Jack

Jack cards of all four suits

A Jack, also Knave, is a playing card with a picture of a young man on it. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, is as if it were an 11 (that is, between the queen and the 10).

As the lowest face (or "court") card, the jack often represents a minimum standard — for example, many poker games require a minimum hand of a pair of jacks ("jacks or better") in order to start the bidding.

History

As early as the mid-1500s the card was known in English decks as the Knave (meaning a male servant of royalty). It became Jack in 1864,^[1] when Samuel Hart, an English cardmaker, published a deck using J instead of Kn for the lowest court card. The Knave had been called a Jack as part of the terminology of All-Fours since the 1600s, but this was no common usage because the word was considered vulgar. However, because the card abbreviation for knave, which was so close to that of the king, it was very easy to confuse them, specially after suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card in order to enable people to fan them in one hand and still see all the values. The earliest known deck to place suits and rankings in the corner of the card is from 1693, but these cards did not became until 1864 when Hart reintroduced them along with the knave-to-jack change. However, books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century evidently still referred to the "knave", and the term with this definition is still recognized in the United Kingdom. (Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations: "He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!")

Representations

In the standard English playing card deck, the jack and the other face cards represent no one in particular — this is in contrast to the historical French practice, in which each court card is said to represent a particular historical or mythological personage. The jacks in a French deck have traditionally assigned names as follows:^[2][3]

• Jack of Spades: Ogier the Dane (legendary hero of the chansons de geste)^[4]
• Jack of Hearts: La Hire (French warrior)
• Jack of Diamonds: Hector (mythological hero of the Iliad)
• Jack of Clubs: Lancelot

Terminology

Last man Jack (sometimes stated as every man Jack) is a euphemism that has crossed into mainstream English from the sport of cricket.

The term has come to mean "every single person", as in the following examples:
They're scoundrels... to the last man Jack!
You're to rescue them... every man Jack of them!

The term originates from a cricket pun. In the cricket batting order, the worst batsman is listed at number 11. The "last man" (to bat) can therefore be referred to using playing cards terminology; following numbers 8, 9 and 10 comes Jack.

Poetry

The figure of the Jack has been quoted in many literary works throghout the centuries. Among these is one by the English writer Samuel Rowlands, a prolific writer of the end of the sixteenth and early part of the succeeding century. The Four Knaves is a series of Satirical Tracts, with Introduction and Notes by E. F. Rimbault, upon the subject of playing cards. His The Knave of Clubbs: Tis Merry When Knaves Meet was first published in 1600, then again in 1609 and 1611. In accordance with a promise at the end of this book, Rowlands went on with his series of Knaves, and in 1612 gave to the world The Knave of Harts: Haile Fellowe, Well Meet, where his Supplication To Card-Makers appears.^[5] It was probably written to the English manufacures who copied the Court figures created by the French to the English decks.

Example cards

These card designs are based on those from a historical French deck, and include the historical and mythological names associated with the French cards. The Anglo-American designs can be seen in the photo at the top of the page.

Jack of spades

Jack of hearts

Jack of diamonds

Jack of clubs

A trickster figure

The lowest court figure of the Jack has been, from the earliest known European card games like Karnöffel to the more recent ones like Euchre, mysteriously promoted to a higher or the highest position in the traditional rank of cards where the Ace or King usually occupy the first place. An interesting list of card games where this trickster figure called Jack pops up as a top or trump card is here described.

• List of card games where the Jack, or Knave, appears as a top-trump or play an important part in the game.

Karnöffel	Jass	Loo	Primero	Bezique	Hearts	Noddy
Clobyosh	Spoil Five	Forty-fives	Cribbage	Trappola	All-Fours	Maw
Doppelkopf		Euchre	Sheepshead	Marjolet	Skat	Polignac
Mouche	Napoleon			Black Maria
	Juckerspiel		Pinochle	Reversis	Schafkopf
		Ruff		Klaberjass		La Bête

See also

• List of poker hand nicknames
• One-eyed jack
• "The Jack", a song by AC/DC, in which this playing card is a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease.
• The Knave of Hearts, a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• The Jack of Diamonds, a group of artists founded in 1909 in Moscow
• "Jack of Diamonds", a traditional folk song
• Jack of Diamonds, the title used by George de Sand in the 1994 anime Mobile Fighter G Gundam
• Knave of Hearts, a 1954 film directed by René Clément
• The Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart), a Marvel Comics superhero
• The Jack of Hearts, a 1919 short Western film
• "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", a song by Bob Dylan

References