These card games are really beautiful.

Where? Mine are coming from apache . . .

I was trying to be open-minded and give bridge size cards a shot. I played around with them a bit, but that just reinforced my preference for poker size, so I never used them in an actual game.

PGI is doing a Black Friday sale on CT.

I also prefer the poker size so I'm kind of on the fence. I do have setups that are still in the shrink wrap so maybe I need to slow down a little.

The OCD collector in my blood likes to remind me that I do not own any Carta Mundis so I may break down anyways.

If you've got an FPO address we can talk. Otherwise, shipping to Bahrain would probably cost about twice the value of the cards.

Oh, don't be so rational. Let me have my fun.

Bridge-sized cards probably get lost in your gorilla-sized paws

Sorry, didn't mean to rain on your parade. But it did sound pretty stupid: Hey, I hate bridge size cards... I should buy some! So I thought some explanation might help me save a little face. Yeah, I know, fat chance.

We have a once a week two table Club. After about a year our cards get sticky and don't deal well. One of our players says to put them in a plastic bag with some talcum powder and shake the bag.

Another says to wash them in a sink with dish soap and luke warm water.

Another says to just wipe with a damp cloth.

Any of you actually cleaned the cards? What result?

We have different brands Modiano, Copaq, and Kem mostly.
Lately we're into Kem-Jumbo Index- Bridge Size. We have less misdeals with the bridge size.

We tried four color for awhile with mixed results, Like previous posts stated, the colors are not brilliant enough in the Blue and Greens.

My stock answer is that I just run them through the washing machine on an extra small, delicate setting.

The truth is a lot simpler and less damaging. But it will take more effort.

Room temperature water in a bowl with a small amount of MILD dish soap, barely enough to raise suds.

Soak a few (5) cards, place them on a towel, rub with a clean, slightly rough face cloth. Put back in original bowl. Once you have done all five, place them in your "rinse" bowl. Rinse bowl should be the same temp, but no soap. Move them around to make sure soap residue is gone.

Place cleaned cards on a clean bath towel, and cover with another one.

Repeat for entire deck, changing water in both bowls as needed.

When the entire deck is on the drying towel, pat down gently on the cover towel to soak up excess moisture. You can dry the cards individually with paper towel if you like, but do not be in a rush to restack your clean cards. Let them dry overnight, and they'll be fine.

Or you could be anal like me. I work for a chemical company so, when I clean my decks, I bring them into work. We have dessicant in our lab, so I leave my cleaned deck in a sealed beaker with dessicant for the day, to remove ALL the moisture. No need for talc, which just puts more gunk on your clean cards.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Gemco cards itt. A few AC casinos and iirc Harrahs Chester uses them and they are probably the stiffest brand of cards I've ever encountered in a casino poker room. Personally I like KEM's the best, they are super flexible, pretty durable, I like the ink color and face card designs, and above all I think they have the coolest Ace of Spades out of any other playing card company out there. KEM ftw imo.

Excellent thread. Well-written, great photos. Great job, palindrome. 5 stars.

Honestly, no.

It usually takes several months for new plastics to start getting gunky on me, and by this point I often see some fading too, so I just pitch them. I'm still saving a ton of money vs. using paper cards, and it doesn't seem worth the effort of hand-washing them when a new setup costs less than $20.

Thank you. I wanted to give back to the forum as I have gotten a lot of good info from here over the years. I'm glad the reviews are proving useful.

I once put a deck of Copaq cards through the washing machine. I got one of those lingerie bags, put the cards in and zipped it shut. I used the most gentle cycle, cold water, a very small amount of mild detergent. I have a front loading machine so centrifugal force rather than a center agitator created the motion.

Afterward I spread them out on a thick towel, covered them with another thick towel and placed some heavy books on top of the covering towel, after drying for about a day they were clean & in great shape.

By the way, Jason of J Design cards is now our first sponsor for the Top Pair Podcast, www.toppair.net