Over the years, we have played many, many hours of rook. So many hours that we have seen our fair share of rook decks come and go. In early years, the rook decks were fairly sturdy and would last for many months of playing. In more recent years, the rook decks found themselves to be less sturdy, and simply would not last very long before become a burden to play with. In came 57 Cards, the plastic deck of cards that are perfect for the card game rook.
57 Cards makes a deck of cards that are exactly like rook cards, but do not have the name brand rook written on them. They are still composed of the same 1 through 14 and four colors of black, red, yellow and green. The difference is their rook card looks like a tree (not sure why they chose a tree).
The Pros
The quality of these rook like cards are amazing. Being fully plastic, they do not lose their smooth and sleek feeling when played with over time.
The cards last a long time! We have rarely had a time when we found a 57 card deck cause us issues. We house many tournaments and now exclusively use 57 cards to play our tournaments.
Even after many months of playing, they still feel like the first time we played with them.
The Cons
They simply are not rook cards. We are so used to using the term “bird” or the “rook” and it is a little different when there is a picture of the 57 cards logo – the tree – on there.
There is also only one colored deck. We would love to be able to have two different colored decks so that while one deck is being played with, the other deck can be shuffled. With the same backs, there is always the possibility that the decks will get mixed together.
The 57 Card decks are also more pricey than a regular rook deck. It is almost double the price to get a 57 card deck than a regular rook deck. If you are an occasional player of rook, it may not be worth it to buy the long lasting plastic deck that 57 cards offer.
Final Thoughts
We really like playing with 57 cards now. As we have stated, we are exclusively using 57 cards in all of our rook tournaments now.