TRIPLICARD™ playing cards and games
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TRIPLICARD Decks

Just as old-fashioned cards can be found in an ordinary 52-card deck, a 48-card Pinochle deck, and a 32-card "Spanish" pack, TRIPLICARDS, physical or virtual, come in several different sets, or decks. Whatever their differences, all TRIPLICARD decks share the same three suits (Sciences, Spells, and Storms), the same three three colors (Red, Green, and Blue), and many of the same cards. Like a conventional pack of cards, any TRIPLICARD deck can be used to play many different games.

The Common Pack

The 54-card common pack contains nothing but common cards. There are 18 cards in each suit and a different set of 18 cards in each color. As you can see in the picture, this means there are nine cards of each rank (i.e., in each row) and six cards (A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) in each family (here, each column).

Most pure TRIPLICARD solitaires (Eureka, Fanatic, Reflection, etc.) and a few multiplayer games (notably Stop & Go) are played with this deck.

The Standard Deck

Most multiplayer or "any-player" TRIPLICARD games - including Pokingo, Fifteen, and Simplex - use the 60-card standard deck, which adds six court cards (three Royals [R] and three Nobles [N]) to the common pack.

The Compact Deck

The 42-card compact deck used in the three-player version of Heartless is effectively an abridged standard deck containing the same six court cards but only 36 common cards: 12 cards in each suit and color, six cards of each rank, and four cards in each family.

Other Decks

A few unusual games use other variations of the TRIPLICARD deck, with more court cards, still more ranks of common cards, or other differences. (The system was designed to accommodate the widest possible variety of games - even the sorts of games normally played with specialty cards, dice, dominoes, or other tiles. Confusing everyone is just a bonus.)

The Card Backs

On the computer, each variation of the TRIPLICARD deck bears a distinctively different card back. Decks that include court cards display crowns on the backs of the cards; the common pack (with no court cards) does not.

Related Pages: For further information, use the links below.