Jack (playing card) Jack (playing card) A jack or knave is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic dress generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, plays as if it was an 11 (that is, between the 10 and the queen). As the lowest face (or "court") card, the jack often represents a minimum standard — for example, many poker games require a minimum hand of a pair of jacks ("jacks or better") in order to continue play. The
Playing card c. 1860 as a third trump, the "imperial" or "best bower", which ranked higher than the other two "bowers". The name of the card is believed to derive from "juker", a variant name for euchre. The earliest reference to a joker functioning as a wild card dates to 1875 with a variation of poker. Contemporary playing cards are grouped into three broad categories based on the suits they use: French, Latin, and Germanic. Latin suits are used in the closely related Spanish and Italian formats. The Swiss-German suits are distinct enough to merit their subcategory. Excluding jokers and tarot trumps,