• Face cards are modeled after the royal court.square house of cards image by jimcox40 from Fotolia.com
  
  A standard deck of playing cards contains only 52 cards, but the number of game options in a deck of playing cards is practically endless. Playing cards were presumably invented in China, and a record of card games in Europe dates to the 14th century. Over the centuries, new games have been invented and old games have fallen out of fashion, but several traditional games continue to stand the test of time.
  
  

Solitaire

• Solitaire card games are for single players. Solitaire games require concentration and, sometimes, card-counting and memorization skills. One of the most familiar solitaire games is Klondike. The goal of Klondike is to place each suit of cards in order according to their rank.
  
  

Poker

• Poker is a family of card games where two or more players bet on the outcome of each hand. There are many varieties of poker, but the basic betting principles and hand ranking system is constant. Texas hold 'em has become one of the biggest crazes in poker history. In this game, players are each dealt a two-card hand that is known only to the player. The object of the game is to create the best five-card poker hand using the cards in hand and five community cards that are dealt to the middle of the table. The community cards are dealt in turns, first the three-card flop, then the turn, then the river. Players can bet before and after the flop, turn and river are revealed.
  
  

Bridge

• Bridge is a trick-taking card game for four players. There are many variations of bridge, including contract bridge, rubber bridge, Chicago and spades, but the basic rules of bridge games are the same. The entire 52-card deck is dealt so each player has a hand of 13 cards. One player, the declarer, announces a bid of suits and number of tricks she plans to take. Each player lays down one card; the group of four cards is called a trick. The player with the highest ranking suit card or a trump card takes the trick. Players sit opposite a partner, and the declarer plays the partner's cards. At the end of each match, tricks are counted and points awarded based on suit and bids.
  
  

Rummy

• Rummy is a card game for two to six players, and the object of the game is to create melds of three or more cards based on value or ordered suits. (For example, three queens would be a meld, as would the consecutive 7, 8 and 9 of hearts.) Each player is dealt a hand of cards. A player's turn begins by drawing a card from the face down stock pile or the face up discard pile. The player can place melds on the table if he has any, and end his turn by discarding one card in the discard pile. The game ends when one player plays all the cards in his hand. Melds are scored with 10 points for face cards, five points for cards valued two to 10. House rules may score an ace as onepoint or 15 points. Remaining cards in a player's hand are subtracted from his meld score. Variations on standard Rummy include gin rummy, 500 rummy and canasta.