of the two jokers are generally different. But it's a pity to draw JOKER from a deck of poker and waste the whole deck. This clown is not for exchange.

In addition, extra cards are also called extra joke cards, mainly bridge scorecards, poker manufacturers' trademarks and so on. Some people collect these cards, but not many.

JOKER in most standard poker is a clown pattern, but the clown pattern itself has many changes and can be divided into different types. For example, clowns who play music with musical instruments can be divided into one category, clowns who use animals can be divided into one category, clowns who hold poker can be divided into one category, and clowns who hold magic sticks can be divided into one category. ...

Individual animal patterns also occupy a certain proportion in JOKER of standard poker. For example, a poker factory in Nanjing produced a series of animal clowns, including rabbits, squirrels and butterflies, which were very popular among foreign clowns collectors. Clowns are common animals in China, with many patterns, such as elephants, lions, tigers, deer and camels.

In recent years, cartoon clowns are also very popular, such as Mickey Mouse clowns appearing in various poker games.

Non-clown characters can be seen from time to time, such as the clown and cowboy with guns in Pirate Poker, and the two brothers holding poker back to back in Brother Poker, all of which can fall into this category.

JOKER of standard poker can also be divided into many types, so I won't list them here.

It is worth mentioning that some foreign friends are very serious about collecting. They will register every card they collect, including not only the date of production, manufacturer, country and other information, but also the designer's information. In the card they sent, the attached note listed these detailed information, which no one in China has been able to do. After reading this, you will understand why foreign poker books introduce pictures in such detail.

Few people in China specialize in collecting single jokers. Generally speaking, they collect the whole deck of poker and joke with a single piece of paper. Now I have nearly 1,000 varieties of common Joker, and quite a few of them were bought from abroad. When calculating varieties, it should be a little different to count one. If the pattern is the same, but the position of the characters is different, it can also be regarded as a variant; King size can be counted as two varieties. This is a common calculation method in the world.

I hope that domestic poker factories can produce more jokers with characteristics, and more people will join joker's collection.

Note 1: Standard card is what we often say: ordinary card or small card.

Note 2: Suited poker is collectively referred to as non-standard cards abroad, regardless of full suit or half suit.