Four-Colour Decks
Tim274
Having read about them, and also playing with them on the Advanced Hold Em
program, I am curious about four-colour decks. specifically :
1. Where could I get some?
2. What quality are they?
3. How much are they?
Thanks,
Tim Norfolk
Stephen H. Landrum
Tim274 wrote:
>
> Having read about them, and also playing with them on the Advanced Hold Em
> program, I am curious about four-colour decks. specifically :
>
> 1. Where could I get some?
Gemaco made some for a while. I don't know if they still make
them. They had regular and jumbo index versions.
> 2. What quality are they?
They're OK quality plastic cards. Some people don't like playing
with them. There tends to be a significant chance of defects when
buying plastic cards, and I don't recall what Gemaco's card
replacement policy was.
--
"Stephen H. Landrum" <slan...@pacbell.net>
Abdul Jalib
Yaquinto also made them. (Or maybe they are a subsidiary of Gemaco?)
--
Abdul Jalib wearing the hat of | May you never be tapped on the shoulder
Professional Degenerate Gambler| in the New Year.
AbdulJ_...@PosEV.com | (Delete _DELETE_ to reply via email.)
axeman
I've read the thread about 4 color decks with interest. Theoretically,
four color decks are superior even though I am not sure that I would
like them. However, ignoring my feelings I can conceive of three
practical sticking points:
1] if the colors are not distinctive ENOUGH, the suits can be confused.
I suspect that black, bright red, bright blue, and bright green would be
somewhat disconcerting to look at but from the mix of colors I've seen
so far, I would not trust my eyes with anything else. Of course, I
would not know if they were ok until I saw them. The downside is to get
ALL manufacturers to not deviate from an industry standard. Pardon me,
I ought not insist on anything so unrealistic.
2] The more colors you have, the FEWER number of suits it appears that
there are. I do not know how to explain it but this is the only way I
can find to describe it. Kind of like looking at the trees but only
seeing a forest. With only four good colors it would probably work just
fine. Whew!
3] There is something about putting bright green clubs on a face card
that causes it to clash with the color scheme of the picture, making it
displeasing to the eye/mind. This is probably something that will be
adjusted to over time.
Mike Caro wrote:
> Tim --
> Don't believe all of the negative comments about the four-color decks.
> I am the one who is pushing hardest for the change and who has
> suffered misguided ridicule for years. I have seethed semi-silently,
> but not much longer. Here is some background:
> 1. The concept has been around for more than a century, and there were
> early attempts at four-color decks.
> 2. It is theorized that the two-color deck became the tradition simply
> because it was easier to produce them.
> 3. I spent several years polling attendees to my seminars about the
> switch to four-color decks. We even voted on the colors.
> 4. In (when was it?) 1992 or so, Foxwoods and Mike Caro jointly
> planned and presented the first major poker tournament ever held in
> the East (U.S). An advertised feature was the introduction of my
> long-lobbied-for four-color deck, manufactured for us by Gemaco.
> 5. In accordance with the vote taken mostly at my seminars, the spades
> stayed black, hearts stayed red, clubs turned green (like clovers),
> and diamonds turned blue.
> 6. In a preliminary press tournament, the cameras captured what was
> perhaps a footnote to poker history. A player cried the famous poker
> term, "all blue." And it wasn't just a flush (which is what the term
> means), but a diamond flush, so the cards really were all blue.
> 7. Because I was late (as usual) in coordinating the specifics for the
> four-color deck with Gemaco (which gallantly managed to beat the
> deadline), my choices of the shades of color were poor. Close up, it
> was easy to tell the suits apart by color, but from across the table,
> especially if there wasn't intense light, the greens and blues tended
> to look the same.
> 8. Despite this, MOST of the players surveyed liked the decks. But a
> group of pros kept complaining. It was my decision to pull the deck,
> and I issued a memo giving my reasons to the players.
> 9. I vowed to deliver another four-color deck, but got sidetracked on
> other projects.
> 10. In 1995 (I think) I contracted with Yaquinto to put out a new
> version of the decks. We had a "C-Day" (Color Day) where the deck was
> simultaneously introduced for feedback in more than 60 (I think -- the
> number was advertised) cardrooms and casinos.
> 11. The cover of Card Player was devoted to the pending test of the
> decks.
> 12. Responses to the deck was almost 70 percent favorable among
> experience players (despite what you may have heard). However, there
> seemed to be one to three objectors in most games.
> 13. Again the blue and green cards were more similar in shades than I
> would have liked (and we quickly fixed this in subsequent runs).
> 14. Among novice player in training games, there was not a single
> person polled who preferred the two-color deck. (Not sure how big the
> sample was.)
> 15. My argument in favor of the deck is simply that it makes sense.
> Although there will be those who object to the change from two to four
> colors, imagine what would happen if it were the other way around?
> Suppose we'd always played with a four-color deck. Suddenly this
> strange guy, Mike Caro, comes into your games and says, "Here's my new
> deck. It's a great idea. I've made the hearts and diamonds both red
> and the clubs and spades both black." How many objections do you think
> there would be then?
> 16. Not only have I NOT given up on the idea, I intend to make the
> four-color deck a reality, and I appreciate all the support I can get.
> I haven't just been sitting around either...
> 17. Unfortunately for the four-color-deck campaign, Yaquinto had a
> change of management in their card division (Tom Yaquinto was no
> longer involved), and they decided to discontinue production of all
> casino cards. This, of course, included the four-color deck. (I don't
> know whether this decision is temporary or permanent. As I understand
> it, manufacturing casino playing cards was never Yaquinto's primary
> endeavor.)
> 18. My contract with Yaquinto has now expired, and I am free to deal
> with others.
> 19. I am already in discussions with a very major manufacturer.
>
> 20. In the February (I think) issue of Playboy, the Advisor talked
> about my four-color concept from which we got several hundred requests
> for decks and comments. All positive.
>
> 21. The only people who seem to have declared the four-color deck dead
> are a minority of cynical players who have a misconception about what
> really happened. The deck is alive and well, and the changeover is
> inevitable. You'll see.
>
> Straight Flushes,
> Mike Caro
Yanks3234
When Foxwood's ran their first tournament their first year they experimented
with them.The cards lasted about three days and were taken out because of the
complaint's.The club's were green,the diamond's were blue,the spades were
black,and the heart's were red.The player's kept misreading the diamond's and
spade's,and i guess it's hard to get people to change something their used to.
JamesL54
I have two decks ot the cards Foxwoods used that first year and have alway
wondered what they are worth. I know I paid to much for them but I wanted a
couple decks. If anyone know what they are worth please let me know.
Jim Lawton
Stephen H. Landrum
Abdul Jalib wrote:
> "Stephen H. Landrum" <slan...@pacbell.net> writes:
> > Tim274 wrote:
> > > 1. Where could I get some?
> >
> > Gemaco made some for a while. I don't know if they still make
> > them. They had regular and jumbo index versions.
> >
> > > 2. What quality are they?
> >
> > They're OK quality plastic cards. Some people don't like playing
> > with them. There tends to be a significant chance of defects when
> > buying plastic cards, and I don't recall what Gemaco's card
> > replacement policy was.
>
> Yaquinto also made them. (Or maybe they are a subsidiary of Gemaco?)
D'OH! I said Gemaco - I meant Yaquinto.
Mike Caro
Tim --
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
On 24 Jun 1998 03:04:19 GMT, tim...@aol.com (Tim274) wrote:
>Having read about them, and also playing with them on the Advanced Hold Em
>program, I am curious about four-colour decks. specifically :
>
>1. Where could I get some?
>
>2. What quality are they?
>
Jaeger T. Cat
In article <3594e553...@NNTP.ix.netcom.com>,
Mike Caro <ca...@caro.com> wrote:
>
>20. In the February (I think) issue of Playboy, the Advisor talked
>about my four-color concept from which we got several hundred requests
>for decks and comments. All positive.
>
"Honest honey, I just bought it to read about the four color decks"
Mike Caro
Now that's a one-liner worthy of the final table. :-)
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
On 26 Jun 1998 15:23:11 -0400, jae...@pluto.njcc.com (Jaeger T. Cat)
wrote:
J. Lochrie
Mike Caro wrote:
>
J Lochrie responds:
I liked the 4 colour decks when I played with them at Oceanside CC in
1995, I think it was. There were a couple of players in the game who
insisted we play with regular decks, and after 2 hours, to stop the
whining, we switched.
I had some difficulty with the green and blue but that is my partial
colour blindness. The shapes are the same of course.
Mike C, have you tried simply to sell them through normal retail
outlets, where most kitchen table players buy cards anyway. It would be
a novelty and might just catch on. Of course, it would be even better
if it could be done with the help of a large card manufacturer.
Jim Geary
I think the 4-color was a good idea, and agree that
nobody would ever consider switching from 4->2 colors.
But realistically, four suits may be too many to generate
enough unfailingly distinguishable colors. I always thought
the natural extension to this experiment would be to use
shape changes in addition to ( / instead of) color.
I propose the following as all more readily identifiable:
- Plus Sign
- Hollow Circle
- One Straight Line
- Three or Four Parallel Wavy Lines
I just know you'd be able to tell these apart from across the
table, but am of course amenable to suggested improvements.
Nobody would get too jazzed if you just used clinical names,
so I propose the following "cool" monikers:
Plus Sign:
Crosses, Christmas Tree Stands, X's, Addition Operators;
Hollow Circle:
Rings, Hoops, Orifices, Bagels;
One Straight Line:
Spikes, Nails, Rods, Daggers;
Wavy Lines:
Waves, Frisettes, Cosines, Corrugations.
I've had this in the back of my mind ever since the color experiment
in 95, but never had the opportunity to suggest it before. Any
playing card manufacturer that would like to run with this idea
has my blessing to use my conception without consideration.
I know that after switching, no one would suggest retreating to
the dull convex filled-in shapes we use today.
Yours in a great leap forward,
Jim Geary
jaygee at primenet dot com
http://www.primenet.com/~jaygee/
greatbrit
Mike Caro wrote:
> Don't believe all of the negative comments about the four-color decks.
> I am the one who is pushing hardest for the change and who has
> suffered misguided ridicule for years. I have seethed semi-silently,
> but not much longer. Here is some background:
Hi Mike, what are the negative comments from the pros and from the amateurs?
Also, from your market research, what are the main advantages that people see
to make a switch worthwhile?
Also, is seething semi-silently used to buy time to complete the seeth, or were
you simply representing a seeth?
pat gilvary
Mike Caro wrote:
>
>
> > 5. In accordance with the vote taken mostly at my seminars, the spades
> stayed black, hearts stayed red, clubs turned green (like clovers),
> and diamonds turned blue.
>
> four-color deck with Gemaco (which gallantly managed to beat the
> deadline), my choices of the shades of color were poor. Close up, it
> was easy to tell the suits apart by color, but from across the table,
> especially if there wasn't intense light, the greens and blues tended
> to look the same.
> >>
>
> would have liked (and we quickly fixed this in subsequent runs).
>
>
>
> >
>
> >
> >
>
> Mike Caro
>
>Mike: The problem with the Blue/Green mix-up is because blue and green are too close together on the color wheel. While red and blue are primary colors, green is a secondary color made by mixing yellow and _blue_. Take a lesson from Van Gogh- "blue loves yellow".
--
Pat Gilvary, Architect
"Trying is the first step in failing."
- H. Simpson
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Barbara Yoon
Mike Caro:
> ...four-color decks. I am the one who is pushing hardest for the change and
> who has suffered misguided ridicule for years. I have seethed semi-silently...
> ...spades stayed black, hearts stayed red, clubs turned green (like clovers),
> and diamonds turned blue. ...from across the table...the greens and blues
> tended to look the same. My argument in favor of the deck is simply that it
> makes sense. ...imagine what would happen if it were the other way around?
> Suppose we'd always played with a four-color deck. Suddenly this strange
> guy, Mike Caro, comes into your games and says, "Here's my new deck.
> It's a great idea. I've made the hearts and diamonds both red and the clubs
> and spades both black." How many objections do you think there would be
Your reasoning is strong and convincing (especially your typically Caro-esque
thought of switching the opposite way), and you are to be commended for your
courage in standing up to "suffer [the inevitable] misguided ridicule." Count me
in as a supporter of the four-color deck. BUT please do improve it by making
the diamonds an unmistakable "gold/bronze" color...
Dave Horwitz
Barbara Yoon wrote in message <6n1ak0$dnh$1...@winter.news.erols.com>...
>in as a supporter of the four-color deck. BUT please do improve it by
making
>the diamonds an unmistakable "gold/bronze" color...
Seems to me that a gold/bronze might be confused with the earth tone green.
I will assume that Mike used the latest opthalmological findings when
picking
his colors. Perhaps he would explain his pick of colors? Are they, in
fact,
the four colors most distinguishable from each other for men (don't jump up
and down... It is my understanding that, in general, men have a harder time
with color distinction than women, and I don't think its wrong to say that
the
overwhelming majority of cardroom card players are also men).
-Quick
Gambler103
Jim Geary <jay...@primenet.com> writes:
> I always thought the natural extension to this experiment
would be to use shape changes...<
=====================================
Like your idea. Being color blind, I have to depend on shapes.
Even shapes (in poor light) can be deceiving. More than once,
my 5 card flush turned out to be 4 spades and 1 heart.
--
Paul
Gambl...@aol.com
Motto: Don't give up the ship..........until I get off !!!!!!
Joshua Paley
I submit that the below symbols are too bland, even if colorful terms can
be applied to them as Mr. Geary suggests. However, as one person already
noted in a response, making the symbols more distinct would have great
value to many people. I therefore humbly offer the following:
- Rock
- Scissors
- Paper
- Circle
All of these would look distinctly different, so no problem there. You
can all come up with colorful terms for each suit, much as Mr. Geary did.
However, because of traditional convention, this system has built-in added
benefits, such as auto-roshamboing on ties.
For example, suppose I had an ace/rock-high straight against Mr. Geary's
ace/paper-high straight. Since paper covers rock, Mr. Geary would win.
The only catch is that if there is also an ace/scissors-high straight, the
pot would have to be split three ways. Or, you could even have house
rules that give the pot to ace/rock. All of them, of course, would beat
the ace/circle-high straight, but the holder of that hand at least would
have the potential to punch all of his/her opponents and then wipe it off.
This also builds on Mr. Geary's suggestion in other ways. For example,
reducing split pots will save time, thereby giving more hands to the
customer and more rakes to the house. Encouraging people to wear special
pads to absorb the blows of disgruntled circle players would open up a new
product market. Best of all, you wouldn't have to explain to people
who are learning the game what the symbols are called, so there is the
humanitarian angle as well.
On 26 Jun 1998, Jim Geary wrote:
> I think the 4-color was a good idea, and agree that
> nobody would ever consider switching from 4->2 colors.
> But realistically, four suits may be too many to generate
> enough unfailingly distinguishable colors. I always thought
> the natural extension to this experiment would be to use
AaMarkHays
Quick wrote:
>Seems to me that a gold/bronze might be confused with the earth tone green.
>I will assume that Mike used the latest opthalmological findings when
>picking
>his colors. Perhaps he would explain his pick of colors?
I'm going to make a completely unfounded wildass guess that Mike took a poll of
his seminar attendees and had them vote on the colors they thought would be
best for the four color deck.
Mark
p.s. for the sarcasm impaired: yes I read item #3 of Mike's post.
p.p.s I agree with Ms. Math, gold instead of green. Yellow, blue, and red
would make me feel like I was playing a very expensive game of Uno.
Bill King
Mike Caro <ca...@caro.com> wrote:
: Tim --
<snip>
: 5. In accordance with the vote taken mostly at my seminars, the spades
: stayed black, hearts stayed red, clubs turned green (like clovers),
: and diamonds turned blue.
: 7. Because I was late (as usual) in coordinating the specifics for the
: four-color deck with Gemaco (which gallantly managed to beat the
: deadline), my choices of the shades of color were poor. Close up, it
: was easy to tell the suits apart by color, but from across the table,
: especially if there wasn't intense light, the greens and blues tended
: to look the same.
One problem with the red-blue-green colors, and I don't have any
suggestions for improvement, is that blue-green color blindedness is
fairly common for certain shades. Red-green color blindedness is much
more rare. Lots of people are blue-green color blind and don't even know
it.
--Bill King
.sig shows an old guy juggling 5 balls in a pattern that every juggler knows
is completely bogus.
Mike Caro
Barbara --
You are completely right about your "gold/bronze" recommendation. The
:"bronze" part is the key. My personal first choice was gold, but what
you normally think of as gold (leaning toward yellow) does not show up
on the white backgrounds. The solutions are to use black outlines, add
shadows, or use a neutral color other than white for the backgrounds
(perhaps even different backgrounds for different suits).
I am strongly inclined to go with a dark gold for the diamonds,
instead of blue, next time.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
.. On Fri, 26 Jun 1998 19:21:26 -0400, "Barbara Yoon" <by...@erols.com>
wrote:
>Mike Caro:
>> ...four-color decks. I am the one who is pushing hardest for the change and
>> who has suffered misguided ridicule for years. I have seethed semi-silently...
>> ...spades stayed black, hearts stayed red, clubs turned green (like clovers),
>> and diamonds turned blue. ...from across the table...the greens and blues
>> tended to look the same. My argument in favor of the deck is simply that it
>> makes sense. ...imagine what would happen if it were the other way around?
>> Suppose we'd always played with a four-color deck. Suddenly this strange
>> guy, Mike Caro, comes into your games and says, "Here's my new deck.
>> It's a great idea. I've made the hearts and diamonds both red and the clubs
>> and spades both black." How many objections do you think there would be
>> then? [I have] NOT given up on the idea...
>
>
>Your reasoning is strong and convincing (especially your typically Caro-esque
>thought of switching the opposite way), and you are to be commended for your
>courage in standing up to "suffer [the inevitable] misguided ridicule." Count me
Mike Caro
Thanks for your suggestion. Yes, we have thought about the home market
and retail channels, but the main thrust so far has been in marketing
to casinos. Good point, though.
Many people think that the four-color decks have even more value to
bridge than to poker.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
On Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:00:59 -0700, "J. Lochrie"
<"685...@ican.net"@ican.net> wrote:
>Mike Caro wrote:
>>
>J Lochrie responds:
>
>I liked the 4 colour decks when I played with them at Oceanside CC in
>1995, I think it was. There were a couple of players in the game who
>insisted we play with regular decks, and after 2 hours, to stop the
>whining, we switched.
>
>I had some difficulty with the green and blue but that is my partial
>colour blindness. The shapes are the same of course.
>
>Mike C, have you tried simply to sell them through normal retail
>outlets, where most kitchen table players buy cards anyway. It would be
>a novelty and might just catch on. Of course, it would be even better
>if it could be done with the help of a large card manufacturer.
>
>> Don't believe all of the negative comments about the four-color decks.
>> I am the one who is pushing hardest for the change and who has
PocketKing
Red green colorblindness is by far the most common. It is found in 15% of
males and 6% of females.
SGelwarg
The printing industry uses 4 colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. From
these dyes come all other colors in between. Since these are and must be the
most distinguishable colors (as any other color would include parts of more
than one of them) why not stick with these?
(Note: Cyan is a blue. Magenta is a red.)
Llew213
I think that yellow would be especially difficult to see, especially with some
of the lighting used in poker rooms.
Llew
EarlHamman
IMHO the launching of the four colour deck must be accelerated as much as
possible. A beta testing of sorts is being conducted on Greg Reynold's
interface for irc.poker.net. There is going to be a back-lash from the people
who grew up on red/black. Presumably, there was a similar back-lash from people
who grew up on black when bicolour was introduced.
I also think that Jim Geary's idea of optimizing the shapes should be
addressed since a return to the drawing board to sort out the colors is
required.
The application that requires this innovation yesterday are the computer
card games and on line card playing. Since the symbols are symmetrical,
presenting half a symbol is popular with some programs. I assume it is fairly
obvious when ten handed Hold'Em is played on a 13 inch Laptop the Diamonds
start looking like stylized Hearts.
I purchased a poker program from Bicycle and the presentation is so sorry
that it is no fun to play. I have a Bridge&Euchre program from Hoyle and they
have done an outstanding job. In summary, the world need four (4)colour decks
immediately! Let's get the colors right and take advantage of this opportunity
to optimize the shapes for those of us who are colour sighted impaired.
I would like to address bandwidth (about which I know next to squat), RGP
Cop and slamming. Bandwidth- I guess my concern is that all the nonsence I
write here goes into some database to be preserved forever. Since the RGP Cop
singled out one individual to make an example of, for two years of perceived
abuse of the system, it seems to me the nonsence has increased by a factor of
two (2). Slamming- I think all "Slammers" should sign their slams and not
shield themselves behind an alias.
Final paragraph. Message to Ms. Yoon and Mr. Landrum: You gals (I
initially wrote guys) are on a roll and are turning out nothing but pure gold.
Mr. Landrum's odds for newbies was terrific. However, some of your esoteric
statistical analyses of starting hands need a concomitant discussion to help us
"Newpeople". When in doubt give it the "Brikshoe" test. If Earl doesn't
understand it, the rest of us don't have a Prayer. Earl, that was an exemplary
article on seven-stud. Abdul, did I see your name and "Rush" on the same
screen?
Earl Hamman
Joe Long
On 1 Jul 1998 12:36:40 GMT, sgel...@aol.com (SGelwarg) wrote:
>The printing industry uses 4 colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. From
>these dyes come all other colors in between. Since these are and must be the
>most distinguishable colors (as any other color would include parts of more
>than one of them) why not stick with these?
These are not the most distinguishable colors. The predominate in
printing because of their location in the spectrum which makes nearly
all other colors possible from subtractive combinations of them (i.e.,
inks that absorb some light and reflect the rest).
>(Note: Cyan is a blue. Magenta is a red.)
Cyan is a pale blue-green that does not offer much contrast to white;
magenta contains a lot of violet and is not a pure red.
I would think that black, red, a saturated blue, and a saturated
yellow would be the most distinguishable by the most people. The use
of both blue and green should be avoided (they are too close together
in the spectrum and too many people have blue-green color blindness),
as should an pale or pastel color. The colors should be saturated
(rich).
--
Joe Long
sendto jlong at mti d0t net
http://www.mti.net business
http://www.rnbw.com personal
tino solis
Diamond = White (outlined in black)
White Diamond.......
Club = NYPD Blue (a middle Blue)
Patriotic on this 4th of July........
tino
The Big P.O.P. theory.................................
----O "Primordial Ontological Perturbation"..