Indoor games and sports

For thousands of years people have invented Indoor games and sports to amuse themselves when confined within a house or other building. Often these are played in social or family situations, or when darkness or bad weather prevent people from moving outside.

Such amusements have been developed throughout the world. Others require a great deal of skill on the part of the players.

Most card games are played with a pack of 52 playing cards, which are divided equally into four suits: spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds. Each suit has the numbers 2 to 10 followed by the picture cards – Joker, Queen and King – and the ace with a single pip. In some games the ace is treated as a 1, in others as better than a king. In English language packs, the picture cards are marked J, Q, K and the ace A.

Amongst the most popular card games are ‘trump-and-trick’ games, which include whist and bridge. In games of this kind the ace usually ranks highest, followed by the picture cards and number cards in descending order. One suit is made trumps, which means that cards of that suit beat any card of another suit. One player leads (plays the first card) and the others must follow suit (play a card of the same suit) if they can. Each round or trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, but if a player cannot follow suit, they may play a trump and the highest trump wins. The winner is the player or team that wins the most tricks.

Playing cards came to Europe from the Muslim world in the 14th century. At that time the suit signs were swords, batons, coins and cups, which are still used in some countries. India, China and Korea also have traditional packs of playing cards. The Indian ganjifa cards are usually round, and have 8, 10 12 cards each. Chinese playing cards are very small and narrower than European cards.

Many different kinds of board games are played throughout the world, and many of them have been popular for hundreds of years. A few board games are decided by chance or luck alone, but most require some amount of skill on the part of the players. Games of pure chance are usually ‘race’ games, such as the children’s game snakes and ladders which was invented by Jaques. The winner – the player who reaches a certain square first – is decided by throwing numbered dice, over which the players have no control.

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Wikipedia