Playing card as these 52 cards, commercial packs often include between one and six jokers, most often two. Decks with less than 52 cards are known as stripped decks. The piquet pack has all values from 2 through 6 in each suit removed for a total of 32 cards. It is popular in France, the Low Countries, Central Europe and Russia and is used to play piquet, belote, bezique and skat. It is also used in the Sri Lankan, whist-based game known as "omi". Forty-card French suited packs are common in northwest Italy; these remove the 8s through 10s like Latin suited
Curse of Scotland Gurney Benham's book about playing cards, in describing the game of Pope Joan he gives his own explanation for why this card is known as the Curse of Scotland: "The crown of Scotland contained only nine stones, as they never could afford a tenth". Eric Partridge's "Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang" considers: “the various theories are as interesting as they are unconvincing”. "Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland" says for "Curse of Scotland" "This is usually taken to be the nine of diamonds playing card, though explanations differ". The 19th century Tarot of Marseilles is one of the standard designs for tarot