Editing Card game (section)

{{Short description|Game using playing cards as the primary device}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Use American English|date=April 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2022}}
[[File:Theodoor Rombouts - The Card Players.jpg|thumb|right|''The Card Players'', 17th-century painting by [[Theodoor Rombouts]]]]
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This article will describe the general mechanics of card games: that is, those rules which are so widely known that they are often omitted in rules of card games, because the author assumes that "everyone" knows them.

The statements given here are general ones. There are countless exceptions to them. Indeed, it would be possible to suffix almost every statement in this section with the words "an exception is provided by the game of such-and-such." They should therefore not be taken as rules; rather they should be used as default rules if you are trying to play a game from an incomplete set of rules which omits the general mechanics.
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A '''card game''' is any [[game]] that uses [[playing card]]s as the primary device with which the game is played, whether the cards are of a traditional design or specifically created for the game (proprietary). Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as [[poker]]). A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules with international tournaments being held, but most are folk games whose rules may vary by region, culture, location or from [[circle (cards)|circle]] to circle.

Traditional card games are played with a ''deck'' or ''pack'' of [[playing card]]s which are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the ''face'' and the ''back''. Normally the backs of the cards are indistinguishable. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases several decks are [[Shuffling|shuffled]] together to form a single ''pack'' or ''shoe''. Modern card games usually have bespoke decks, often with a vast amount of cards, and can include number or action cards. This type of game is generally regarded as part of the [[board game]] hobby.

Games using playing cards exploit the fact that cards are individually identifiable from one side only, so that each player knows only the cards they hold and not those held by anyone else. For this reason card games are often characterized as games of "imperfect information"—as distinct from games of [[perfect information]], where the current position is fully visible to all players throughout the game.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Card Game |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/card-game |date=Sep 30, 2013 |author=[[David Parlett]] |access-date=September 13, 2018 |archive-date=September 13, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180913185925/https://www.britannica.com/topic/card-game |url-status=live }}</ref> Many games that are not generally placed in the family of card games do in fact use cards for some aspect of their play.

Some games that are placed in the card game genre involve a board. The distinction is that the play in a card game chiefly depends on the use of the cards by players (the board is a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement), while [[board game]]s (the principal non-card game genre to use cards) generally focus on the players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose.