[JoAnneM]

Has anyone played with the card decks that use a different color for each suit? Revokes plague our club and I am looking at these cards at the Baron Barclay site and wonder if they would help with the problem, and if the players would accept and like them.

Thanks, Jo Anne

[blackshoe]

I seem to remember having played with them once or twice. I didn't much care one way or t'other, though it was a little strange. I don't think everyone reacted favorably, but my memory seems to be faulty right now, so who knows?

[Elianna]

Personally, I have more trouble with the decks that have spades and clubs both black, but the clubs are faded (so kinda gray) than with normal decks. It's basically my fault, because the cards trick me into complacency, and my mind treats the clubs like washed out spades. It DOES make sure that I never get hearts and diamonds mixed up, though (my mind doesn't mix red and orange together).

I also tend to doubt that this would prevent most revokes. From when I direct, most revokes tend to happen pretty equally between:

• suits mixed together
  
• card hidden behind another card
  
• card lost on the ground
  
• card lost in some other way (left in board, played to a trick, etc)
  
• Revoker does not know what suit was led

In my experience, at our club, it's the last one that causes the most revokes, with a hidden card second-most. And different colors is not going to stop people from doing either of these.

If your solution completely solved the first problem, I would say you should go for it, because at least it minimizes revokes, but as I mentioned, for me at least, it makes me MORE likely to mix the black suits together.

I'm also rather curious about what you mean by "revokes plague your club"? (though this is might be a different topic and if you'd prefer to move it to PMs to avoid a hijacking I'd understand). Do you mean that many people revoke and are upset at themselves and you're trying to help them, or that there are a few people that revoke constantly, and they annoy everyone else at the club, and you are trying to solve that problem? (Not criticizing either one, just curious)

[Siegmund]

I absolutely hate the "clubs are grey and diamonds are orange" decks, but one club up here uses them (and is committed to using them for a long time - they bought hundreds of barcoded decks printed that way for their duplimate machine) and their members have been forced to accept them. I will admit they dont actually cause me to revoke or misbid, just annoy me.

The "spades blue clubs green and diamonds orange" decks I have only seen on internet poker sites, not in a live game (of poker or bridge).

The large majority of revokes in my club are in your "doesnt know what is led" category too - the classic case is a lead, a pitch, another pitch of the same suit by third hand, and fourth hand is out of the pitched suit but not the led suit. Second-largest chunk is hidden card.

[PeterGill]

A few years ago, I recall using symmetric four-colour packs at WBF events.

I thought they were awful - the ace of spades and ace of clubs looked almost identical. The four colours - black, off-black, red and orange I think - had nothing helpful about them, relative to normal packs, in my opinion.

I think the WBF has switched back to normal packs nowadays.

[Free]

I find the colours in these decks not so helpful. There's a bit of difference between the gray and black, but imo the difference between the orange and the red is too small. Perhaps it would be better to use green and blue, but for many people this would be very strange.

Imo revokes don't happen because you miss in the colour, but because you're not paying attention. Using different decks with slightly different colours won't help I'm afraid.

[NickRW]

I don't mind the grey clubs and orange diamonds personally - though I think that if they're going to do it, there would be more merit in making them properly different. Bidding boxes where I am use blue, red, orange and green - I'd prefer that if you're going to use different colours.

I've never missorted (yet!) a pack using the grey and orange - it has happened that I have missorted hearts and diamonds using regular pack (never the blacks for some reason). I can't remember the last time I revoked - but I guess it is only a matter of time using a regular deck.

Online poker sites often offer the option of having the suits in different colours - the better to distinguish flushes. I like it - I am not sure what proprtion of their customers use the feature.

Nick

[helene_t]

Have used them for family get2gether bridge where some people have bad eye sight and they were very happy with them.

I have normal eyesight myself but I do find them helpful.

[Fluffy]

In my local with loads of old people, when they switched to 5 colored suits in teh bidding boxes, all that came was complaints. Why? because it is different, and people just hate whatever is different, the new bidding boxes are of much higher quality, they even have better design les sprono to fall off the table. But the people complain because they are not waht they are used to.

[Flameous]

Just be certain to never mix them up. We played a deck where there were blue and black spades, gray and green clubs and I think diamonds came in two colors too. Now that caused some suits to get mixed There were no revokes but quite a few bidding accidents.

[JoAnneM]

I certainly appreciate the comments. I agree there are lots of causes for revoking. When it comes down to it the main cause might be just not paying attention and different colored cards may not help enough to warrant making the change.

Elianna, in a 5-7 table game, which we are unfortunately having right now, I might get two revokes per session, which I think is excessive, and which I think gives away too many penalty tricks, especially when I look at the travelers.

[hrothgar]

My grandmother had a lot of "old school" German decks of cards.

The clubs were green and the diamond were orange
The Jacks were labelled with B's and the Queens with D's

I recall at least one problem where red/green color blindness reared its ugly head...

[peachy]

I don't like the four color decks. Prefer red and black. The decks in Philly were 4-color, plus the design of the single suit symbol on the aces was confusing. It was easy to "see" that a black ace with swirly figures in the center is a "club when in fact it was a spade with two spade suit symbols embracing eath other.

[nige1]

When I played with 4-colour decks, I mis-sorted my hand less often. Most of the club-players liked them or were indifferent to the change. I don't remember anyone revoking.

[BudH]

I was researching four-color decks about five years ago.

The best decks, which I cannot find these days, is using the colors that match the bidding box colors exactly.

Dark blue (spades)
Red (hearts)
Diamonds (orange)
Clubs (green)

Carta Mundi made Spectrum "no revoke" cards with these same colors and indices in all four corners. But they stopped making them about ten years ago. See

http://www.djmcadam....olor-decks.html

for a picture of these cards.

Piatnik Symmetrical Bridge Playing Cards No. 133 are the ones I eventually purchased, although they also were discontinued recently. You can see a picture I took of them at http://home.comcast....tnik_4color.JPG

Bud H

[Siegmund]

The red/green colour blindness point is one that I hadn't thought of - it could well be common enough to be a powerful argument against using 4 different inks, rather than light. vs dark for clubs and spades.

[mgoetze]

hrothgar, on Oct 11 2010, 06:16 PM, said:

My grandmother had a lot of "old school" German decks of cards.

The clubs were green and the diamond were orange
The Jacks were labelled with B's and the Queens with D's

You must be confused. "Old school German" cards have neither clubs (rather acorns) nor diamonds (rather bells) nor jacks nor queens. The cards you describe sound pretty new-fangled to me.

See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...isches_Bild.jpg

[gwnn]

huh you had a 6?? the "Hungarian cards" as they call it in Hungary and parts of Romania start at 7, or rather VII.

[WellSpyder]

gwnn, on Oct 13 2010, 10:32 AM, said:

huh you had a 6?? the "Hungarian cards" as they call it in Hungary and parts of Romania start at 7, or rather VII.

So how can you discourage when partner leads a suit you don't want him to continue??

[gwnn]

UDCA obviously.

BTW the most played cardgame actually has
IX, 2(jack), 3(queen), 4(king), X, A and you don't use the VII's or VIII's at all.