Clubs (

) () is one of the four

playing card suit In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated ...

s in the standard

French-suited playing cards French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are playing cards, cards that use the French Playing card suit, suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains th ...

. The symbol was derived from that of the suit of Acorns in a German deck when French suits were invented, around 1480. In Skat and

Doppelkopf Doppelkopf (, lit. ''double-head''), sometimes abbreviated to Doko, is a trick-taking game, trick-taking card game for four players. In Germany, Doppelkopf is nearly as popular as Skat (card game), Skat, especially in Northern Germany and the R ...

, Clubs are the highest-ranked suit (whereas

Diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insol ...

and Bells are the trump suit in

). In

Bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

, Clubs are the lowest suit.

Name

Its original French name is which means "

clover Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversit ...

" and the card symbol depicts a three-leafed clover leaf. The

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

name is ("flower"). However, the English name "Clubs" is a translation of ''basto'', the Spanish name for the suit of batons, suggesting that Spanish-suited cards were used in England before French suits were invented. In

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, this suit is known as ("cross"), especially in the International Skat Regulations. In

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, by contrast, it is almost exclusively called in reference to the French name, especially in the game of

, where French names generally predominate. For example, is used instead of .

Characteristics

The symbol for the suit of Clubs depicts a very stylised three-leaf clover with its stalk oriented downwards. Generally, the suit of Clubs is

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

in colour so they can be used in some games as a pair with

Spades (suit) Spades () () is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. It has the same shape as the Leaves (suit), leaf symbol in German-suited playing cards but its appearance is more akin to that of an upside down black ...

, like

Klondike (solitaire) Klondike is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play.Parlett (1979), pp. 94–95. It has spawned numerous variants includin ...

. However, the suit may also be green, for example as sometimes used in

(where it is one of the two

minor suit In contract bridge the minor suits are diamonds () and clubs (). They are given that name because contracts made in those suits score less (20 per contracted trick) than contracts made in the major suits (30 per contracted trick), and they rank ...

s, along with

). The gallery below shows a suit of Clubs from a

of 52 cards. Not shown is the

Knight of Clubs A knight or cavalier is a playing card with a picture of a man riding a horse on it. It is a standard face or court card in Italian and Spanish packs where it is usually referred to as the 'knight' in English, the ''caballo'' in Spanish or the ...

used in

tarot card games Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi ...

: File:01 of clubs A.svg,

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

File:02 of clubs.svg, 2 File:03 of clubs.svg, 3 File:04 of clubs.svg, 4 File:05 of clubs.svg, 5 File:06 of clubs.svg, 6 File:07 of clubs.svg, 7 File:08 of clubs.svg, 8 File:09 of clubs.svg, 9 File:10 of clubs - David Bellot.svg, 10 File:Jack of clubs fr.svg,

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

File:Queen of clubs fr.svg,

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

File:King of clubs fr.svg,

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Four-colour packs

Four-colour packs are sometimes used in tournaments or online. In four-colour packs, clubs may be: * green Suitclubsgreen

in American Bridge and Poker,''Four-Color Deck''
at pokernews.com. Retrieved 4 August 2020. English Poker, French and Swiss four-colour decks,
at a_pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved 4 Aug 2020. * black SuitClubs

in German Skat packs, * blue Suitclubsblue

in English Bridge and some American packs or * pink Suitclubspink

in some other four-colour packs.

Coding

The symbol ♣ is already in the CP437 and thus also part of Windows WGL4. In

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

a black ♣ and a white ♧ Club symbol are defined:

References

Literature

* Allan, Elkan and Hannah Mackay. ''The Poker Encyclopedia''. London: Portico *

Dummett, Michael Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...

(1980). ''The Game of Tarot''. Duckworth, London. *

Parlett, David David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. Life David Sidney Parlett was bo ...

(2008). ''The Penguin Book of Card Games'' London: Penguin {{Playing cards Card suits