Missing The Mark Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tax Card

The Tax Card is actually the ace of spades. Up until the 1960s, a tax was placed on a deck of cards called a Stamp Duty in England. The ace of spades was used to show the tax had been paid.

The ace of clubs looks like a puppy foot, clover, and blackberries, hence the nicknames. The four suits as they are now known and accepted were first mass produced in Rouen and Lyon France in the 15th century and so the deck is known as the French deck. In games where the suit can be determinative of rank spades are top followed by hearts, diamonds, and finally clubs. Interestingly, in 1704 a French Jesuit heraldic scholar further linked the four suits with the divisions of society at that time with spades representing nobility, hearts the clergy, diamonds merchants, and clubs peasants.

Answer: The Man with the Axe

The Man with the Axe applies only to the king of diamonds because he is the only one holding an axe whereas the other three terms apply to kings generally. The king of diamonds is also known as the one eyed king because he is the only king shown in profile. In historical terms, the king of diamonds was said to represent Julius Caesar.

Answer: Grace Card

The Grace Card or Grace's Card is the six of hearts not a queen. The name for the six of hearts dates back to the Glorious Revolution in 1688 when Oliver Grace of County Kilkinney raised a regiment of foot soldiers and a troop of horse soldiers to fight for King James. William of Orange tried to persuade him to instead join his side but Oliver wrote his refusal on a six of hearts, which then became known as Grace's Card.

Besides a queen being called a Lady, Cowgirl, or Dame, a queen can also be called a Hen, Painted Lady, Mop-squeezer, or Stenographer.

Answer: The Fool

The Fool is the joker not the jack. Early on the jack was called the knave in England with the Kn being used as the designation. But the easy confusion between the Kn of the knave and the K of the king led to the change to jack by the 1800s. The name fishhook comes from its appearance and the name valet comes from its French name.

Answer: Big Cassino

Big Cassino applies to the ten of diamonds and comes from the Italian card game Cassino. In that game it counts as 2 in scoring. Bo Derek as a nickname comes from her famous movie "10" that she starred in as the object of Dudley Moore's obsession. Sawbuck comes from the fact that the US ten dollar bill has a Roman numeral X on it which looks like a sawbuck, a sawhorse with crossed supports. Both the ten and the five cards are referred to by the coin equivalents dime and nickel respectively.

Answer: Curse of Scotland

The Shakespeare reference is to the fact that in the theater world a Scottish curse exists that says if one speaks the name Macbeth it will bring about bad luck so the play is only referred to as "The Scottish Play".

Many theories exist as to how the nine of diamonds became known as the Curse of Scotland. The most prominent among these are:
1) The proverb that every ninth king in Scotland ruled as a tyrant dates from the early 1700s.
2) John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair and the man responsible for the Massacre of Glencoe (1692) either wrote the order on the nine of diamonds or his family coat of arms resembles the nine of diamonds or both.
3) Similarly, the Duke of Cumberland is supposed to have written the order of no quarter before the battle of Battle of Culloden (1746) on a nine of diamonds.
4) The introduction of the gambling game "Pope Joan" from 1732 with the nine of diamonds being the pope, a villain at this time in Scottish history because of the reformation.
5) The theft of nine diamonds by George Campbell from Mary Queen of Scots and the subsequent tax she levied to pay for new ones.

Answer: Crab

A Crab is a three not an eight. Both the name snowman and fat lady refer to the way the eight looks. The term time travel comes from the movie "Back to the Future" in which the DeLorean had to reach 88 mph in order to time travel. In a game where the ace plays high, the eight is the middle card in any suit.

Answer: Beer Card

The seven of diamonds is referred to as the Beer Card in trick taking games like Bridge. The basic concept is that if a player can take the last trick in a hand with the seven of diamonds then his partner has to buy him a beer.

All of the other names are based on the look of the seven. Another name is candy cane for the same reason. It can also be known as salmon because seven sounds like salmon. This is especially true in the Texas Hold'em starting hand of king seven which is known as Columbia River. The Columbia River is famous for its salmon run and king seven sounds like king salmon. I think salmon shows you poker players have too much time on their hands to come up with that one as it is a bit of a stretch.

Answer: Pagliacci

Pagliacci is a famous Italian opera about a clown and refers therefore to the joker not the four. All of the other names refer to the look of the four. The one legged ace and another not yet mentioned name, the broken ace, both refer to the fact that the four can look like an ace and is rather disappointing when it turns out to be the four and not the ace.

Answer: Little Cassino

In the Italian card game Cassino, the two of spades is considered the Little Cassino and is worth one point. A two looks like either a duck or a swan swimming on the water. Duck is the more common one. In many instances a player will say quack or quack quack when referring to a two or two twos. The term deuce can be traced back to the 15th century.