Wild card (card games)

Card games, particularly poker games, may contain one or more cards designated as wild. These may be jokers, or they may be normal ranked and suited cards pressed into wild card duty ("deuces wild" is a common variant). In most cases, the wild card or cards must be agreed upon by all players before the cards are dealt and play commences. There are two common rules regarding wild cards: "fully wild" cards and the "bug".

A card that is fully wild can be designated by its holder as any card they choose with no restrictions. Under this rule, for example, a hand with any natural pair and a wild card becomes three of a kind. With wild cards in play, the best possible hand is a natural royal flush. The common rule in casinos is that a wild card plays as a bug, which is given the rank of ace unless designating it as a different card would complete a straight, flush, or royal flush. Under this rule, a hand such as K-K-Joker-5-2 is just a pair of kings (with an ace kicker), but any four same-suit cards with a bug make a flush, and a hand such as 7-Joker-5-4-3 makes a straight.

Wild card

Wild card may refer to:

Computing

Entertainment

Wild card (sports)

A wild card (or wildcard, or wild-card) is, in general, a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal play.

International sports

In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to big international sporting events such as the Olympic Games and Wimbledon. Countries which fail to produce athletes who meet qualification standards are granted "wild cards", which allow them to enter competitors whose abilities are below the required standards. In some instances, wild cards are given to the host nation in order to boost its chances. However, in Olympic and World Championship competitions in track and field and swimming, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors. Thus these are not wild cards. In some other Olympic sports, such as judo, archery and badminton, wild cards are in use, and they are granted by the respective sport federations. On rare occasions, a competitor who gained entry by wild card succeeds in winning a medal or the championship: Kye Sun-Hui won gold in judo at the 1996 Summer Olympics, Ding Junhui won the 2005 China Open snooker championship, Goran Ivanišević won the 2001 Wimbledon Championships and Kim Clijsters won the 2009 US Open, and Lin Dan won the 2013 BWF World Championships.

Major League Baseball wild card

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the wild card teams are the two teams in each of the two leagues (American and National) that have qualified for the postseason despite failing to win their division. Both teams in each league possess the two best winning percentages in their respective league after the three division winners. The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in a play-in game—the MLB wild-card game—the winner of whom would then advance to the Division Series. This system ensures that the team with the second-best record in each league will get a postseason berth even if it isn't a division champion.

One wild card per league (1994–2011)

From 1969 through 1993, division leaders in each league advanced to the League Championship Series, with the winners of each LCS meeting in the World Series. However, an expanding number of teams over the years made making the playoffs increasingly difficult. The new system was instituted in 1994 (but first used in 1995 because a players strike canceled the 1994 playoffs) when Major League Baseball expanded from two to three divisions per league. In the new three-division leagues, each league had four teams in the playoffs. In addition to the three division winners, a wild card team made the playoffs as the fourth seed. This was the team with the most wins amongst non-division winners. The wild card matchup was played in the first round between the League leader in wins and the wild card team, unless both teams were in the same division, which resulted in the wild card facing the second best division winner in the league.