Stripped deck

A stripped deck (US) or shortened pack (UK) is a set of playing cards from which some cards have been removed. The removed cards are usually the pip cards. Many card games use stripped decks, and stripped decks for popular games are commercially available.

When playing cards first arrived in Europe during the 1370s, they had the same format as the modern standard 52-card deck, consisting of four suits each with ten pip cards and three face cards. During the late 14th and 15th centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese decks dropped the 10s while the German and Swiss packs removed the Aces to create 48-card decks. It is far easier to print 48 cards using two woodblocks than 52 cards. While the removal of the above cards was motivated by manufacturing considerations, later expulsions are the result of trying to speed up card games to make them more exciting. Trappola is the first known card game to be played with a deck that was stripped for game play. It removed all the cards from 6 to 3 to create a 36-card deck.

The most popular card game in 16th-century Europe was Piquet, played with a 36-card deck that dropped ranks from 5 to 2. Around 1700, it dropped the 6s as well to create the 32-card deck which is now the most popular format in France. 32 and 36-card decks are the most widespread in countries that were once part of the Holy Roman (the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland), Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires. 24-card decks to play Schnapsen are widely available in central Europe although it may be shortened to 20 in the future as that is how the modern variant is now commonly played.

The Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, and Latin Americans use mostly 40-card decks. Unlike the countries above, they drop the higher ranking numerals so that the 7 is located immediately under the face cards. This was due to the popularity of Ombre, the game that introduced the concept of bidding.

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