Ace

This article is about the playing card. For alternate uses of the word, see Ace (disambiguation).

Ace cards of all four suits

A pair of aces is the best hand to be dealt in Texas Hold'em Poker

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The word "ace" comes from the Old French word 'as' (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman coin. It originally meant the side of a die with only one mark, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in Middle English, but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'.

An ace is a playing card. In the standard deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the Ace of Spades, which also often bears the name or emblem of the deck's printer.

Historically, the ace was the lowest value, and this still holds in many popular European games (in fact most European decks including the French Tarot Nouveau do not use the "A" index, instead keeping the numeral "1"). However, in most games popular in the United States and English-speaking countries, aces have the highest value of all cards in a suit. Many games, such as poker and blackjack, allow the player to choose whether the ace is used as a high or low card. This duality allows players in some other games to use it as both at once; some variants of Rummy allow players to form groups, or "melds", of rank K-A-2 or similar. This is known colloquially as "going around the corner".

The word has been adopted in slang to refer to victory, or as a general adjective for describing something as good ("this is ace!"). In tennis, the act of winning a ball from the serve such that the opponent doesn't get a single shot is referred to as an ace. It can also be used to refer to a person who is exceptionally talented in a sport, such as "Portugal and Manchester United ace Christiano Ronaldo".

Ace-high theories of origin

The folk tradition of "ace high" existed in some games as of the late 1400s, but may have been accelerated to more widespread acceptance as a result of the French Revolution. In addition to the traditional court card art being replaced with face cards bearing more democratic ideals (Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité; this change was reversed as of the rise of Napoleon), the lowest number card was changed to the highest card in the deck ostensibly to represent the victory of the common man over King Louis XVI.

Other theories center around the ace's promotion on its own merit as being "number one", which is synonymous with the winner or the best in most cultures and languages. The game of Three-card brag, popular around the time of the American and French Revolutionary Wars and which evolved into Poker, used ace-high ranking, probably on this "number one" basis, and the popularity of this family of games may have led to ranking changes in other card game genres.

Example cards

Ace of Spades	Ace of Clubs	Ace of Hearts	Ace of Diamonds

See also

• List of poker hand nicknames