Bridge cards vs. Poker cards
Posted by Rob Herman at May 2nd, 2007
Poker cards are 3.5 by 2.5 inches. This is the most common size, the one you’ll find in Target, Walgreens, or whatever when you swing by to pick up cards. Bridge cards are a bit narrower, to make it easier to hold 13 in your hand. You can occasionally find them at stores, but more often you’ll see them in special bridge boxed sets of two decks. They are otherwise identical.
This reminds me of the difference in CCG card stock. Most american CCGs (M:tG, starwars, L5R, LotR, etc…) are printed on heavier card stock with wider shorter cards than the Japanese equivalents (Yugio, Pokemon, etc…) Part of the reason for this is the price of the materials but I think that the tastes of the target audiences in the different countries varies and the medium differs accordingly. A card that is taller and narrower allows the card to be segmented vertically (which is the standard) into taller sections allowing more room the text area on the card. While a shorter wider card allows the art box, which is often square or close to it, to have a larger area.
This is also an important consideration when you’re printing cards for a non-collectible card game. If the cards aren’t going to be cycled through very much (shuffled, dealt, drawn, discarded, etc.), bridge-size works. It’s cheaper, and you can fit more into a box/pack.
On the other hand, if the cards are going to see a lot of wear, you want poker size because they tend to get printed thicker, and they fit into standard-sized card sleeves.
I’m surprised to hear that the bridge size is cheaper. I would have expected the economy of scale to balance things out in favor of the common size. Shows all I know…
Economy of scale doesn’t actually make a difference when you’re printing on sheets, which are pretty much all one size - it’s cheaper to do bridge size because you can get more cards per sheet, and are therefore spending less on ink & paper.
Not to be too pedantic, but other than size, bridge and poker playing cards are not identical! Playing cards meant for playing bridge are narrow-size and have a ‘regular’ sized index - that is, the pips and numbers on the edge of the card are relatively thin. Cards meant for poker in a casino are the wider size, and often are ‘jumbo’ index - the pips and numbers are larger, for better visiblity across a large table. Jumbo index cards also often have pips and numbers in all four corners, rather than just two. Blackjack tables usually use jumbo index, since the cards are being checked by computer via the cameras above the table, and the larger index is easier for the software to recognize.
To make matters more confusing, some casinos use jumbo index narrow cards for hold-em poker games, so all four combinations of size and index are in fairly common usage, although narrow/jumbo cards are hard to find outside casino supply stores.