Wild Card (cards) - Wikipedia

Card which may stand in for a card of another value

A wild card in card games is one that may be used to represent any other playing card, sometimes with certain restrictions.[1] Jokers are often used as wild cards, but other cards may be designated as wild by the rules or by agreement. In addition to their use in card games played with a standard pack, wild cards may also exist in dedicated deck card games, such as the 'Master' card in Lexicon.[2]: 134 

Use

[edit]

A wild card is one that may be used to represent any natural card, its holder usually designating its rank and suit. Jokers are frequently used as wild cards, for example in games of the Rummy family. Jokers, however, may also have other uses, such as being a permanent top trump in games like Euchre or 500, the odd one out in Old Maid, or high-value matching cards in Zwicker.

In many games, ordinary cards may be designated as wild, for example, the J♣ and 9♦ in Classic Brag or the "deuces wild" in Poker.[3] A card that is not wild may be referred to as a natural card.[4]

In some cases, the wild card or cards must be agreed upon by players before the cards are dealt and play commences. However, in many games, such as Canasta, Perlaggen or Yellow Dwarf, the wild card or cards are a standard feature of the rules.

In some Austrian and South Tyrolean card games, one or more other cards may be used as wild cards, including the Weli, a special 6 of Bells, the 7 of Bells and 7 of Acorns. In the game of Perlaggen there are six or seven wild cards: four permanent Perlaggs - K or Maxl, 6 or Weli, 7 or Little Weli, the 7 of Bells or Bell-Spitz and 7 or Eichelspitz - as well as 3 "Trump Perlaggs" - the 7, Unter and Ober of Trumps.

Casino practice

[edit]

Sometimes a distinction is made between being fully or partially wild. A card that is fully wild can be designated by its holder as any card they choose with no restrictions. Under this rule, for example, a hand with any natural pair and a wild card becomes three of a kind.

A 'limited wild' card may be called a 'bug'. The common rule in casinos is that a wild card plays as a bug, which is given the rank of ace unless designating it as a different card would complete a straight, flush, or straight flush. Under this rule, a hand such as K♠ K♥ Jkr 5♣ 2♥ is just a pair of kings (with an ace kicker), but any four same-suit cards with a bug make a flush, and a hand such as 7♥ Jkr 5♣ 4♥ 3♠ makes a straight.

There is also a variation of the "fully wild" rule in which the wild card (in this instance they are usually jokers as there are traditionally only two and there is only one black and one red) can be any card of the suits matching the cards colour or current suit. For example, in a jokers wild game with these rules, the red joker could be used as any card of hearts or diamonds. Inversely, the black joker would be any card of clubs or spades.

Two exceptions to standard poker practice sometimes seen in home games are the double-ace flush rule, and the natural wins rule. The latter rule states that between hands that would otherwise tie, the hand with fewer wild cards wins. This is not common in casinos and should be treated as an exception to standard practice (as is the double-ace flush).

Examples

[edit]

The following is a selection of cards and the games in which they are wild, based on Parlett:[5]

• J♦ – Boston, Guimbarde and Reversis
• 7♦ – Yellow Dwarf
• 7 – Perlaggen
• 7 – Perlaggen
• K – Perlaggen
• S – Mus
• C – Mus
• Matto – Ottocento
• Bègato – Ottocento
• Deuces – Wild-card Rummy, Push Rummy, Canasta, Brag

See also

[edit]

• Wildcard character

Footnotes and references

[edit]

1. ^ Parlett (2008), p. 646.
2. ^ Augarde, Tony (1994). The Oxford A to Z of word games. Oxford University Press. pp. 133–135. ISBN 0-19-866178-9.
3. ^ The Language of Cards: A glossary of card-playing terms by David Parlett at www.parlettgames.uk. Retrieved 1 Jun 2018.
4. ^ Parlett, David. The Penguin Book of Card Games. London: Penguin (2008). ISBN 978-0-141-03787-5.
5. ^ Parlett (2008).

v t e Playing cards
Standard 52-card deck	Playing card suits (French) Spades Hearts Diamonds Clubs Ranks Ace Ace of spades Ace of hearts King King of hearts Queen Queen of spades Jack Curse of Scotland Beer card Specific decks Ambraser Hofjagdspiel Archaeology awareness Charruan Flemish Hunting Deck Hamas most wanted Hofämterspiel Jerry's Nugget Most-wanted Iraqi Politicards Stuttgart pack Transformation
Other packsand decks	As-Nas Chinese Four-colour pack Ganjifa Ganjapa Karuta Hanafuda Hyakunin Isshu Kabufuda Uta-garuta Kvitlech Polish Russian Tarot pack Tujeon Zi pai
Cards	Banner Blank Court card Knight Ober Unter Pip card Deuce Weli Joker Nicknames Stripped deck Talon Unicode
Other suits	Latin (Italian/Spanish/Portuguese) Cups Coins Batons Swords Germanic (German/Swiss) Acorns Leaves/Roses Hearts/Shields Bells Chinese (Money) Cash Strings of Cash Myriads of Strings Tens of Myriads
Manufacturersand brands	Manufacturers ASS Altenburger Cartamundi Copag Dal Negro Fournier France Cartes F.X. Schmid Gemaco J.O. Öberg & Son Modiano Nintendo Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag Oishi Tengudo Piatnik Ravensburger Trefl U.S. Games Systems United States Playing Card Company Brands Bicycle Grimaud Defunct Aspioti-ELKA Bielefelder Spielkarten C.L. Wüst Charles Goodall Dondorf Lewis Cohen Waddingtons
Notable people	Lee Asher Hubert Auer Bryan Berg David Blaine Derren Brown Lewis Cohen Dan and Dave Thierry Depaulis S. W. Erdnase Lennart Green Richard Harding Johann Kaspar Hechtel Ricky Jay Sekiryo Kaneda René Lavand Ed Marlo Master of the Playing Cards John McLeod Anton Moser Samuel J. Murray David Parlett Ferdinand Piatnik Richard Valentine Pitchford Franco Pratesi Johann Georg Rauch Juan Tamariz Howard Thurston Charles Troedel Dai Vernon Fusajiro Yamauchi
Groups andorganisations	Skat British Skat Association German Skat Association International Skat Court International Skat Players Association 52 Plus Joker Cary Collection of Playing Cards Fournier Museum of Playing Cards German Doppelkopf Association German Playing Card Museum International Playing-Card Society The Playing-Card Musée Français de la Carte à Jouer Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts and Culture Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards
Card manipulationand cardistry	Tricks The Acme of Control Ambitious Card Blackstone's Card Trick Without Cards The Circus Card Trick The Four Burglars Out of This World Rising Card Spelling Bee Twenty-One Card Trick Bottom dealing Card marking Card sharp Card throwing Cards in the hat Cardistry-Con Cutting Double lift The Expert at the Card Table Herrmann pass History of cardistry House of cards One-way deck Palms and grips Gambler's Magician's Mechanic's Tenkai The Phantom of the Card Table Second dealing Shuffling Faro Gilbreath Zarrow Si Stebbins stack Spoke card Three-card monte Trick decks
Art and media	Paintings The Acrobats The Bezique Game The Card Players The Card Players II Card Players in a Rich Interior The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room The Cardsharps Dogs Playing Poker Still Life with a Poem Violin and Playing Cards on a Table Film and television Card Sharks Playing Cards (1896) Play Your Cards Right Video games Balatro Literature Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (1865)