Venn Deck Nº1 (blue)

Playing Cards Based on a Venn Diagram

In this non-traditional deck, two suits are used: hearts and spades. In a standard deck of playing cards, suits are differentiated categories that don't overlap (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive). Venn decks add a twist by allowing intersections between these categories.

For this proof of concept, we wanted to make things as familiar as possible to people used to standard decks. As such, a card's suit can be:

• Spades
• Hearts
• Spades&Hearts
• Suitless

Each one of these configurations is a set of cards from Ace to King. So each set can be mapped to standard suits by considering the set of Spades&Hearts as Diamonds and the set of suitless cards as Clubs.

But the most interesting use of this deck is by playing or creating games that make use of the logic of having an intersection between categories and having a null set.

Game example 1: Venn Spades

This is a variant of Spades, a popular trick-taking card game usually played by four to six players. Standard rules apply, except for the following:

• It's considered following suit if both cards share at least one suit (e.g. Hearts and Hearts&Spades), if suitless then players must play a suitless card if possible.
• Suit cards will always rank higher than suitless cards. Cards containing spades are considered trump cards.
• In case of a tie (e.g. Ace of Spades vs. Ace of Hearts&Spades) the first tied card played wins the trick.** This variations can be applied to other trick-taking games as well.

Game example 2: Rummy-style games

Standard rules for Rummy-style games apply, except for the following:

• When making a meld, cards are considered to be from the same suit if they all share the same symbol.

Game example 3: Venn Klondike Solitaire

Standard rules apply, except for the following:

• You can place a card on top of another if one is red (or red/black), and the other is black (or red/black).
• Suitless cards can only be placed over other suitless cards.
• Face-up cards in the same tableau pile can be moved as a unit if they have alternating colors (e.g., red, red/black, red; but not red, red/black, black).
• The four foundations correspond to: Hearts, Spades, Hearts&Spades, and suitless

2023. Concept by Eric Astrue, and graphic design by Eric Astrue & Laura Rodriguez. Standard Poker playing card icons used are attributed to Chris Aguilar, see https://totalnonsense.com/open-source-vector-playing-cards/