Card game dictionary.

01♠

Trick

One full pass around the table in which everyone plays a card, plus the cards gathered from it. “Taking the trick” means winning the pile.

The term shows up in Seven Cut, where the trick is the heart of the game. What makes it special there is that a cut doesn’t end the trick, it extends it by one turn for everyone. So a Seven Cut trick can hold eight, twelve or more cards.

02♥

Cutting card, to cut

A card that takes the trick no matter what was played before it. In Seven Cut, any 7 cuts, and so does any card of the same rank as the FIRST card of the trick. Not the last card played: that’s the most common mistake.

With three players, two eights are removed so the deck deals evenly, and the two remaining eights become cutting cards too.

Don’t confuse it with “trump”: a cutting card is one specific card, trump is a whole suit.

03♦

Trump

A suit declared stronger than all the others for the length of a hand. Any trump card beats any card of another suit.

It doesn’t appear in any of the five games here; Whist, Bridge and Tarot use it. It’s listed because it’s the word most often looked up by someone who heard something at a table and didn’t follow.

04♣

Sweep

In Sweep: the capture that clears the table completely. It brings one extra point, on top of what the captured cards are worth.

It doesn’t come from luck. You set it up a move earlier: when one or two cards are left on the table, you check whether you hold the value that adds up to them exactly, and above all you don’t put anything there the turn before.

05♠

Little cows

In Sweep: the 10♦ and the 2♣, the only two cards worth two points each instead of one.

The name is old and nobody knows exactly where it comes from. In practice, it’s four points out of twenty-odd packed into two cards, so they’re worth tracking on purpose.

06♥

To stack

In Macao: to pass a penalty along instead of drawing it, by playing another penalty card that matches on top of it.

Matching works as usual in the game, same suit or same rank, with one exception: jokers go by color only. On a 3♣ you can play the black joker, not the red one. On another joker, though, either one will do.

Whoever can’t continue the chain draws everything that has piled up. That’s where the biggest hands in the game come from.

07♦

Four of a kind

Four cards of the same rank. In Liar Liar they can be laid down at any time, face up, and they leave the game for good: four cards you get rid of without risking any accusation.

Jokers don’t count toward four of a kind: it stays four real cards of the same rank.

08♣

Wild card

A card that’s true for whatever is declared. In Liar Liar, the two jokers are wild cards.

The consequence is what changes the game: every round there are six cards that can honestly be what’s declared, not four. Anyone holding three kings and feeling certain is mistaken.

09♠

War

In the game of the same name: what’s declared when both players turn over cards of equal rank.

Its size comes from the card that tied: two 8s means eight cards laid down by each player, seven face down and one face up. The ace is the exception: it’s the highest card in a comparison but counts as one for size, so a war of aces is a single card.

10♥

Hand

It has two meanings, and they often get mixed up. The cards you hold (“I have a bad hand”) or a full round of play (“the third hand”).

Context almost always makes it clear. When it doesn’t, ask. There’s no shame in it; everyone mixes them up.

11♦

Discard pile, draw pile, talon

The discard pile is the stack of played cards, face up. The draw pile is the one you draw from, face down. The talon is another name for the draw pile, used in Romania mostly in Transylvania.

In Macao, when the draw pile runs out, the last card played stays on the table and the cards under it become the new draw pile, in the order they were played. They aren’t shuffled, so anyone who paid attention knows what’s coming.