Vieux garçon

Vieux garçon, literally old boy in French, is a card game played with a standard fifty-two card pack from which the jack of clubs has been removed, leaving the jack of spades to serve as the pouilleux, the card players try to avoid being left holding at the end. It is played by two to eight players and belongs to the same family of games as Old Maid and Black Peter. The game is also known under several other regional names, including le Pouilleux, Mistigri, Le Pissous, Le Puant and Le Valet Noir. Rules for the game were first formally recorded in France in 1853, though references to it appear as early as 1839, and it is thought to derive from the German game Black Peter, whose own rules were documented in 1821. As a round game built around avoiding a single stigmatized card, it is generally classed as a children's card game and a game of chance.