Poker has been born for hundreds of years, and it is still inconclusive. The French believe that poker was invented by the French in 1392. Belgians said that playing cards appeared in Belgium as early as 1379; Italians say that poker was invented by Italians in 1376, and also by Egypt, India, North Korea and other countries. However, more westerners believe that China brand was introduced to Europe in12-13rd century (Southern Song Dynasty). According to this statement, the country that first invented poker should be China.

According to written records, as early as 969 AD, a card game similar to poker appeared in China. At that time, a deck of cards in China had four colors, and each color had 14 cards, which were not only used as paper money, but also used for card games.

Evolution of playing cards

At the beginning, poker was hand-painted by artists, so it was expensive, especially the tarot cards popular in Italy and France, which were generally painted by court painters.

1428, a famous painter named Miguel Alcaniz was entrusted by Queen Mary of Spain to draw a deck of playing cards for her. A businessman specially presented a beautiful box to put this deck of playing cards. As you can imagine, it must be a very beautiful deck of playing cards.

In France, there are still 1392 French king charles vi ordering J.Gringonneur to draw a deck of cards by hand.

In Germany, there are 1427 to 1445 hand-painted poker with the theme of hunting in museums.

Pinholes can be found on some playing cards preserved in ancient times. After investigation, this was caused by poker owners nailing these cards to the wall as works of art at that time. This can prove that these playing cards were very precious at that time.

/kloc-In the 5th century, due to the development of woodcut printing, poker was industrialized and poker games were rapidly popularized. The wooden models used for printing at that time were mainly boxwood and pear wood.

At that time, poker was first printed on cardboard with black ink, and then colored by hand according to the image, but not necessarily according to the image. This coloring method is very fast and efficient, and is welcomed by some painters who are good at color matching.

Later, a new coloring method was invented, in which the printed pattern was covered in black and white with perforated thin cardboard, and then the colors such as red, blue and yellow were swept on the cardboard, and the colors were printed on the poker through the holes in the cardboard. This method greatly improves the production efficiency and plays an important role in the popularization of poker. In all countries, this method has been used until19th century.

At the same time, poker makers use copperplate printing to make high-quality poker, which is still hand-drawn by artists, and the patterns are very beautiful. This kind of high-quality poker can be found in almost all European countries before17th century.

Due to technical limitations, it is still difficult to color poker, and the price is relatively high. So/kloc-poker before the 0/9th century has always been unaffordable for ordinary people, and only upper-middle-class people can afford it.

1832, a poker printer named Thomas in London, England invented a new printing technology, which greatly improved the printing quality. To this end, the British royal family also specially commended him.

1833, German B. Dondorf invented lithography technology, and used this technology to print 16 kinds of poker at the same time. With the application of this technology, the production of poker has developed rapidly, really popularized, entered thousands of households and entered the lives of ordinary people.

The earliest round poker was produced in Germany in15th century, in the United States in 1874, and then in Britain, Spain and other countries. However, it must be noted that the traditional poker in India is round, but it is difficult to verify its earliest production date.

There was no design printed on the back of poker. It was not until the middle of17th century that manufacturers began to print some simple geometric patterns on the back of poker.

Early Spanish poker dealers printed their names on poker as a guarantee of quality. From the17th century, some manufacturers began to use some astronomical symbols, such as the sun, stars, the moon and other patterns as trademarks.

In Spain, in the16th century, poker manufacturers began to produce cards with notches on the upper and lower edges, so that the licensee could distinguish four colors when playing cards. No gaps represent coins, one gap is a cup, two gaps are swords and three gaps are sticks. This kind of poker soon became the standard of poker at that time, and other manufacturers rushed to follow suit. At the end of 18, the Roman numerals of 1 ~ 12 were printed on the card corner, and later Arabic numerals were used. Unlike the corner code invented by the United States in the19th century, it only prints numbers, not color codes. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, Spain printed the reversible two-way headboard for the first time, and the earliest two-way headboard poker collected now was produced in 1790. 19th century, this printing method was popularized in other countries.

1778, Spain produced small poker specially designed for children for the first time.

In Spanish poker before18th century, the words "Ava" or "Ahiwa" were printed on the card of "Cup Knight".

Since Columbus discovered America, many themes about the New World have appeared on poker patterns.

/kloc-in the 0/8th century, playing cards with silver coins appeared.

Since17th century, colorful poker with educational and commemorative significance has been widely popular, almost all historical events have been reflected in poker, and a large number of other knowledgeable and educational poker have been produced. Such as satirical cartoons, fairy tales, astronomical knowledge, music, geography, animals, opera and so on. These cards are very popular and are collected by collectors.

Why is a deck of playing cards 52 (except Wang and Xiao Wang)? This is because there are 52 weeks in a year. The four colors of hearts, diamonds, grass flowers and spades in playing cards symbolize the four seasons of the year. Each suit has 13 cards, which means there are 13 weeks in a season.

If you add up all the points of 54 cards, you can further prove the relationship between playing cards and calendars. If "J" is eleven o'clock, "Q" is twelve o'clock, and "K" is thirteen o'clock, Wang and Xiao Wang each count half points, and the points of 54 cards add up to exactly the total number of days in the whole year.

Isn't it amazing/