Deal Me In! Quiz | Card Games

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Here you see four poker hands. If you were going to bet all your chips, which cards would you most like to be holding?

Answer: A

A three-of-a-kind plus a pair is known as a full house and ranks just below four-of-a-kind.

Hand C is a flush, with five cards of the same suit, and in this showdown would be the second-best hand. Hand D is a straight- five cards in order, but different suits- normally a good hand, but here it will only finish third. Fourth spot goes to Hand B- it is two pairs- and would lose to three-of-a-kind.

2. Canasta usually uses two decks of cards, and the object is to create melds, and various other combinations. A canasta is a meld of seven or more cards, which can include wild cards. In my picture there are three canastas and one illegal combination. Which is the non-canasta?

Answer: C

The wild cards are twos and jokers, a total of 12 cards, which can be uses to substitute for most other cards. There are two types of canastas- mixed and natural (or pure). A natural canasta is shown in Picture A and consists of seven cards of the same rank (nines). Pictures B and D show mixed canastas as they both use wild cards. Picture C is NOT an allowable canasta, as it does not have the required number of natural (non-wild) cards.

At least four naturals are required to meld a canasta. Pure canastas score more points, but are also harder to get.

3. This is a hand from the game of bridge, and you will notice that it has NO picture cards. In fact, the highest card in the hand is a nine. It is a pretty awful hand, but it has a special name. Do you know what that name is?

Answer: Yarborough

The hand is named after the Earl of Yarborough, who would bet odds of 1,000:1 against getting such a hand. The actual odds of picking up that hand are in excess of 1,800:1.

The Bermuda Bowl is the pinnacle of international team championship, cutthroat is a three-handed version of the game and Plafond was a French version of the game.

4. You are in a casino, playing blackjack, and you get dealt two aces. The dealer is showing a jack. What is your recommended course of action?

Answer: Split

Splitting your hand would give you TWO chances of getting a 10 or picture card, and a count of 21. The dealer would then have to turn an ace to match you. As there are four times as many 10-scores in the deck than aces, the odds are in your favour.

Doubling down means that you match your original bet and only get one card dealt. With a pair of aces, the only card that would really help would be a nine. Not acceptable odds. Standing on a count of two or twelve is a very quick way of losing your money, and hitting with a pair of aces would very rarely win.

5. I enjoy a good game of euchre, too, and love getting hands like this. If spades are trumps, what name is given to the card on the left of this picture, the jack of clubs?

Answer: Left Bower

This hand is almost the perfect hand, and if I got it dealt to me, I will tell my partner to have a rest, and 'go alone'.

When a suit is called as trump, the jack of that suit becomes the right bower, and the most powerful card. The other jack of the same colour is the left bower and the second best card. The following cards are ace, king, queen, 10, 9, 8 and 7. There is no joker in the game.

Please do not send corrections about the seven of spades being displayed. As with many card games, there are variations around the world, and in Australia, a euchre deck consists of 32 cards- ace to seven, inclusive.

6. In the game of canasta, red threes are not treated as 'normal' cards, but are simply a bonus-type card. When a team picks one up, it is worth 100 points, but collecting all four of them scores a premium. What score would the team get?

Answer: 800

Black threes are also a special case, and are used for blocking the stack. They are only worth five points each in the scoring calculations.

7. Some games require more than just cards to play. What game would you normally associate with these colourful bits of plastic?

Answer: Poker

Blinds are similar to antes, and are designed to encourage betting in games of poker. The 'Dealer' button denotes who dealt the hand, the 'Small Blind' is the player to the left of the dealer, and the 'Big Blind' is the second player after dealer. The value of the blind's bets starts small, but increases at preset time intervals. Towards the end of a game, with only a few players left, the size of the blind will have a major influence on the betting.

8. Cribbage is usually played by two or three people and is a game that relies on various combinations of cards. Pairs, runs, flushes and fifteens all score various amounts of points. Pictured is a player's hand, that will score reasonably well (14 points), but what turn card will transform it into the highest possible hand?

Answer: Five of clubs

A combination of cards that add to 15 scores two points, and the four-card hand has fours such groups (J+5, J+5, J+5 and 5+5+5). The fives also score three pairs, a further two points per pair, for a total of 8+6=14.

Adding another five into the mix increases the score dramatically. There are now eight combinations that add to 15 (16 points), plus six different pairs of fives (12 points). An extra point is scored for matching the suit of the jack with the turn card ('one for his nob'), making a grand total of 16+12+1=29- the best possible score.

9. In the game of Hearts, the object is to avoid winning tricks containing hearts, and which other card?

Answer: A

The Queen of Spades is the one lady that you do NOT want to meet. She is also known as the 'Black Lady' (or worse!), and is worth a whopping 13 points. All hearts are worth a single point, and the winner is the player who has the lowest total score at the end.

10. These two cards form a combination, which is also the name of the game itself. The rank of the cards is a bit unusual, with the 10 being the second-best card, behind the ace, but better than the king. What is the name of the game?

Answer: Pinochle

Various combinations are possible, including eight-of-a-kind, runs (A, 10, K, Q, J of trumps), marriages (K and Q, suited), and the jack of diamonds/queen of spades- the 'pinochle'. The name seems to have derived from the French word for 'spectacles'.

Source: Author ozzz2002

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor WesleyCrusher before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Deal Me In! Trivia Quiz

I enjoy playing cards and decided to make a quiz about them. Here are a few simple questions about some of my favourite games.

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