The queen of spades (Q) is a
face card in decks of
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 ...
and
Tarot
Tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play t ...
, depicting a
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 ...
of the spades ()
suit
A suit, also called a lounge suit, business suit, dress suit, or formal suit, is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles generally worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt su ...
and associated with the Greek goddess
Pallas. In
Old Maid
Spinster or old maid is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term origin ...
, several games of the
Hearts family, and some variants of
poker
Poker is a family of Card game#Comparing games, comparing card games in which Card player, players betting (poker), wager over which poker hand, hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules i ...
, it has a special function.
Roles by game
In the Hearts family of card games, the queen of spades is usually considered an unlucky card; it is the eponym of the
Black Maria and
Black Lady
Black lady is an American card game of the hearts group for three to six players and the most popular of the group. It emerged in the early 20th century as an elaboration of hearts and was initially also called discard hearts. It is named afte ...
variants of Hearts. The player who ends up with the queen of spades after a match scores 13 points (points are to be avoided in this game). The exception is when the player receives this card with all 13 hearts, in which the player is said to have
shot the moon, and this player scores no points, while all opponents are scored 26 points.
In the game of Old Maid, while any card can technically be used for this purpose, the queen of spades is traditionally used as a card that has no match, thereby making it the "old maid" card.
In the
seven card stud poker variant known as "The Bitch", a face-up deal of the queen of spades results in the deal being abandoned, all cards being shuffled and a new deal starting with only those players who had not already folded when the queen of spades was dealt.
In
pinochle, the queen of spades and the jack of diamonds combine for a unique two-card meld known as a "pinochle".
In
Crazy Eights
Crazy Eights is a Card game#Shedding games, shedding-type card game for two to seven players and the best known American member of the Eights Group which also includes Pig (card game), Pig and Spoons (card game), Spoons. The object of the game i ...
, playing the Queen of Spades card means that the next player to play their turn has to first pick up 5 cards from the deck.
Card reading
In
cartomancy
Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were introduced into Europe in the 14th century.Paul Huson, Huson, Paul (2004). ''Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Anci ...
, the queen of spades is considered to be a sign of intelligence. It is representative of judgment that is practical, logical, and intellectual. It represents a woman who is creative and makes her plans ahead of time.
Encoding
The queen of spades is encoded into
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 ...
with the code point U+1F0AD, as part of the
playing cards Unicode block.
See also
*
List of playing card nicknames
*
List of poker hand nicknames
*
Standard 52-card deck
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, w ...
References
{{Playing cards, state=collapsed
Playing cards