Clubs (suit)

Clubs is one of the four suits of playing cards in the standard French deck. It corresponds to the suit of Acorns in a German deck .[1]

Kings of Clubs

Its original French name is Trèfle which means "clover" and the card symbol depicts a three-leafed clover leaf. The Italian name is Fiori ("flower"). The English name "Clubs" is derived from the suit of Bastoni (batons) in Italian-Spanish suited cards.

In Germany, this suit is known as Kreuz ("cross"), especially in the International Skat Regulations. In Austria, by contrast, it is almost exclusively called Treff, a reference to the French name, especially in the game of Bridge, where French names generally predominate, for example Cœur is used instead of Herz.

In Skat and Doppelkopf, Clubs are the highest-ranked suit (whereas Diamonds/Bells are the trump suit in Doppelkopf). In Bridge, Clubs are the lowest suit.

Characteristics
Four Aces of a Four-colour deck ; here, the Clubs are green.

The symbol for the suit of Clubs depicts a very stylised three-leaf clover with its stalk oriented downwards.

Generally the suit of Clubs is black in colour. However, the suit may also be green, for example as sometimes used in Bridge (where it is one of the two minor suits, along with Diamonds).

The gallery below shows a suit of Clubs from a French suited deck of 52 cards. Not shown is the Knight of Clubs used in tarot card games:

Four-colour packs
The four aces of a four-colour deck; here, Clubs are green.

Four-colour packs are sometimes used in tournaments or online.[2] In four-colour packs, clubs may be:

  • green in American Bridge and Poker,[3] English Poker, French and Swiss four-colour decks,[4]
  • black in German Skat packs,[4]
  • blue in English Bridge and some American packs or
  • pink in some other four-colour packs.

Coding

The symbol ♣ is already in the CP437 and thus also part of Windows WGL4. In Unicode a black ♣ and a white ♧ Club symbol are defined:

Symbol Unicode Entity in HTML
♣ U+2663 BLACK CLUB SUIT ♣ or ♣
♧ U+2667 WHITE CLUB SUIT ♧

References
  1. Parlett 2008, p. xv.
  2. Allan & Mackay 2007, p. 155.
  3. Four-Color Deck at pokernews.com. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  4. Gallery 3 - Sizes, Shapes and Colours at a_pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved 4 Aug 2020.

Literature
  • Allan, Elkan and Hannah Mackay (2007). The Poker Encyclopedia. London: Portico. ISBN 978-1906-03209-8
  • Parlett, David (2008). The Penguin Book of Card Games, Penguin, London. ISBN 978-0-141-03787-5
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