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Airports. Chad had an estimated 58 airports, only 9 of which had paved runways. In 2015, scheduled airlines in Chad carried approximately 28,332 passengers. Airports with paved runways. Statistics on airports with paved runways as of 2017: List of airports with paved runways: Airports - with unpaved runways. Statistics on airports with unpaved runways as of 2013: Waterways. As at 2012, Chari and Logone Rivers were navigable only in wet season (2002). Both flow northwards, from the south of Chad, into Lake Chad. Pipelines. Since 2003, a 1,070 km pipeline has been used to export crude oil from the oil fields around Doba to offshore oil-loading facilities on Cameroon's Atlantic coast at Kribi. The CIA World Factbook however cites only 582 km of pipeline in Chad itself as at 2013. Railways. As of 2011 Chad had no railways. Two lines were planned to Sudan and Cameroon from the capital, with construction expected to start in 2012. No operative lines were listed as of 2019. In 2021, an ADB study was funded for that rail link from Cameroon to Chad.
Seaports and harbors. None (landlocked). Chad's main routes to the sea are: In colonial times, the main access was by road to Bangui, in the Central African Republic, then by river boat to Brazzaville, and onwards by rail from Brazzaville to Pointe Noire, on Congo's Atlantic coast. This route is now little used. There is also a route across Sudan, to the Red Sea, but very little trade goes this way. Links with Niger, north of Lake Chad, are practically nonexistent; it is easier to reach Niger via Cameroon and Nigeria. Ministry of Transport. The Ministry is represented at the regional level by the Regional Delegations, which have jurisdiction over a part of the National Territory as defined by Decree No. 003 / PCE / CTPT / 91. Their organization and responsibilities are defined by Order No. 006 / MTPT / SE / DG / 92. The Regional Delegations are: Each Regional Delegation is organized into regional services, namely: the Regional Roads Service, the Regional Transport Service, the Civilian Buildings Regional Service and, as needed, other regional services may be established in one or more Delegations .
Chadian National Army The Chadian National Army (; , ANT) consists of the five Defence and Security Forces listed in Article 185 of the Chadian Constitution that came into effect on 4 May 2018. These are the National Army (including Ground Forces and Air Force), the National Gendarmerie, the National Police, the National and Nomadic Guard (GNNT), and the Judicial Police. Article 188 of the Constitution specifies that National Defence is the responsibility of the Army, Gendarmerie and GNNT, whilst the maintenance of public order and security is the responsibility of the Police, Gendarmerie and GNNT. There is also the General Directorate of the Security Services of State Institutions (DGSSIE), with the functions of presidential security, military intelligence, and counterterrorism; it answers directly to the president of Chad. As of 2024, there were an estimated 27,500 soldiers in the Ground Forces, 350 in the Air Force, and 4,500 in the Gendarmerie. There were also 5,400 in the DGSSIE, for a total strength of 37,750 personnel. Other estimates put the total strength of the Chadian National Army, including the DGSSIE, somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 personnel.
Historically, Chad's military was known as the Chadian Armed Forces (FAT) from independence until 1983, when Hissène Habré took power from the transitional government, and then as the Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT) from then until Habré was overthrown by Idriss Déby in 1990. The military is known for being involved in the country's politics. After the death of President Idriss Déby in 2021 during a rebel offensive, his son Mahamat Déby, who was a military commander, took office as his successor, initially as the leader of the Transitional Military Council. The Chadian National Army has been focused on counterinsurgency operations against rebel groups within the country and Islamic insurgents that are located in the Lake Chad region. Chad has an essential role in regional security, with its army often described as the most capable in the Sahel, and it is an active member of the G5 Sahel and the Multinational Joint Task Force. It was also the largest contributor to MINUSMA, the United Nations mission in Mali. The Chadian military has combat experience in recent decades from fighting domestic rebel groups, protecting Chad's borders during instability in Libya and Sudan, and combat tours in Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the Central African Republic. France had a military presence in Chad from its independence in 1960 until 2025, when the last French base was given over to the Chadian National Army. The French Armed Forces had a significant role in training some Chadian units.
History. Founding and early conflicts. The first president of Chad, François Tombalbaye, established the nation's military on 27 May 1961. From independence through the period of the presidency of Félix Malloum (1975–79), the official national army was known as the Chadian Armed Forces ("Forces Armées Tchadiennes"—FAT). Composed mainly of soldiers from southern Chad, FAT had its roots in the army recruited by France and had military traditions dating back to World War I. FAT lost its status as the legal state army when Malloum's civil and military administration disintegrated in 1979. Although it remained a distinct military body for several years, FAT was eventually reduced to the status of a regional army representing the south. After Habré consolidated his authority and assumed the presidency in 1982, his victorious army, the Armed Forces of the North (Forces Armées du Nord—FAN), became the nucleus of a new national army. The force was officially constituted in January 1983, when the various pro-Habré contingents were merged and renamed the Chadian National Armed Forces ("Forces Armées Nationales Tchadiennes"—FANT).
The military of Chad was dominated by members of Toubou, Zaghawa, Kanembou, Hadjerai, and Massa ethnic groups during the presidency of Hissène Habré. Later Chadian president Idriss Déby revolted and fled to the Sudan, taking with him many Zaghawa and Hadjerai soldiers in 1989. Déby administrations. Chad's armed forces numbered about 36,000 at the end of the Habré regime, but swelled to an estimated 50,000 in the early days of Déby's rule. With French support, a reorganization of the armed forces was initiated early in 1991 with the goal of reducing its numbers and making its ethnic composition reflective of the country as a whole. Neither of these goals was achieved, and the military is still dominated by the Zaghawa. In 2004, the government discovered that many of the soldiers it was paying did not exist and that there were only about 19,000 soldiers in the army, as opposed to the 24,000 that had been previously believed. Government crackdowns against the practice are thought to have been a factor in a failed military mutiny in May 2004.
Renewed conflict, in which the Chadian military is involved, came in the form of a civil war against Sudanese-backed rebels. Chad successfully managed to repel many rebel movements, albeit with some losses (see Battle of N'Djamena (2008)). The army used its artillery systems and tanks, but well-equipped insurgents probably managed to destroy over 20 of Chad's 60 T-55 tanks, and probably shot down a Mi-24 Hind gunship, which bombed enemy positions near the border with Sudan. In November 2006 Libya supplied Chad with four Aermacchi SF.260W light attack planes. They were used to strike enemy positions by the Chadian Air Force, but one was shot down by rebels. During the 2008 battle of N'Djamena, gunships and tanks were put to good use, pushing armed militia forces back from the Presidential palace. The battle impacted the highest levels of the army leadership, as Daoud Soumain, its Chief of Staff, was killed. On March 23, 2020, a Chadian army base was ambushed by fighters of the jihadist insurgent group Boko Haram. The army lost 92 servicemen in one day. In response, President Déby launched an operation dubbed "Wrath of Boma". According to Canadian counter terrorism St-Pierre, numerous external operations and rising insecurity in the neighboring countries had recently overstretched the capacities of the Chadian armed forces.
After the death of President Idriss Déby on 19 April 2021 in fighting with FACT rebels, his son General Mahamat Idriss Déby was named interim (and, later, permanent) president and head of the armed forces. Structure and organization. The Chadian General Staff of the Army Headquarters is located in N'Djamena. The training institution of the Chadian National Army is the "Groupement des écoles militaires interarmées du Tchad". Budget. The CIA World Factbook estimates the military budget of Chad to be 4.2 percent of GDP as of 2006. Given the then GDP ($7.095 bln) of the country, military spending was estimated to be about $300 million. This estimate however dropped after the end of the Civil war in Chad (2005–2010) to 2.0% as estimated by the World Bank for the year 2011. Between 2020 and 2023, Chad's military budget consistently remained between 2.5 and 2.9 percent of GDP.
Foreign relations of Chad The foreign relations of Chad are significantly influenced by the desire for oil revenue and investment in Chadian oil industry and support for former Chadian President Idriss Déby. Chad is officially non-aligned but maintains close relations with France, its former colonial power. Relations with neighbouring countries Libya and Sudan vary periodically. Lately, the Idris Déby regime waged an intermittent proxy war with Sudan. Aside from those two countries, Chad generally enjoys good relations with its neighbouring states. Diplomatic relations. List of countries which Chad maintains diplomatic relations with: Bilateral relations. Africa. Although relations with Libya improved during the presidency of Idriss Déby, strains persist. Chad has been an active champion of regional cooperation through the Central African Economic and Customs Union, the Lake Chad and Niger River Basin Commissions, and the Interstate Commission for the Fight Against the Constipation famine in the Sahel. Delimitation of international boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Chad, the lack of which led to border incidents in the past, has been completed and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.
Asia. Despite centuries-old cultural ties to the Arab World, the Chadian Government maintained few significant ties to Arab states in North Africa or West Asia in the 1980s. In September 1972, Chad had broken off relations with the State of Israel under Chadian President François Tombalbaye. President Habré hoped to pursue closer relations with Arab states as a potential opportunity to break out of Chad's post-imperial dependence on France, and to assert Chad's unwillingness to serve as an arena for superpower rivalries. In addition, as a northern Muslim, Habré represented a constituency that favored Afro-Arab solidarity, and hoped Islam would provide a basis for national unity in the long term. For these reasons, he was expected to seize opportunities during the 1990s to pursue closer ties with the Arab World. In 1988, Chad recognized the State of Palestine, which maintains a mission in N'Djamena. In November 2018, President Deby visited Israel and announced his intention to restore diplomatic relations. Chad and Israel re-established diplomatic relations in January 2019. In February 2023, Chad opened an embassy in Israel.
During the 1980s, Arab opinion on the Chadian–Libyan conflict over the Aouzou Strip was divided. Several Arab states supported Libyan territorial claims to the Strip, among the most outspoken of which was Algeria, which provided training for anti-Habré forces, although most recruits for its training programs were from Nigeria or Cameroon, recruited and flown to Algeria by Libya. The Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon also sent troops to support Muammar Gaddafi's efforts against Chad in 1987. In contrast, numerous other Arab states opposed the Libyan actions, and expressed their desire to see the dispute over the Aouzou Strip settled peacefully. By the end of 1987, Algiers and N'Djamena were negotiating to improve relations and Algeria helped mediate the end of the Aouzou Strip conflict. Europe. Chad is officially non-aligned but maintains close relations with France, its former colonial power, which has about 1,200 troops stationed in the capital N'Djamena. It receives economic aid from countries of the European Community, the United States, and various international organizations. Libya supplies aid and has an ambassador resident in N'Djamena. Traditionally strong ties with the Western community have weakened over the past two years due to a dispute between the Government of Chad and the World Bank over how the profits from Chad's petroleum reserves are allocated. Although oil output to the West has resumed and the dispute has officially been resolved, resentment towards what the Déby administration considered "foreign meddling" lingers. Membership of international organizations. Chad belongs to the following international organizations:
Commentary Commentary or commentaries may refer to:
Colloid A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others extend the definition to include substances like aerosols and gels. The term colloidal suspension refers unambiguously to the overall mixture (although a narrower sense of the word "suspension" is distinguished from colloids by larger particle size). A colloid has a dispersed phase (the suspended particles) and a continuous phase (the medium of suspension). The dispersed phase particles have a diameter of approximately 1 nanometre to 1 micrometre. Some colloids are translucent because of the Tyndall effect, which is the scattering of light by particles in the colloid. Other colloids may be opaque or have a slight color. Colloidal suspensions are the subject of interface and colloid science. This field of study began in 1845 by Francesco Selmi, who called them pseudosolutions, and expanded by Michael Faraday and Thomas Graham, who coined the term "colloid" in 1861.
Classification. Colloids can be classified as follows: Homogeneous mixtures with a dispersed phase in this size range may be called "colloidal aerosols", "colloidal emulsions", "colloidal suspensions", "colloidal foams", "colloidal dispersions", or "hydrosols". Hydrocolloids. Hydrocolloids describe certain chemicals (mostly polysaccharides and proteins) that are colloidally dispersible in water. Thus becoming effectively "soluble" they change the rheology of water by raising the viscosity and/or inducing gelation. They may provide other interactive effects with other chemicals, in some cases synergistic, in others antagonistic. Using these attributes hydrocolloids are very useful chemicals since in many areas of technology from foods through pharmaceuticals, personal care and industrial applications, they can provide stabilization, destabilization and separation, gelation, flow control, crystallization control and numerous other effects. Apart from uses of the soluble forms some of the hydrocolloids have additional useful functionality in a dry form if after solubilization they have the water removed - as in the formation of films for breath strips or sausage casings or indeed, wound dressing fibers, some being more compatible with skin than others. There are many different types of hydrocolloids each with differences in structure function and utility that generally are best suited to particular application areas in the control of rheology and the physical modification of form and texture. Some hydrocolloids like starch and casein are useful foods as well as rheology modifiers, others have limited nutritive value, usually providing a source of fiber.
The term hydrocolloids also refers to a type of dressing designed to lock moisture in the skin and help the natural healing process of skin to reduce scarring, itching and soreness. Components. Hydrocolloids contain some type of gel-forming agent, such as sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC) and gelatin. They are normally combined with some type of sealant, i.e. polyurethane to 'stick' to the skin. Compared with solution. A colloid has a dispersed phase and a continuous phase, whereas in a solution, the solute and solvent constitute only one phase. A solute in a solution are individual molecules or ions, whereas colloidal particles are bigger. For example, in a solution of salt in water, the sodium chloride (NaCl) crystal dissolves, and the Na+ and Cl− ions are surrounded by water molecules. However, in a colloid such as milk, the colloidal particles are globules of fat, rather than individual fat molecules. Because colloid is multiple phases, it has very different properties compared to fully mixed, continuous solution.
Interaction between particles. The following forces play an important role in the interaction of colloid particles: Sedimentation velocity. The Earth’s gravitational field acts upon colloidal particles. Therefore, if the colloidal particles are denser than the medium of suspension, they will sediment (fall to the bottom), or if they are less dense, they will cream (float to the top). Larger particles also have a greater tendency to sediment because they have smaller Brownian motion to counteract this movement. The sedimentation or creaming velocity is found by equating the Stokes drag force with the gravitational force: where and formula_5 is the sedimentation or creaming velocity. The mass of the colloidal particle is found using: where and formula_9 is the difference in mass density between the colloidal particle and the suspension medium. By rearranging, the sedimentation or creaming velocity is: There is an upper size-limit for the diameter of colloidal particles because particles larger than 1 μm tend to sediment, and thus the substance would no longer be considered a colloidal suspension.
The colloidal particles are said to be in sedimentation equilibrium if the rate of sedimentation is equal to the rate of movement from Brownian motion. Preparation. There are two principal ways to prepare colloids: Stabilization. The stability of a colloidal system is defined by particles remaining suspended in solution and depends on the interaction forces between the particles. These include electrostatic interactions and van der Waals forces, because they both contribute to the overall free energy of the system. A colloid is stable if the interaction energy due to attractive forces between the colloidal particles is less than kT, where k is the Boltzmann constant and T is the absolute temperature. If this is the case, then the colloidal particles will repel or only weakly attract each other, and the substance will remain a suspension. If the interaction energy is greater than kT, the attractive forces will prevail, and the colloidal particles will begin to clump together. This process is referred to generally as aggregation, but is also referred to as flocculation, coagulation or precipitation. While these terms are often used interchangeably, for some definitions they have slightly different meanings. For example, coagulation can be used to describe irreversible, permanent aggregation where the forces holding the particles together are stronger than any external forces caused by stirring or mixing. Flocculation can be used to describe reversible aggregation involving weaker attractive forces, and the aggregate is usually called a "floc". The term precipitation is normally reserved for describing a phase change from a colloid dispersion to a solid (precipitate) when it is subjected to a perturbation. Aggregation causes sedimentation or creaming, therefore the colloid is unstable: if either of these processes occur the colloid will no longer be a suspension.
Electrostatic stabilization and steric stabilization are the two main mechanisms for stabilization against aggregation. A combination of the two mechanisms is also possible (electrosteric stabilization). A method called gel network stabilization represents the principal way to produce colloids stable to both aggregation and sedimentation. The method consists in adding to the colloidal suspension a polymer able to form a gel network. Particle settling is hindered by the stiffness of the polymeric matrix where particles are trapped, and the long polymeric chains can provide a steric or electrosteric stabilization to dispersed particles. Examples of such substances are xanthan and guar gum. Destabilization. Destabilization can be accomplished by different methods: Unstable colloidal suspensions of low-volume fraction form clustered liquid suspensions, wherein individual clusters of particles sediment if they are more dense than the suspension medium, or cream if they are less dense. However, colloidal suspensions of higher-volume fraction form colloidal gels with viscoelastic properties. Viscoelastic colloidal gels, such as bentonite and toothpaste, flow like liquids under shear, but maintain their shape when shear is removed. It is for this reason that toothpaste can be squeezed from a toothpaste tube, but stays on the toothbrush after it is applied.
Monitoring stability. The most widely used technique to monitor the dispersion state of a product, and to identify and quantify destabilization phenomena, is multiple light scattering coupled with vertical scanning. This method, known as turbidimetry, is based on measuring the fraction of light that, after being sent through the sample, it backscattered by the colloidal particles. The backscattering intensity is directly proportional to the average particle size and volume fraction of the dispersed phase. Therefore, local changes in concentration caused by sedimentation or creaming, and clumping together of particles caused by aggregation, are detected and monitored. These phenomena are associated with unstable colloids. Dynamic light scattering can be used to detect the size of a colloidal particle by measuring how fast they diffuse. This method involves directing laser light towards a colloid. The scattered light will form an interference pattern, and the fluctuation in light intensity in this pattern is caused by the Brownian motion of the particles. If the apparent size of the particles increases due to them clumping together via aggregation, it will result in slower Brownian motion. This technique can confirm that aggregation has occurred if the apparent particle size is determined to be beyond the typical size range for colloidal particles.
Accelerating methods for shelf life prediction. The kinetic process of destabilisation can be rather long (up to several months or years for some products). Thus, it is often required for the formulator to use further accelerating methods to reach reasonable development time for new product design. Thermal methods are the most commonly used and consist of increasing temperature to accelerate destabilisation (below critical temperatures of phase inversion or chemical degradation). Temperature affects not only viscosity, but also interfacial tension in the case of non-ionic surfactants or more generally interactions forces inside the system. Storing a dispersion at high temperatures enables to simulate real life conditions for a product (e.g. tube of sunscreen cream in a car in the summer), but also to accelerate destabilisation processes up to 200 times. Mechanical acceleration including vibration, centrifugation and agitation are sometimes used. They subject the product to different forces that pushes the particles / droplets against one another, hence helping in the film drainage. Some emulsions would never coalesce in normal gravity, while they do under artificial gravity. Segregation of different populations of particles have been highlighted when using centrifugation and vibration.
As a model system for atoms. In physics, colloids are an interesting model system for atoms. Micrometre-scale colloidal particles are large enough to be observed by optical techniques such as confocal microscopy. Many of the forces that govern the structure and behavior of matter, such as excluded volume interactions or electrostatic forces, govern the structure and behavior of colloidal suspensions. For example, the same techniques used to model ideal gases can be applied to model the behavior of a hard sphere colloidal suspension. Phase transitions in colloidal suspensions can be studied in real time using optical techniques, and are analogous to phase transitions in liquids. In many interesting cases optical fluidity is used to control colloid suspensions. Crystals. A colloidal crystal is a highly ordered array of particles that can be formed over a very long range (typically on the order of a few millimeters to one centimeter) and that appear analogous to their atomic or molecular counterparts. One of the finest natural examples of this ordering phenomenon can be found in precious opal, in which brilliant regions of pure spectral color result from close-packed domains of amorphous colloidal spheres of silicon dioxide (or silica, SiO2). These spherical particles precipitate in highly siliceous pools in Australia and elsewhere, and form these highly ordered arrays after years of sedimentation and compression under hydrostatic and gravitational forces. The periodic arrays of submicrometre spherical particles provide similar arrays of interstitial voids, which act as a natural diffraction grating for visible light waves, particularly when the interstitial spacing is of the same order of magnitude as the incident lightwave.
Thus, it has been known for many years that, due to repulsive Coulombic interactions, electrically charged macromolecules in an aqueous environment can exhibit long-range crystal-like correlations with interparticle separation distances, often being considerably greater than the individual particle diameter. In all of these cases in nature, the same brilliant iridescence (or play of colors) can be attributed to the diffraction and constructive interference of visible lightwaves that satisfy Bragg’s law, in a matter analogous to the scattering of X-rays in crystalline solids. The large number of experiments exploring the physics and chemistry of these so-called "colloidal crystals" has emerged as a result of the relatively simple methods that have evolved in the last 20 years for preparing synthetic monodisperse colloids (both polymer and mineral) and, through various mechanisms, implementing and preserving their long-range order formation. In biology. Colloidal phase separation is an important organising principle for compartmentalisation of both the cytoplasm and nucleus of cells into biomolecular condensates—similar in importance to compartmentalisation via lipid bilayer membranes, a type of liquid crystal. The term biomolecular condensate has been used to refer to clusters of macromolecules that arise via liquid-liquid or liquid-solid phase separation within cells. Macromolecular crowding strongly enhances colloidal phase separation and formation of biomolecular condensates.
In the environment. Colloidal particles can also serve as transport vectors of diverse contaminants in the surface water (sea water, lakes, rivers, freshwater bodies) and in underground water circulating in fissured rocks (e.g. limestone, sandstone, granite). Radionuclides and heavy metals easily sorb onto colloids suspended in water. Various types of colloids are recognised: inorganic colloids (e.g. clay particles, silicates, iron oxy-hydroxides), organic colloids (humic and fulvic substances). When heavy metals or radionuclides form pure colloids, the term "eigencolloid" is used to designate pure phases, i.e., pure Tc(OH)4, U(OH)4, or Am(OH)3. Colloids have been suspected for the long-range transport of plutonium on the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. They have been the subject of detailed studies for many years. However, the mobility of inorganic colloids is very low in compacted bentonites and in deep clay formations because of the process of ultrafiltration occurring in dense clay membrane. The question is less clear for small organic colloids often mixed in porewater with truly dissolved organic molecules.
In soil science, the colloidal fraction in soils consists of tiny clay and humus particles that are less than 1μm in diameter and carry either positive and/or negative electrostatic charges that vary depending on the chemical conditions of the soil sample, i.e. soil pH. Intravenous therapy. Colloid solutions used in intravenous therapy belong to a major group of volume expanders, and can be used for intravenous fluid replacement. Colloids preserve a high colloid osmotic pressure in the blood, and therefore, they should theoretically preferentially increase the intravascular volume, whereas other types of volume expanders called crystalloids also increase the interstitial volume and intracellular volume. However, there is still controversy to the actual difference in efficacy by this difference, and much of the research related to this use of colloids is based on fraudulent research by Joachim Boldt. Another difference is that crystalloids generally are much cheaper than colloids.
Riding shotgun "Riding shotgun" was a phrase used to describe the bodyguard who rides alongside a stagecoach driver, typically armed with a break-action shotgun, called a coach gun, to ward off bandits or hostile Native Americans. In modern use, it refers to the practice of sitting alongside the driver in a moving vehicle. The coining of this phrase dates to 1905 at the latest. Etymology. The expression "riding shotgun" is derived from "shotgun messenger", a colloquial term for "express messenger", when stagecoach travel was popular during the American Wild West and the Colonial period in Australia. The person rode alongside the driver. The first known use of the phrase "riding shotgun" was in the 1905 novel "The Sunset Trail" by Alfred Henry Lewis. It was later used in print and especially film depiction of stagecoaches and wagons in the Old West in danger of being robbed or attacked by bandits. A special armed employee of the express service using the stage for transportation of bullion or cash would sit beside the driver, carrying a short shotgun (or alternatively a rifle), to provide an armed response in case of threat to the cargo, which was usually a strongbox. Absence of an armed person in that position often signaled that the stage was not carrying a strongbox, but only passengers.
Historical examples. Tombstone, Arizona Territory. On the evening of March 15, 1881, a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying US$26,000 in silver bullion () was en route from the boom town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory to Benson, Arizona, the nearest freight terminal. Bob Paul, who had run for Pima County Sheriff and was contesting the election he lost due to ballot-stuffing, was temporarily working once again as the Wells Fargo shotgun messenger. He had taken the reins and driver's seat in Contention City because the usual driver, a well-known and popular man named Eli "Budd" Philpot, was ill. Philpot was riding shotgun. Near Drew's Station, just outside Contention City, a man stepped into the road and commanded them to "Hold!" Three cowboys attempted to rob the stage. Paul, in the driver's seat, fired his shotgun and emptied his revolver at the robbers, wounding a cowboy later identified as Bill Leonard in the groin. Philpot, riding shotgun, and passenger Peter Roerig, riding in the rear dickey seat, were both shot and killed. The horses spooked and Paul wasn't able to bring the stage under control for almost a mile, leaving the robbers with nothing. Paul, who normally rode shotgun, later said he thought the first shot killing Philpot had been meant for him.
When Wyatt Earp first arrived in Tombstone in December 1879, he initially took a job as a stagecoach shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, guarding shipments of silver bullion. When Earp was appointed Pima County Deputy Sheriff on July 27, 1881, his brother Morgan Earp took over his job. Historical weapon. When Wells, Fargo & Co. began regular stagecoach service from Tipton, Missouri to San Francisco, California in 1858, they issued shotguns to its drivers and guards for defense along the perilous 2,800 mile route. The guard was called a shotgun messenger and they were issued a Coach gun, typically a 10-gauge or 12-gauge, short, double-barreled shotgun. Modern usage. The term has been applied to an informal game, typically played by younger people. When 3 or more people are getting into a vehicle, the first person to say "shotgun" determines who rides beside the driver. Specific rules used vary.
Cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire, to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, to boiling and blanching in water, reflecting local conditions, techniques and traditions. Cooking is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal. Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans. Archeological evidence of cooking fires from at least 300,000 years ago exists, but some estimate that humans started cooking up to 2 million years ago. The expansion of agriculture, commerce, trade, and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients. New inventions and technologies, such as the invention of pottery for holding and boiling of water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply advanced scientific techniques to food preparation to further enhance the flavor of the dish served.
History. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that early hominids may have adopted cooking 1-2 million years ago. of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa has provided evidence supporting control of fire by early humans 1 million years ago. In his seminal work "", Richard Wrangham suggested that evolution of bipedalism and a large cranial capacity meant that early "Homo habilis" regularly cooked food. However, unequivocal evidence in the archaeological record for the controlled use of fire begins at 400,000 BCE, long after "Homo erectus". Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe and the Middle East. The oldest evidence (via heated fish teeth from a deep cave) of controlled use of fire to cook food by archaic humans was dated to ~780,000 years ago. Anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago when hearths first appeared. Recently, the earliest hearths have been reported to be at least 790,000 years old.
Communication between the Old World and the New World in the Columbian Exchange influenced the history of cooking. The movement of foods across the Atlantic from the New World, such as potatoes, tomatoes, maize, beans, bell pepper, chili pepper, vanilla, pumpkin, cassava, avocado, peanut, pecan, cashew, pineapple, blueberry, sunflower, chocolate, gourds, green beans, and squash, had a profound effect on Old World cooking. The movement of foods across the Atlantic from the Old World, such as cattle, sheep, pigs, wheat, oats, barley, rice, apples, pears, peas, chickpeas, mustard, and carrots, similarly changed New World cooking. In the 17th and 18th centuries, food was a classic marker of identity in Europe. In the 19th-century "Age of Nationalism", cuisine became a defining symbol of national identity. The Industrial Revolution brought mass-production, mass-marketing, and standardization of food. Factories processed, preserved, canned, and packaged a wide variety of foods, and processed cereals quickly became a defining feature of the American breakfast. In the 1920s, freezing methods, cafeterias, and fast food restaurants emerged.
Ingredients. Most ingredients in cooking are derived from living organisms. Vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts as well as herbs and spices come from plants, while meat, eggs, and dairy products come from animals. Mushrooms and the yeast used in baking are kinds of fungi. Cooks also use water and minerals such as salt. Cooks can also use wine or spirits. Naturally occurring ingredients contain various amounts of molecules called "proteins", "carbohydrates" and "fats". They also contain water and minerals. Cooking involves a manipulation of the chemical properties of these molecules. Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates include the common sugar, sucrose (table sugar), a disaccharide, and such simple sugars as glucose (made by enzymatic splitting of sucrose) and fructose (from fruit), and starches from sources such as cereal flour, rice, arrowroot and potato. The interaction of heat and carbohydrate is complex. Long-chain sugars such as starch tend to break down into more digestible simpler sugars. If the sugars are heated so that all water of crystallisation is driven off, caramelization starts, with the sugar undergoing thermal decomposition with the formation of carbon, and other breakdown products producing caramel. Similarly, the heating of sugars and proteins causes the Maillard reaction, a basic flavor-enhancing technique.
An emulsion of starch with fat or water can, when gently heated, provide thickening to the dish being cooked. In European cooking, a mixture of butter and flour called a roux is used to thicken liquids to make stews or sauces. In Asian cooking, a similar effect is obtained from a mixture of rice or corn starch and water. These techniques rely on the properties of starches to create simpler mucilaginous saccharides during cooking, which causes the familiar thickening of sauces. This thickening will break down, however, under additional heat. Fats. Types of fat include vegetable oils, animal products such as butter and lard, as well as fats from grains, including maize and flax oils. Fats are used in a number of ways in cooking and baking. To prepare stir fries, grilled cheese or pancakes, the pan or griddle is often coated with fat or oil. Fats are also used as an ingredient in baked goods such as cookies, cakes and pies. Fats can reach temperatures higher than the boiling point of water, and are often used to conduct high heat to other ingredients, such as in frying, deep frying or sautéing. Fats are used to add flavor to food (e.g., butter or bacon fat), prevent food from sticking to pans and create a desirable texture.
Fats are one of the three main macronutrient groups in human diet, along with carbohydrates and proteins, and the main components of common food products like milk, butter, tallow, lard, salt pork, and cooking oils. They are a major and dense source of food energy for many animals and play important structural and metabolic functions, in most living beings, including energy storage, waterproofing, and thermal insulation. The human body can produce the fat it requires from other food ingredients, except for a few essential fatty acids that must be included in the diet. Dietary fats are also the carriers of some flavor and aroma ingredients and vitamins that are not water-soluble. Proteins. Edible animal material, including muscle, offal, milk, eggs and egg whites, contains substantial amounts of protein. Almost all vegetable matter (in particular legumes and seeds) also includes proteins, although generally in smaller amounts. Mushrooms have high protein content. Any of these may be sources of essential amino acids. When proteins are heated they become denatured (unfolded) and change texture. In many cases, this causes the structure of the material to become softer or more friable – meat becomes "cooked" and is more friable and less flexible. In some cases, proteins can form more rigid structures, such as the coagulation of albumen in egg whites. The formation of a relatively rigid but flexible matrix from egg white provides an important component in baking cakes, and also underpins many desserts based on meringue.
Water. Cooking often involves water, and water-based liquids. These can be added in order to immerse the substances being cooked (this is typically done with water, stock or wine). Alternatively, the foods themselves can release water. A favorite method of adding flavor to dishes is to save the liquid for use in other recipes. Liquids are so important to cooking that the name of the cooking method used is often based on how the liquid is combined with the food, as in steaming, simmering, boiling, braising and blanching. Heating liquid in an open container results in rapidly increased evaporation, which concentrates the remaining flavor and ingredients; this is a critical component of both stewing and sauce making. Vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and minerals are required for normal metabolism; and what the body cannot manufacture itself must come from external sources. Vitamins come from several sources including fresh fruit and vegetables (Vitamin C), carrots, liver (Vitamin A), cereal bran, bread, liver (B vitamins), fish liver oil (Vitamin D) and fresh green vegetables (Vitamin K). Many minerals are also essential in small quantities including iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium chloride and sulfur; and in very small quantities copper, zinc and selenium. The micronutrients, minerals, and vitamins in fruit and vegetables may be destroyed or eluted by cooking. Vitamin C is especially prone to oxidation during cooking and may be completely destroyed by protracted cooking. The bioavailability of some vitamins such as thiamin, vitamin B6, niacin, folate, and carotenoids are increased with cooking by being freed from the food microstructure. Blanching or steaming vegetables is a way of minimizing vitamin and mineral loss in cooking.
Methods. There are many methods of cooking, most of which have been known since antiquity. These include baking, roasting, frying, grilling, barbecuing, smoking, boiling, steaming and braising. A more recent innovation is microwaving. Various methods use differing levels of heat and moisture and vary in cooking time. The method chosen greatly affects the result. Some major hot cooking techniques include: Health and safety. Indoor air pollution. As of 2021, over 2.6 billion people cook using open fires or inefficient stoves using kerosene, biomass, and coal as fuel. These cooking practices use fuels and technologies that produce high levels of household air pollution, causing 3.8 million premature deaths annually. Of these deaths, 27% are from pneumonia, 27% from ischaemic heart disease, 20% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 18% from stroke, and 8% from lung cancer. Women and young children are disproportionately affected, since they spend the most time near the hearth. Security while cooking. Hazards while cooking can include:
To prevent those injuries there are protections such as cooking clothing, anti-slip shoes, fire extinguisher and more. Food safety. Cooking can prevent many foodborne illnesses that would otherwise occur if raw food is consumed. When heat is used in the preparation of food, it can kill or inactivate harmful organisms, such as bacteria and viruses, as well as various parasites such as tapeworms and "Toxoplasma gondii". Food poisoning and other illness from uncooked or poorly prepared food may be caused by bacteria such as of "Escherichia coli", "Salmonella typhimurium" and "Campylobacter", viruses such as noroviruses, and protozoa such as "Entamoeba histolytica". Bacteria, viruses and parasites may be introduced through salad, meat that is uncooked or done rare, and unboiled water. The sterilizing effect of cooking depends on temperature, cooking time, and technique used. Some food spoilage bacteria such as "Clostridium botulinum" or "Bacillus cereus" can form spores that survive cooking or boiling, which then germinate and regrow after the food has cooled. This makes it unsafe to reheat cooked food more than once.
Cooking increases the digestibility of many foods which are inedible or poisonous when raw. For example, raw cereal grains are hard to digest, while kidney beans are toxic when raw or improperly cooked due to the presence of phytohaemagglutinin, which is inactivated by cooking for at least ten minutes at . Food safety depends on the safe preparation, handling, and storage of food. Food spoilage bacteria proliferate in the "Danger zone" temperature range from ; therefore, food should not be stored in this temperature range. Washing of hands and surfaces, especially when handling different meats, and keeping raw food separate from cooked food to avoid cross-contamination, are good practices in food preparation. Foods prepared on plastic cutting boards may be less likely to harbor bacteria than wooden ones. Washing and disinfecting cutting boards, especially after use with raw meat, poultry, or seafood, reduces the risk of contamination. Effects on nutritional content of food. Proponents of raw foodism argue that cooking food increases the risk of some of the detrimental effects on food or health. They point out that during cooking of vegetables and fruit containing vitamin C, the vitamin elutes into the cooking water and becomes degraded through oxidation. Peeling vegetables can also substantially reduce the vitamin C content, especially in the case of potatoes where most vitamin C is in the skin. However, research has shown that in the specific case of carotenoids a greater proportion is absorbed from cooked vegetables than from raw vegetables.
Sulforaphane, a glucosinolate breakdown product, is present in vegetables such as broccoli, and is mostly destroyed when the vegetable is boiled. Although there has been some basic research on how sulforaphane might exert beneficial effects in vivo, there is no high-quality evidence for its efficacy against human diseases. The United States Department of Agriculture has studied retention data for 16 vitamins, 8 minerals, and alcohol for approximately 290 foods across various cooking methods. Carcinogens and AGEs. In a human epidemiological analysis by Richard Doll and Richard Peto in 1981, diet was estimated to cause a large percentage of cancers. Studies suggest that around 32% of cancer deaths may be avoidable by changes to the diet. Some of these cancers may be caused by carcinogens in food generated during the cooking process, although it is often difficult to identify the specific components in diet that serve to increase cancer risk. Several studies published since 1990 indicate that cooking meat at high temperature creates heterocyclic amines (HCA's), which are thought to increase cancer risk in humans. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that human subjects who ate beef rare or medium-rare had less than one third the risk of stomach cancer than those who ate beef medium-well or well-done. While avoiding meat or eating meat raw may be the only ways to avoid HCA's in meat fully, the National Cancer Institute states that cooking meat below creates "negligible amounts" of HCA's. Also, microwaving meat before cooking may reduce HCAs by 90% by reducing the time needed for the meat to be cooked at high heat. Nitrosamines are found in some food, and may be produced by some cooking processes from proteins or from nitrites used as food preservatives; cured meat such as bacon has been found to be carcinogenic, with links to colon cancer. Ascorbate, which is added to cured meat, however, reduces nitrosamine formation.
Baking, grilling or broiling food, especially starchy foods, until a toasted crust is formed generates significant concentrations of acrylamide. This discovery in 2002 led to international health concerns. Subsequent research has however found that it is not likely that the acrylamides in burnt or well-cooked food cause cancer in humans; Cancer Research UK categorizes the idea that burnt food causes cancer as a "myth". Cooking food at high temperature may create advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) that are believed to be involved in a number of diseases, including diabetes, chronic kidney disease, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, as well as in ageing. AGEs are a group of compounds that are formed between reducing sugars and amino acids via Maillard reaction. These compounds impart colors, tastes and smells that are specific to these food, but may also be deleterious to health. Dry heat (e.g. in roasting or grilling) can significantly increase the production of AGEs, as well as food rich in animal protein and fats. The production of AGEs during cooking can be significantly reduced by cooking in water or moist heat, reducing the cooking times and temperatures, as well as by first marinating the meat in acidic ingredients such as lemon juice and vinegar.
Scientific aspects. The scientific study of cooking has become known as molecular gastronomy. This is a subdiscipline of food science concerning the physical and chemical transformations that occur during cooking. Important contributions have been made by scientists, chefs and authors such as Hervé This (chemist), Nicholas Kurti (physicist), Peter Barham (physicist), Harold McGee (author), Shirley Corriher (biochemist, author), Robert Wolke (chemist, author.) It is different for the application of scientific knowledge to cooking, that is "molecular cooking" (for the technique) or "molecular cuisine" (for a culinary style), for which chefs such as Raymond Blanc, Philippe and Christian Conticini, Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Pierre Gagnaire (chef). Chemical processes central to cooking include hydrolysis (in particular beta elimination of pectins, during the thermal treatment of plant tissues), pyrolysis, and glycation reactions wrongly named Maillard reactions. Cooking foods with heat depends on many factors: the specific heat of an object, thermal conductivity, and (perhaps most significantly) the difference in temperature between the two objects. Thermal diffusivity is the combination of specific heat, conductivity and density that determines how long it will take for the food to reach a certain temperature.
Home-cooking and commercial cooking. Home cooking has traditionally been a process carried out informally in a home or around a communal fire, and can be enjoyed by all members of the family, although in many cultures women bear primary responsibility. Cooking is also often carried out outside of personal quarters, for example at restaurants, or schools. Bakeries were one of the earliest forms of cooking outside the home, and bakeries in the past often offered the cooking of pots of food provided by their customers as an additional service. In the present day, factory food preparation has become common, with many "ready-to-eat" as well as "ready-to-cook" foods being prepared and cooked in factories and home cooks using a mixture of scratch made, and factory made foods together to make a meal. The nutritional value of including more commercially prepared foods has been found to be inferior to home-made foods. Home-cooked meals tend to be healthier with fewer calories, and less saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium on a per calorie basis while providing more fiber, calcium, and iron. The ingredients are also directly sourced, so there is control over authenticity, taste, and nutritional value. The superior nutritional quality of home-cooking could therefore play a role in preventing chronic disease. Cohort studies following the elderly over 10 years show that adults who cook their own meals have significantly lower mortality, even when controlling for confounding variables. "Home-cooking" may be associated with comfort food, and some commercially produced foods and restaurant meals are presented through advertising or packaging as having been "home-cooked", regardless of their actual origin. This trend began in the 1920s and is attributed to people in urban areas of the U.S. wanting homestyle food even though their schedules and smaller kitchens made cooking harder.
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 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 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 "imperfect information"—as distinct from games of perfect information, where 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 the players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose. History. 14th and 15th centuries. The earliest European mention of playing cards appears in 1371 in a Catalan language rhyme dictionary. This suggests that cards may have been "reasonably well known" in Catalonia (now part of Spain) at that time, perhaps introduced as a result of maritime trade with the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. 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 game to be mentioned by name is Karnöffel, first mentioned in 1426 and which is still played in several forms today, including Bruus, Knüffeln, Kaiserspiel and Styrivolt. Ronfa and Condemnade are also recorded during the 15th century.
Since the arrival of trick-taking games in Europe in the late 14th century, there have only been two major innovations. The first 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 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 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 Gleek, Pochen – the game of "Bocken" or "Boeckels" being attested in Strasbourg in 1441 – and Thirty-One, which 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. 16th century. 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 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 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, 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. 17th century. The 17th century saw an upsurge in the number of new games being reported as well as 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, 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 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, 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 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, 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 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. 18th century.
The evolution of card games continued apace, with notable national games emerging like Briscola and Tressette (Italy), Schafkopf (Bavaria), Jass (Switzerland), Mariage, 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. Types. Card games may be classified in different ways: by their objective, by 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. Outplay games. Easily 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. 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 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 the actual cards. In point-trick games, the number of tricks is immaterial; what counts is the value, in points, of the cards captured. Plain-trick games. 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 the aim is to avoid certain cards. Plain-trick games may be divided into the following 11 groups:
Point-trick games. 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: Beating games. In beating games 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. Adding games. This is a small group whose ancestor is Noddy, now extinct, but which generated 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. Fishing games. 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 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.
Matching games. 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 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. War group. In games of the war group, also called "catch and collect games" or "accumulating games", the object is to acquire all cards in 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. Climbing games are an Oriental family in which the idea is to play a higher card or combination of cards than the one just played. Alternatively a player must pass or may choose to pass even if able to beat. The sole Western example is the game of President, which is probably derived from an Asian game.
Card exchange games. 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. Draw and discard group. In these games players draw a card from stock, make 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. Commerce group. 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. Cuckoo group. 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 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. Quartet group. Games involving collecting sets of cards, 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. Card passing group. 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, is also popular. Layout games. Patience or solitaire games. 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. Single player patiences or solitaires. 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 a more elaborate final layout, or to clear the tableau and/or the draw pile or stock by moving all cards to one or more discard or foundation piles.
Competitive patiences. In competitive patiences, two or more players compete to be first to complete a patience or solitaire-like tableau. Some use a common layout; in others each player has a separate layout. Popular examples include Spite and Malice, Racing Demon or Nerts, Spit, Speed and Russian Bank. Connecting games. The most common of these is Card Dominoes also known as Fan Tan or Parliament in which the idea is to build the four suits in sequence from a central card (the 7 in 52-card games or the Unter in 32-card packs). The winner is the first out and the loser the last left in holding cards. Hand comparison games. Hand comparison games, also called comparing card games, are mostly gambling games that use cards. Players lay their initial stakes, are dealt cards, may or may not be able to exchange or add to them, and may or may not be able to raise their stakes, and the outcome is decided by some form of comparison of card values or combinations. The main groups are vying and banking games. A smaller mainly Oriental group are partition games in which players divide their hands before comparing.
Vying games. Vying games, are those in which players bet or "vie" on who has the best hand. The player with the best combination of hand cards in a "showdown", or the player able to bluff the others into folding, wins the hand. Easily the best known of the group around the world is Poker, which itself is a family of games with over 100 variants. Other examples include English Brag and the old Basque game of Mus. Most may be classified as gambling games and, while they may involve skill in terms of bluffing and memorizing and assessing odds, they involve little or no card playing skill. Poker games. Poker is a family of gambling games in which players bet into a pool, called the pot, the value of which changes as the game progresses that the value of the hand they carry will beat all others according to the ranking system. Variants largely differ on how cards are dealt and the methods by which players can improve a hand. For many reasons, including its age and its popularity among Western militaries, it is one of the most universally known card games in existence.
Banking games. These are gambling games played for money or chips in which players compete, not against one another, but against a banker. They are commonly played in casinos, but many have become domesticized, played at home for sweets, matchsticks or points. In casino games, the banker will have a 'house advantage' that ensures a profit for the casino. Popular casino games include Blackjack and Baccarat, while Pontoon is a cousin of Blackjack that emerged from the trenches of the First World War to become a popular British family game. Miscellaneous games. These games do not fit into any of the foregoing categories. The only traditional games in this group are the compendium games, which date back at least 200 years, and Speculation, a 19th century trading game. Compendium games. Compendium games consist of a sequence of different contracts played in succession. A common pattern is for a number of reverse deals to be played, in which the aim is to avoid certain cards, followed by a final contract which is a domino-type game. Examples include: Barbu, Herzeln, Lorum and Rosbiratschka. In other games, such as Quodlibet and Rumpel, there is a range of widely varying contracts.
Combat games. A new genre not recorded before 1970, most of which use proprietary cards of the collectible card game type (see below). The earliest example is Cuttle and the best known is . Card games by objective. Another broad way of classifying card games is by objective. There are four main types as well as a handful of games that have miscellaneous objectives. Capturing games. In these games the objective is to capture cards or to avoid capturing them. These break down into the following: Shedding games. In a shedding game, also called an accumulating game, players start with a hand of cards, and the object of the game is to be the first player to discard all cards from one's hand. Common shedding games include Crazy Eights (commercialized by Mattel as Uno) and Daihinmin. Similar games are Switch, Mau Mau or Whot!. Some matching-type games are also shedding-type games; some variants of Rummy such as Paskahousu, Phase 10, Rummikub, the bluffing game I Doubt It, and the children's games Musta Maija and Old Maid, fall into both categories.
Combination games. In many games, the aim is to form combinations of cards: by addition, by matching sets or forming sequences. All Rummy games are based on the last two principles, although in the basic variants, the end objective is to shed cards which makes them shedding games (see above). However, meld scoring variants such as Canasta or Rommé are true combination games. Comparing games. Comparing card games are those where hand values are compared to determine the winner, also known as "vying" or "showdown" games. Poker, blackjack, mus, and baccarat are examples of comparing card games. As seen, nearly all of these games are designed as gambling games. Drinking games. Drinking card games are drinking games using cards, in which the object in playing the game is either to drink or to force others to drink. Many games are ordinary card games with the establishment of "drinking rules"; President, for instance, is virtually identical to Daihinmin but with additional rules governing drinking. Poker can also be played using a number of drinks as the wager. Another game often played as a drinking game is Toepen, quite popular in the Netherlands. Some card games are designed specifically to be played as drinking games.
Proprietary games. These are card games played with a dedicated deck. Many other card games have been designed and published on a commercial or amateur basis. In a few cases, the game uses the standard 52-card deck, but the object is unique. In Eleusis, for example, players play single cards, and are told whether the play was legal or illegal, in an attempt to discover the underlying rules made up by the dealer. Most of these games however typically use a specially made deck of cards designed specifically for the game (or variations of it). The decks are thus usually proprietary, but may be created by the game's players. Uno, Phase 10, Set, and 1000 Blank White Cards are popular dedicated-deck card games; 1000 Blank White Cards is unique in that the cards for the game are designed by the players of the game while playing it; there is no commercially available deck advertised as such. Collectible card games (CCGs). Collectible card games (CCG) are proprietary playing card games. CCGs are games of strategy between two or more players. Each player has their own deck constructed from a very large pool of unique cards in the commercial market. The cards have different effects, costs, and art. New card sets are released periodically and sold as starter decks or booster packs. Obtaining the different cards makes the game a collectible card game, and cards are sold or traded on the secondary market. "", "Pokémon", and "Yu-Gi-Oh!" are well-known collectible card games.
Living card games (LCGs). Living card games (LCGs) are similar to collectible card games (CCGs), with their most distinguishing feature being a fixed distribution method, which breaks away from the traditional collectible card game format. While new cards for CCGs are usually sold in the form of starter decks or booster packs (the latter being often randomized), LCGs thrive on a model that requires players to acquire one core set in order to play the game, which players can further customize by acquiring extra sets or expansions featuring new content in the form of cards or scenarios. No randomization is involved in the process, thus players that get the same sets or expansions will get the exact same content. The term was popularized by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) and mainly applies to its products, however some tabletop gaming companies can be seen using a very similar model. Simulation card games. A deck of either customized dedicated cards or a standard deck of playing cards with assigned meanings is used to simulate the actions of another activity, for example card football.
Fictional card games. Many games, including card games, are fabricated by science fiction authors and screenwriters to distance a culture depicted in the story from present-day Western culture. They are commonly used as filler to depict background activities in an atmosphere like a bar or rec room, but sometimes the drama revolves around the play of the game. Some of these games become real card games as the holder of the intellectual property develops and markets a suitable deck and ruleset for the game, while others lack sufficient descriptions of rules, or depend on cards or other hardware that are infeasible or physically impossible. Typical structure of card games. Number and association of players. Any specific card game imposes restrictions on the number of players. The most significant dividing lines run between one-player games and two-player games, and between two-player games and multi-player games. Card games for one player are known as "solitaire" or "patience" card games. (See list of solitaire card games.) Generally speaking, they are in many ways special and atypical, although some of them have given rise to two- or multi-player games such as Spite and Malice.
In card games for two players, usually not all cards are distributed to the players, as they would otherwise have perfect information about the game state. Two-player games have always been immensely popular and include some of the most significant card games such as piquet, bezique, sixty-six, klaberjass, gin rummy and cribbage. Many multi-player games started as two-player games that were adapted to a greater number of players. For such adaptations a number of non-obvious choices must be made beginning with the choice of a game orientation. One way of extending a two-player game to more players is by building two teams of equal size. A common case is four players in two fixed partnerships, sitting crosswise as in whist and contract bridge. Partners sit opposite to each other and cannot see each other's hands. If communication between the partners is allowed at all, then it is usually restricted to a specific list of permitted signs and signals. 17th-century French partnership games such as triomphe were special in that partners sat next to each other and were allowed to communicate freely so long as they did not exchange cards or play out of order.
Another way of extending a two-player game to more players is as a "cut-throat" or "individual" game, in which all players play for themselves, and win or lose alone. Most such card games are "round games", i.e. they can be played by any number of players starting from two or three, so long as there are enough cards for all. For some of the most interesting games such as ombre, tarot and skat, the associations between players change from hand to hand. Ultimately players all play on their own, but for each hand, some game mechanism divides the players into two teams. Most typically these are "solo games", i.e. games in which one player becomes the soloist and has to achieve some objective against the others, who form a team and win or lose all their points jointly. But in games for more than three players, there may also be a mechanism that selects two players who then have to play against the others. Direction of play. The players of a card game normally form a circle around a table or other space that can hold cards. The "game orientation" or "direction of play", which is only relevant for three or more players, can be either clockwise or counterclockwise. It is the direction in which various roles in the game proceed. (In real-time card games, there may be no need for a direction of play.) Most regions have a traditional direction of play, such as:
Europe is roughly divided into a clockwise area in the north and a counterclockwise area in the south. The boundary runs between England, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Austria (mostly), Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia (clockwise) and France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Balkans, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (counterclockwise). Games that originate in a region with a strong preference are often initially played in the original direction, even in regions that prefer the opposite direction. For games that have official rules and are played in tournaments, the direction of play is often prescribed in those rules. Determining who deals. Most games have some form of asymmetry between players. The roles of players are normally expressed in terms of the "dealer", i.e. the player whose task it is to shuffle the cards and distribute them to the players. Being the dealer can be a (minor or major) advantage or disadvantage, depending on the game. Therefore, after each played hand, the deal normally passes to the next player according to the game orientation.
As it can still be an advantage or disadvantage to be the first dealer, there are some standard methods for determining who is the first dealer. A common method is by cutting, which works as follows. One player shuffles the deck and places it on the table. Each player lifts a packet of cards from the top, reveals its bottom card, and returns it to the deck. The player who reveals the highest (or lowest) card becomes dealer. In the case of a tie, the process is repeated by the tied players. For some games such as whist this process of cutting is part of the official rules, and the hierarchy of cards for the purpose of cutting (which need not be the same as that used otherwise in the game) is also specified. But in general, any method can be used, such as tossing a coin in case of a two-player game, drawing cards until one player draws an ace, or rolling dice. Hands, rounds and games. A "hand", also called a "deal", is a unit of the game that begins with the dealer shuffling and dealing the cards as described below, and ends with the players scoring and the next dealer being determined. The set of cards that each player receives and holds in his or her hands is also known as that player's hand.
The hand is over when the players have finished playing their hands. Most often this occurs when one player (or all) has no cards left. The player who sits after the dealer in the direction of play is known as eldest hand (or in two-player games as elder hand) or forehand. A "game round" consists of as many hands as there are players. After each hand, the deal is passed on in the direction of play, i.e. the previous eldest hand becomes the new dealer. Normally players score points after each hand. A game may consist of a fixed number of rounds. Alternatively it can be played for a fixed number of points. In this case it is over with the hand in which a player reaches the target score. Shuffling. Shuffling is the process of bringing the cards of a pack into a random order. There are a large number of techniques with various advantages and disadvantages. "Riffle shuffling" is a method in which the deck is divided into two roughly equal-sized halves that are bent and then released, so that the cards interlace. Repeating this process several times randomizes the deck well, but the method is harder to learn than some others and may damage the cards. The "overhand shuffle" and the "Hindu shuffle" are two techniques that work by taking batches of cards from the top of the deck and reassembling them in the opposite order. They are easier to learn but must be repeated more to sufficiently randomize the deck. A method suitable for small children consists in spreading the cards on a large surface and moving them around before picking up the deck again. This is also the most common method for shuffling tiles such as dominoes.
For casino games that are played for large sums it is vital that the cards be properly randomized, but for many games this is less critical, and in fact player experience can suffer when the cards are shuffled too well. The official skat rules stipulate that the cards are "shuffled well", but according to a decision of the German skat court, a one-handed player should ask another player to do the shuffling, rather than use a shuffling machine, as it would shuffle the cards "too" well. French belote rules go so far as to prescribe that the deck never be shuffled between hands. Dealing. The dealer takes all of the cards in the pack, arranges them so that they are in a uniform stack, and shuffles them. In strict play, the dealer then offers the deck to the previous player (in the sense of the game direction) for "cutting". If the deal is clockwise, this is the player to the dealer's right; if counterclockwise, it is the player to the dealer's left. The invitation to cut is made by placing the pack, face downward, on the table near the player who is to cut: who then lifts the upper portion of the pack clear of the lower portion and places it alongside. (Normally the two portions have about equal size. Strict rules often indicate that each portion must contain a certain minimum number of cards, such as three or five.) The formerly lower portion is then replaced on top of the formerly upper portion. Instead of cutting, one may also knock on the deck to indicate that one trusts the dealer to have shuffled fairly.
The actual "deal" (distribution of cards) is done in the direction of play, beginning with eldest hand. The dealer holds the pack, face down, in one hand, and removes cards from the top of it with his or her other hand to distribute to the players, placing them face down on the table in front of the players to whom they are dealt. The cards may be dealt one at a time, or in batches of more than one card; and either the entire pack or a determined number of cards are dealt out. The undealt cards, if any, are left face down in the middle of the table, forming the "stock" (also called the talon, widow, skat or kitty depending on the game and region). Throughout the shuffle, cut, and deal, the dealer should prevent the players from seeing the faces of any of the cards. The players should not try to see any of the faces. Should a player accidentally see a card, other than one's own, proper etiquette would be to admit this. It is also dishonest to try to see cards as they are dealt, or to take advantage of having seen a card. Should a card accidentally become exposed, (visible to all), any player can demand a redeal (all the cards are gathered up, and the shuffle, cut, and deal are repeated) or that the card be replaced randomly into the deck ("burning" it) and a replacement dealt from the top to the player who was to receive the revealed card.
When the deal is complete, all players pick up their cards, or "hand", and hold them in such a way that the faces can be seen by the holder of the cards but not the other players, or vice versa depending on the game. It is helpful to fan one's cards out so that if they have corner indices all their values can be seen at once. In most games, it is also useful to sort one's hand, rearranging the cards in a way appropriate to the game. For example, in a trick-taking game it may be easier to have all one's cards of the same suit together, whereas in a rummy game one might sort them by rank or by potential combinations. Signalling. Normally communication between partners about tactics or the cards in their hands is forbidden. However, in a small number of games communication and/or signaling is permitted and very much part of the play. Most of these games are very old and, often, have rules of play that allow any card to be played at any time. Such games include: Rules. A new card game starts in a small way, either as someone's invention, or as a modification of an existing game. Those playing it may agree to change the rules as they wish. The rules that they agree on become the "house rules" under which they play the game. A set of house rules may be accepted as valid by a group of players wherever they play, as it may also be accepted as governing all play within a particular house, café, or club.
When a game becomes sufficiently popular, so that people often play it with strangers, there is a need for a generally accepted set of rules. This need is often met when a particular set of house rules becomes generally recognized. For example, when Whist became popular in 18th-century England, players in the Portland Club agreed on a set of house rules for use on its premises. Players in some other clubs then agreed to follow the "Portland Club" rules, rather than go to the trouble of codifying and printing their own sets of rules. The Portland Club rules eventually became generally accepted throughout England and Western cultures. There is nothing static or "official" about this process. For the majority of games, there is no one set of universal rules by which the game is played, and the most common ruleset is no more or less than that. Many widely played card games, such as Canasta and Pinochle, have no official regulating body. The most common ruleset is often determined by the most popular distribution of rulebooks for card games. Perhaps the original compilation of popular playing card games was collected by Edmund Hoyle, a self-made authority on many popular parlor games. The U.S. Playing Card Company now owns the eponymous Hoyle brand, and publishes a series of rulebooks for various families of card games that have largely standardized the games' rules in countries and languages where the rulebooks are widely distributed. However, players are free to, and often do, invent "house rules" to supplement or even largely replace the "standard" rules.
If there is a sense in which a card game can have an official set of rules, it is when that card game has an "official" governing body. For example, the rules of tournament bridge are governed by the World Bridge Federation, and by local bodies in various countries such as the American Contract Bridge League in the U.S., and the English Bridge Union in England. The rules of skat are governed by The International Skat Players Association and, in Germany, by the "Deutscher Skatverband" which publishes the "Skatordnung". The rules of French tarot are governed by the Fédération Française de Tarot. The rules of Schafkopf are laid down by the "Schafkopfschule" in Munich. Even in these cases, the rules must only be followed at games sanctioned by these governing bodies or where the tournament organisers specify them. Players in informal settings are free to implement agreed supplemental or substitute rules. For example, in Schafkopf there are numerous local variants sometimes known as "impure" Schafkopf and specified by assuming the official rules and describing the additions e.g. "with Geier and Bettel, tariff 5/10 cents".
Rule infractions. An infraction is any action which is against the rules of the game, such as playing a card when it is not one's turn to play or the accidental exposure of a card, informally known as "bleeding." In many official sets of rules for card games, the rules specifying the penalties for various infractions occupy more pages than the rules specifying how to play correctly. This is tedious but necessary for games that are played seriously. Players who intend to play a card game at a high level generally ensure before beginning that all agree on the penalties to be used. When playing privately, this will normally be a question of agreeing house rules. In a tournament, there will probably be a tournament director who will enforce the rules when required and arbitrate in cases of doubt. If a player breaks the rules of a game deliberately, this is cheating. The rest of this section is therefore about accidental infractions, caused by ignorance, clumsiness, inattention, etc. As the same game is played repeatedly among a group of players, precedents build up about how a particular infraction of the rules should be handled. For example, "Sheila just led a card when it wasn't her turn. Last week when Jo did that, we agreed ... etc." Sets of such precedents tend to become established among groups of players, and to be regarded as part of the house rules. Sets of house rules may become formalized, as described in the previous section. Therefore, for some games, there is a "proper" way of handling infractions of the rules. But for many games, without governing bodies, there is no standard way of handling infractions.
In many circumstances, there is no need for special rules dealing with what happens after an infraction. As a general principle, the person who broke a rule should not benefit from it, and the other players should not lose by it. An exception to this may be made in games with fixed partnerships, in which it may be felt that the partner(s) of the person who broke a rule should also not benefit. The penalty for an accidental infraction should be as mild as reasonable, consistent with there being a possible benefit to the person responsible. Playing cards. The oldest surviving reference to the card game in world history is from the 9th century China, when the "Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang", written by Tang-dynasty writer Su E, described Princess (daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang) playing the "leaf game" with members of the Wei clan (the family of the princess's husband) in 868 . The Song dynasty statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu has noted that paper playing cards arose in connection to an earlier development in the book format from scrolls to pages.
Playing cards first appeared in Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century. The earliest European references speak of a Saracen or Moorish game called "naib", and in fact an almost complete Mamluk Egyptian deck of 52 cards in a distinct oriental design has survived from around the same time, with the four suits "swords", "polo sticks", "cups" and "coins" and the ranks "king", "governor", "second governor", and "ten" to "one". The 1430s in Italy saw the invention of the tarot deck, a full Latin-suited deck augmented by suitless cards with painted motifs that played a special role as trumps. Tarot card games are still played with (subsets of) these decks in parts of Central Europe. A full tarot deck contains 14 cards in each suit; low cards labeled 1–10, and court cards (jack), (cavalier/knight), (queen), and (king), plus the fool or excuse card, and 21 trump cards. In the 18th century the card images of the traditional Italian tarot decks became popular in cartomancy and evolved into "esoteric" decks used primarily for the purpose; today most tarot decks sold in North America are the occult type, and are closely associated with fortune telling. In Europe, "playing tarot" decks remain popular for games, and have evolved since the 18th century to use regional suits (spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs in France; leaves, hearts, bells and acorns in Germany) as well as other familiar aspects of the English-pattern pack such as corner card indices and "stamped" card symbols for non-court cards. Decks differ regionally based on the number of cards needed to play the games; the French tarot consists of the "full" 78 cards, while Germanic, Spanish and Italian Tarot variants remove certain values (usually low suited cards) from the deck, creating a deck with as few as 32 cards.
The French suits were introduced around 1480 and, in France, mostly replaced the earlier Latin suits of "swords", "clubs", "cups" and "coins". (which are still common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries as well as in some northern regions of Italy) The suit symbols, being very simple and single-color, could be stamped onto the playing cards to create a deck, thus only requiring special full-color card art for the court cards. This drastically simplifies the production of a deck of cards versus the traditional Italian deck, which used unique full-color art for each card in the deck. The French suits became popular in English playing cards in the 16th century (despite historic animosity between France and England), and from there were introduced to British colonies including North America. The rise of Western culture has led to the near-universal popularity and availability of French-suited playing cards even in areas with their own regional card art. In Japan, a distinct 48-card hanafuda deck is popular. It is derived from 16th-century Portuguese decks, after undergoing a long evolution driven by laws enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate attempting to ban the use of playing cards
The best-known deck internationally is the English pattern of the 52-card French deck, also called the International or Anglo-American pattern, used for such games as poker and contract bridge. It contains one card for each unique combination of thirteen "ranks" and the four French "suits" "spades", "hearts", "diamonds", and "clubs". The ranks (from highest to lowest in bridge and poker) are "ace", "king", "queen", "jack" (or "knave"), and the numbers from "ten" down to "two" (or "deuce"). The trump cards and "knight" cards from the French playing tarot are not included. Originally the term "knave" was more common than "jack"; the card had been called a jack as part of the terminology of all-fours since the 17th century, but the word was considered vulgar. (Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel "Great Expectations": "He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!") However, because the card abbreviation for knave ("Kn") was so close to that of the king, it was very easy to confuse them, especially after suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card in order to enable people to fan them in one hand and still see all the values. (The earliest known deck to place suits and rankings in the corner of the card is from 1693, but these cards did not become common until after 1864 when Hart reintroduced them along with the knave-to-jack change.) However, books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century evidently still referred to the "knave", and the term with this definition is still recognized in the United Kingdom.
In the 17th century, a French, five-trick, gambling game called Bête became popular and spread to Germany, where it was called La Bete and England where it was named Beast. It was a derivative of Triomphe and was the first card game in history to introduce the concept of bidding. Chinese handmade mother-of-pearl gaming counters were used in scoring and bidding of card games in the West during the approximate period of 1700–1840. The gaming counters would bear an engraving such as a coat of arms or a monogram to identify a family or individual. Many of the gaming counters also depict Chinese scenes, flowers or animals. Queen Charlotte is one prominent British individual who is known to have played with the Chinese gaming counters. Card games such as Ombre, Quadrille and Pope Joan were popular at the time and required counters for scoring. The production of counters declined after Whist, with its different scoring method, became the most popular card game in the West. Based on the association of card games and gambling, Pope Benedict XIV banned card games on October 17, 1750.
Cross-stitch Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches (called cross stitches) in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of evenweave fabric (such as linen) in each direction so that the stitches are of uniform size and appearance. This form of cross-stitch is also called counted cross-stitch in order to distinguish it from other forms of cross-stitch. Sometimes cross-stitch is done on designs printed on the fabric (stamped cross-stitch); the stitcher simply stitches over the printed pattern. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable fabric called aida cloth, whose weave creates a plainly visible grid of squares with holes for the needle at each corner. Fabrics used in cross-stitch include linen, aida cloth, and mixed-content fabrics called 'evenweave' such as jobelan. All cross-stitch fabrics are technically "evenweave" as the term refers to the fact that the fabric is woven to make sure that there are the same number of threads per inch in both the warp and the weft (i.e. vertically and horizontally). Fabrics are categorized by threads per inch (referred to as 'count'), which can range from 11 to 40 count.
Counted cross-stitch projects are worked from a gridded pattern called a chart and can be used on any count fabric; the count of the fabric and the number of threads per stitch determine the size of the finished stitching. For example, if a given design is stitched on a 28 count cross-stitch fabric with each cross worked over two threads, the finished stitching size is the same as it would be on a 14 count aida cloth fabric with each cross worked over one square. These methods are referred to as "2 over 2" (2 embroidery threads used to stitch over 2 fabric threads) and "1 over 1" (1 embroidery thread used to stitch over 1 fabric thread or square), respectively. There are different methods of stitching a pattern, including the cross-country method where one colour is stitched at a time, or the parking method where one block of fabric is stitched at a time and the end of the thread is "parked" at the next point the same colour occurs in the pattern. History. Cross-stitch can be found all over the world since the Middle Ages. Many folk museums show examples of clothing decorated with cross-stitch, especially from continental Europe and Asia.
The cross-stitch sampler is called that because it was generally stitched by a young girl to learn how to stitch and to record alphabet and other patterns to be used in her household sewing. These samples of her stitching could be referred back to over the years. Often, motifs and initials were stitched on household items to identify their owner, or simply to decorate the otherwise-plain cloth. The earliest known cross stitch sampler made in the United States is currently housed at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The sampler was created by Loara Standish, daughter of Captain Myles Standish and pioneer of the Leviathan stitch, circa 1653. Traditionally, cross-stitch was used to embellish items like household linens, tablecloths, dishcloths, and doilies (only a small portion of which would actually be embroidered, such as a border). Although there are many cross-stitchers who still employ it in this fashion, it is now increasingly popular to work the pattern on pieces of fabric and hang them on the wall for decoration. Cross-stitch is also often used to make greeting cards, pillow tops, or as inserts for box tops, coasters and trivets.
Multicoloured, shaded, painting-like patterns as we know them today are a fairly modern development, deriving from similar shaded patterns of Berlin wool work of the mid-nineteenth century. Besides designs created expressly for cross-stitch, there are software programs that convert a photograph or a fine art image into a chart suitable for stitching. One example of this is in the cross-stitched reproduction of the Sistine Chapel charted and stitched by Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts. There are many cross-stitching "guilds" and groups across the United States and Europe which offer classes, collaborate on large projects, stitch for charity, and provide other ways for local cross-stitchers to get to know one another. Individually owned local needlework shops (LNS) often have stitching nights at their shops, or host weekend stitching retreats. Today, cotton floss is the most common embroidery thread. It is a thread made of mercerized cotton, composed of six strands that are only loosely twisted together and easily separable. While there are other manufacturers, the two most-commonly used (and oldest) brands are DMC and Anchor, both of which have been manufacturing embroidery floss since the 1800s.
Other materials used are pearl (or perle) cotton, Danish flower thread, silk and Rayon. Different wool threads, metallic threads or other novelty threads are also used, sometimes for the whole work, but often for accents and embellishments. Hand-dyed cross-stitch floss is created just as the name implies—it is dyed by hand. Because of this, there are variations in the amount of color throughout the thread. Some variations can be subtle, while some can be a huge contrast. Some also have more than one color per thread. Cross-stitch is widely used in traditional Palestinian dressmaking. Palestinian cross stitch is called tatreez. In 2021, tatreez was added to the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Related stitches and forms of embroidery. The cross-stitch can be executed partially such as in quarter-, half-, and three-quarter-stitches. A single straight stitch, done in the form of backstitching, is often used as an outline, to add detail or definition. There are many stitches which are related structurally to cross-stitch. The best known are Italian cross-stitch (as seen in Assisi embroidery), long-armed cross-stitch, and Montenegrin stitch. Italian cross-stitch and Montenegrin stitch are reversible, meaning the work looks the same on both sides. These styles have a slightly different look than ordinary cross-stitch. These more difficult stitches are rarely used in mainstream embroidery, but they are still used to recreate historical pieces of embroidery or by the creative and adventurous stitcher. The double cross-stitch, also known as a Leviathan stitch or Smyrna cross-stitch, combines a cross-stitch with an upright cross-stitch.
Berlin wool work and similar petit point stitchery resembles the heavily shaded, opulent styles of cross-stitch, and sometimes also used charted patterns on paper. Cross-stitch is often combined with other popular forms of embroidery, such as Hardanger embroidery or blackwork embroidery. Cross-stitch may also be combined with other work, such as canvaswork or drawn thread work. Beadwork and other embellishments such as paillettes, charms, small buttons and specialty threads of various kinds may also be used. Cross stitch can often be used in needlepoint. Twenty first century cross stitch trends. Cross-stitch has become increasingly popular with the younger generation of Europe in recent years. Retailers such as John Lewis experienced a 17% rise in sales of haberdashery products between 2009 and 2010. Hobbycraft, a chain of stores selling craft supplies, also enjoyed an 11% increase in sales over the year to February 22, 2009 primarily attributed to the needlework sector. The cross stitch market has continued to grow and market research firm Mintel reported a 12% rise in women doing some sort of needlecraft as a hobby between 2015 and 2017. London department store Liberty's, reported double-digit growth in the fabric and haberdashery departments in 2017 and the store increased its range by 25%.
Knitting and cross-stitching have become more popular hobbies for a younger market, in contrast to its traditional reputation as a hobby for retirees. Sewing and craft groups such as Stitch and Bitch London have resurrected the idea of the traditional craft club. At Clothes Show Live 2010 there was a new area called "Sknitch" promoting modern sewing, knitting and embroidery. In a departure from the traditional designs associated with cross-stitch, there is a current trend for more postmodern or tongue-in-cheek designs featuring retro images or contemporary sayings. It is linked to a concept known as 'subversive cross-stitch', which involves more risque designs, often fusing the traditional sampler style with sayings designed to shock or be incongruous with the old-fashioned image of cross-stitch. Stitching designs on other materials can be accomplished by using waste canvas. This is a temporary gridded canvas similar to regular canvas used for embroidery that is held together by a water-soluble glue, which is removed after completion of stitch design. Soluble canvas serves a similar purpose and is entirely dissolved in water after finishing a design. Other crafters have taken to cross-stitching on all manner of gridded objects as well including old kitchen strainers or chain-link fences.
While cross stitch is traditionally a women's craft, it is growing in popularity among men. Cross-stitch and feminism. In the 21st century, an emphasis on feminist design has emerged within cross-stitch communities. Some cross-stitchers have commented on the way that the practice of embroidery makes them feel connected to the women who practised it before them. There is a push for all embroidery, including cross-stitch, to be respected as a significant art form. Cross-stitch and computers. The development of computer technology has also affected such a seemingly conservative craft as cross-stitch. With the help of computer visualization algorithms, it is now possible to create embroidery designs using a photograph or any other picture. Visualisation uses a drawing on a graphical grid, representing colors and / or symbols, which gives the user an indication of the possible use of colors, the position of those colors, and the type of stitch used, such as full cross or quarter stitch. Flosstube. An increasingly popular activity for cross-stitchers is to watch and make YouTube videos detailing their hobby. Flosstubers, as they are known, typically cover WIPs (Works in Progress), FOs (Finished Objects), and Haul (new patterns, thread, and fabric, as well as cross-stitching accessories, such as needle minders). Other accessories include but are not limited to: Floss organizers, thread conditioner, pin cushions, aida cloth or plastic canvas, and embroidery needles.
Casino game Games available in most casinos are commonly called casino games. In a casino game, the players gamble cash or casino chips on various possible random outcomes or combinations of outcomes. Casino games are also available in online casinos, where permitted by law. Casino games can also be played outside of casinos for entertainment purposes, like in parties or in school competitions, on machines that simulate gambling. Categories. There are three general categories of casino games: gaming machines, table games, and random number games. Gaming machines, such as slot machines and pachinko, are usually played by one player at a time and do not require the involvement of casino employees. Tables games, such as blackjack or craps, involve one or more players who are competing against the house (the casino itself) rather than each other. Table games are usually conducted by casino employees known as croupiers or dealers. Random number games are based on the selection of random numbers, either from a computerized random number generator or from other gaming equipment. Random number games may be played at a table or through the purchase of paper tickets or cards, such as keno or bingo.
Some casino games combine multiple of the above aspects; for example, roulette is a table game conducted by a dealer, that involves random numbers. Casinos may also offer other types of gaming, such as hosting poker games or tournaments where players compete against each other. Common casino games. Games commonly found at casinos include table games, gaming machines and random number games. Table games. In the United States, "table game" is the term used for games of chance such as blackjack, craps, roulette, and baccarat that are played against the casino and operated by one or more live croupiers, as opposed to those played on a mechanical device like a slot machine or against other players instead of the casino, such as standard poker. Table games are popularly played in casinos and involve some form of legal gambling, but they are also played privately under varying house rules. The term has significance in that some jurisdictions permit casinos to have only slots and no table games. In some states, this law has resulted in casinos employing electronic table games, such as roulette, blackjack, and craps.
Table games found in casinos include: Gaming machines. Gaming machines found in casinos include: Random numbers games. Random numbers games found in casinos include: House advantage. Casino games typically provide a predictable long-term advantage to the casino, or "house", while offering the players the possibility of a short-term gain that in some cases can be large. Some casino games have a skill element, where the players' decisions have an impact on the results. Players possessing sufficient skills to eliminate the inherent long-term disadvantage (the "house edge" or vigorish) in a casino game are referred to as advantage players. The players' disadvantage is a result of the casino not paying winning wagers according to the game's "true odds", which are the payouts that would be expected considering the odds of a wager either winning or losing. For example, if a game is played by wagering on the number that would result from the roll of one die, the true odds would be 6 times the amount wagered since there is a 1 in 6 chance of any single number appearing, assuming that the player gets the original amount wagered back. However, the casino may only pay 4 times the amount wagered for a winning wager.
The house edge, or vigorish, is defined as the casino profit expressed as a percentage of the player's original bet. (In games such as blackjack or Spanish 21, the final bet may be several times the original bet, if the player doubles and splits.) In American roulette, there are two "zeroes" (0, 00) and 36 non-zero numbers (18 red and 18 black). This leads to a higher house edge compared to European roulette. The chances of a player, who bets 1 unit on red, winning are 18/38 and his chances of losing 1 unit are 20/38. The player's expected value is EV = (18/38 × 1) + (20/38 × (−1)) = 18/38 − 20/38 = −2/38 = −5.26%. Therefore, the house edge is 5.26%. After 10 spins, betting 1 unit per spin, the average house profit will be 10 × 1 × 5.26% = 0.53 units. European roulette wheels have only one "zero" and therefore the house advantage (ignoring the en prison rule) is equal to 1/37 = 2.7%. The house edge of casino games varies greatly with the game, with some games having an edge as low as 0.3%. Keno can have house edges of up to 25%, slot machines having up to 15%.
The calculation of the roulette house edge is a trivial exercise; for other games, this is not usually the case. Combinatorial analysis and/or computer simulation is necessary to complete the task. In games that have a skill element, such as blackjack or Spanish 21, the house edge is defined as the house advantage from optimal play (without the use of advanced techniques such as card counting), on the first hand of the shoe (the container that holds the cards). The set of optimal plays for all possible hands is known as "basic strategy" and is highly dependent on the specific rules and even the number of decks used. Traditionally, the majority of casinos have refused to reveal the house edge information for their slots games, and due to the unknown number of symbols and weightings of the reels, in most cases, it is much more difficult to calculate the house edge than in other casino games. However, due to some online properties revealing this information and some independent research conducted by Michael Shackleford in the offline sector, this pattern is slowly changing.
In games where players are not competing against the house, such as poker, the casino usually earns money via a commission, known as a "rake". Standard deviation. The luck factor in a casino game is quantified using standard deviations (SD). The standard deviation of a simple game like roulette can be calculated using the binomial distribution. In the binomial distribution, SD = formula_1, where "n" = number of rounds played, "p" = probability of winning, and "q" = probability of losing. The binomial distribution assumes a result of 1 unit for a win, and 0 units for a loss, rather than −1 units for a loss, which doubles the range of possible outcomes. Furthermore, if we flat bet at 10 units per round instead of 1 unit, the range of possible outcomes increases 10 fold. For example, after 10 rounds at 1 unit per round, the standard deviation will be 2 × 1 × formula_3 = 3.16 units. After 10 rounds, the expected loss will be 10 × 1 × 5.26% = 0.53. As you can see, standard deviation is many times the magnitude of the expected loss.
The standard deviation for pai gow poker is the lowest out of all common casino games. Many casino games, particularly slot machines, have extremely high standard deviations. The bigger size of the potential payouts, the more the standard deviation may increase. As the number of rounds increases, eventually, the expected loss will exceed the standard deviation, many times over. From the formula, we can see that the standard deviation is proportional to the square root of the number of rounds played, while the expected loss is proportional to the number of rounds played. As the number of rounds increases, the expected loss increases at a much faster rate. This is why it is impossible for a gambler to win in the long term. It is the high ratio of short-term standard deviation to expected loss that fools gamblers into thinking that they can win. It is important for a casino to know both the house edge and variance for all of their games. The house edge tells them what kind of profit they will make as a percentage of turnover, and the variance tells them how much they need in the way of cash reserves. The mathematicians and computer programmers that do this kind of work are called gaming mathematicians and gaming analysts. Casinos do not have in-house expertise in this field, so they outsource their requirements to experts in the gaming analysis field.
Video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, most commonly shown in a video format on a television set, computer monitor, flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices, or a virtual reality headset. Most modern video games are audiovisual, with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones, and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming. Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform, which traditionally includes arcade video games, console games, and computer games (which includes LAN games, online games, and browser games). More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming. Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience.
The first video game prototypes in the 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers. The first consumer video game was the arcade video game "Computer Space" in 1971, which took inspiration from the earlier 1962 computer game "Spacewar!". In 1972 came the now-iconic video game "Pong" and the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey. The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from the crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In the 2000s, the core industry centered on "AAA" games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution, this gave room for independent video game development (or "indie games") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual gaming and increasing monetization by incorporating games as a service.
Today, video game development requires numerous skills, vision, teamwork, and liaisons between different parties, including developers, publishers, distributors, retailers, hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. , the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of across hardware, software, and services, which is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry. The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry, where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. Origins.
These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates, Ralph H. Baer devised a system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box". Sanders patented Baer's innovations and licensed them to Magnavox, which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, inspired by seeing "Spacewar!" running at Stanford University, devised a similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as "Computer Space", the first arcade video game, in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc., and with Allan Alcorn, created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong-style "Pong", which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Atari made a home version of "Pong", which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and "Pong", both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions.
Terminology. The term "video game" was developed to describe electronic games played on a video display rather than on a teletype printer, audio speaker, or similar device. This also distinguished from handheld electronic games such as "Merlin," which commonly used LED lights for indicators not in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor; in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The term "computer game" can also refer to PC games, which are played primarily on personal computers or other flexible hardware systems, to distinguish them from console games, arcade games, or mobile games. Other terms, such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game", had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set. However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan, where consoles like the Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation, such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output.
The first appearance of the term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 "BusinessWeek" article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of "Computer Space" in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines "Vending Times" and "Cashbox" showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in a letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran "Cashbox"s coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded "RePlay Magazine", covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used the term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of "RePlay", Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay's Eddie Adlum worked at 'Cash Box' when 'TV games' first came out. The personalities in those days were Bushnell, his sales manager Pat Karns, and a handful of other 'TV game' manufacturers like Henry Leyser and the McEwan brothers. It seemed awkward to call their products 'TV games', so borrowing a word from "Billboard"s description of movie jukeboxes, Adlum started to refer to this new breed of amusement machine as 'video games.' The phrase stuck." Adlum explained in 1985 that up until the early 1970s, amusement arcades typically had non-video arcade games such as pinball machines and electro-mechanical games. With the arrival of video games in arcades during the early 1970s, there was initially some confusion in the arcade industry over what term should be used to describe the new games. He "wrestled with descriptions of this type of game," alternating between "TV game" and "television game" but "finally woke up one day" and said, "What the hell... video game!"
Definition. While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised the question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment. The introduction of interactive films in the 1980s with games like "Dragon's Lair", featured games with full motion video played off a form of media but only limited user interaction. This had required a means to distinguish these games from more traditional board games that happen to also use external media, such as the "Clue VCR Mystery Game" which required players to watch VCR clips between turns. To distinguish between these two, video games are considered to require some interactivity that affects the visual display. Most video games tend to feature some type of victory or winning conditions, such as a scoring mechanism or a final boss fight. The introduction of walking simulators (adventure games that allow for exploration but lack any objectives) like "Gone Home", and empathy games (video games that tend to focus on emotion) like "That Dragon, Cancer" brought the idea of games that did not have any such type of winning condition and raising the question of whether these were actually games. These are still commonly justified as video games as they provide a game world that the player can interact with by some means.

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