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
Clag (card game) of trumps. With Precedence, the order is (hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades) with hearts being the top trump suit, trumping all other suits. Clubs will trump diamonds and spades. Diamonds just trumping spades and spades being no trump. Reverse Precedence order is (spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts). Any variation of Precedence may be called, e.g. Reverse Precedence red over black (d,h,s,c) Precedence black over red (c,s,h,d) etc. Regardless of trumps called, players must follow suit of the first card played if possible. For example, if the first card played in a hand is a club and you have a losing club in