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Ever wondered where poker card suits originated? Actually they were thought to be an early Chinese gambling invention of around the 9^th Century. What we now know as Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs started life a little differently. There were still four suits but these were depicted as coins, a string of coins, a number of strings and then loads more strings on the last suit. These were thought to be ‘money cards’ used for the earliest form of poker – the card itself became the stake.

After growth in popularity through India and Persia, the suits transformed to become a ring, cup, sword and baton – typical signs of wealth, royalty and so on. By way of Egypt they made their way to Europe in the 1300’s. Suits began to vary by country influenced by indigenous symbols. For instance, in Germany they became hearts, bells, leaves and acorns – still used in areas of Germany today.

It was the influence of French King Charles VI that produced the suits we know and use now. The spade, taken from the German leaf symbol, was designed to represent royalty. The club, taken from the German symbol of the acorn represented peasants. Hearts remained the same and stood for the church while diamonds, traditionally the ring, represented the merchants.

A real poker face

Finally, a deck of cards is said to hold religious and astronomical significance. The four suits are the four seasons, red and black are day and night, 13 cards per suit are the 13 phases of the lunar cycle, while 52 cards in the deck are the number of weeks in a year. What’s more, if the value of all cards in the deck is added, it reaches 365 (1 joker added) which represents the number of days in the year – add the other joker and you have a leap year! Of course, all of the above was said to be the excuse of a 15^th Century poker player who, when caught with a deck of cards, claimed their intended purpose was that other than gambling!

Tags: card suits, gambling, Poker

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Poker Origin, Poker Players, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.