We have already covered 5-suit bridge, Yankee Notions, and the historical Liechtenstein Patten. Now we present a different kind of fifth suit, our Motley Deck, wherein each card can match either black or red: On with the motley.... It uses as a pip design the Mephisto image from our recreation of the 19th century Game of Red and Black by Martin Gall, which explored the probability space of Roulette in cards. It uses a redrawn joker as Jack, Queen and King of Motley. We will

We mentioned in a previous post the mayfly life of the 1938 five suit bridge suits —Leaves, Crowns, Castles, & Eagle—that seem to have vanished as quickly as it arrived, lost to all but collectors. The reason for settling on 4 suits in card packs has been variously attributed to the number of the season (the four corners of the earths orbit), the four temperaments, the four elements to name a few. But on the way to four-suit modernity there were as many as 9 suits (in EG Ganj

"What will replace bridge" was a question that was constantly asked in the early 20th century, having evolved from Whist in Constantinople in the 1860s, and after being picked up along with cigarettes by the British in the Crimean war, arrived in the London clubs at the turn of the 19th century. * Answers included variously Reym (post here ), Grand, Manx, Ba-ka-lee, Tout-a-tout, and Buccaneer to name only a few. Various rules for scoring and bidding had come and gone in th