And this is my question, too. Has the “maker’s mark” or whatever it’s called in this case, always been on the ace of spades? Is this mostly an American thing? I don’t recall seeing a big ace of spades on German-suited decks, but I do seem to recall seeing them on some non-American French-suited decks. Has it always been the ace of spades? It seems to me that the ace of hearts would be a good choice, too for fancifying.
From the link posted above:
The ornate design of the ace of spades, common in packs today, stems from the 17th century, when James I and later Queen Anne imposed laws requiring the Ace of Spades to bear an insignia of the printing house. Stamp duty, an idea imported to England by Charles I, was extended to playing cards in 1711 by Queen Anne and lasted until 1960.
Over the years a number of methods were used to show that duty had been paid. From 1712 onwards, one of the cards in the pack, usually the ace of spades, was marked with a hand stamp. In 1765 hand stamping was replaced by the printing of official ace of spades by the Stamp Office, incorporating the royal coat of arms. In 1828 the Duty Ace of Spades (known as “Old Frizzle”) was printed to indicate a reduced duty of a shilling had been paid.
The system was changed again in 1862 when official threepenny duty wrappers were introduced and although the makers were free to use whatever design they wanted, most chose to keep the ornate ace of spades that is popular today. The ace of spades is thus used to show the card manufacturer’s information.
The exact design of the ace card was so important, it eventually became the subject of design patents and trademarking. For example, on December 5, 1882, George G. White was granted US design patent US0D0013473 for his ‘Ace of Spades’ playing card design. His ace design was adorned with male and female figures leaning onto the spade from either side.
Add to that the fact that most movie-goers are unlikely to be able to instantly add up the pips on any other card in motion. The Ace of Spades is large, black, and most people can count to 1.
While we’re at it, it always bugs me when a royal flush comes up on TV or in a movie. Sure, it’s dramatic and all, and everyone knows it’s the highest hand, but how often does it actually come up in real life? The vast majority of poker hands are won by the low hands, like a pair or two, or even just high card, but you hardly ever seem to see that in a show.
Piecing together bits from the Wiki articles on card suits and playing cards and some linguistic noodling, I have a theory of sorts.
The suits we are generally most familiar with are the French suits that arose in the late 15th Century. Some of the symbols are clearly based on common suits in use in Germany at the time–hearts, in particular, are the same in both sets. The shape of the spade symbol seems likely to have been derived from the German leaf suit, but it may also have been influenced by the contemporary Italian suit of swords; note that the Italian for “swords” is “spade”. The result was the suit of piques–pikes, or spears–with a symbol resembling the head of a spear. English applied the Italian name (with superfluous pluralization) to the suit, possibly during a time when both sets of suits were in use. (The English name for clubs also has more in common with the Italian bastoni, batons, than the French trèfles, clovers.) This may have been reinforced by the symbol’s rough resemblance to the digging tool, which–by means of an apparently independent etymology–is also called a spade in English.
Thus, the suit of spades has an association with weapons: swords and spears. That seems a plausible reason to associate the suit with death, which would make its highest and iconic card the “card of death”.
Has anyone played in a game where the suit broke a tie in stud in determining betting order? I’m not a huge poker player, but I’ve played a fair share of friendly dealer’s choice games, and I’ve never heard of that. It’s always been “first ace bets” in these parts.
Well, there you go, thanks. I was going to guess it was a British thing. Interesting bit of trivia to know. I still note that it says “usually the ace of spades” and wonder what other cards were used in this manner.
If they were holding 9s over aces and aces over 9s, that last ace must have been the ace of pentacles.
They were playing Texas hold 'em. The board had two 9s and an ace down, Damon’s character had A9 (9s full of aces), and KGB had pocket aces (aces full of 9s).
This is the rule in AC, anyway, which I learned in 1999 when I split a hold 'em pot with a guy who had an ace-high flush in clubs and I had an ace-high flush in diamonds… and our hands were identical down the line. I had never seen it happen before. The dealer gave the odd $5 chip to him, and explained that rule.
How can two players have a flush in different suits in hold’em?
My thoughts exactly. I was trying to figure that out. I thought of Omaha, but you still only keep two of your non-community card, so I can’t figure it out.
Maybe he was thinking straights. That would make sense.
I’ve never played in AC but using suits to decide split pots? Never seen that.
Like I said, it’s not a rule I’m familiar with, but it seems to exist in at least some circles.
Oops.
That was an odd error. In my mind I was thinking the word ‘straight’ and somehow typed flush. Maybe the talk above about straight flushes was confusing.
Stupid error. Yes, it was a straight. And I even remember thinking that I needed to explain that the hands were identical, and of course with a straight that was a given.
Again, to be clear, it wasn’t used to decide the entire split pot – just that the smallest chip in play at the table was a red ($5) chip, and there was no way to split the pot evenly, so I lost out on the extra $2.50 that theoretically would have been mine. The rule decided the split on a single chip, not the whole pot.
This would have been at the Tropicana, in the (then) newly-opened table gaming arena.