Folk Tien Gow
When I looked for videos of people playing Tien Gow, I often saw people playing differently than the classic rules, with quite different play options. The basic mechanics remained the same, but there were some differences. I call these games “Folk Tien Gow” because people simply refer to it as “Tien Gow”, even though it’s different to classical rules.
If you haven’t read the classic Tien Gow rules article, please do so before continuing.
A smaller deck
Folk Tien Gow is often played with a reduced domino set of 24 tiles. Less often – with 30.
If there are 30 tiles, then the “supreme pair” ([4:2] and [2:1]) is removed from the deck.
If there are 24 tiles, there are different options:
- All civilians and nines from the military ([6:3][5:4])
- All civilians and a supreme pair ([4:2] and [2:1])
- All civilians except [5:1] plus military nines and supreme pair ([6:3],[5:4],[4:2] and [2:1])
In the first version of 24 tiles, the pair of nines plays the role of “supreme pair” because it does not beat anything and cannot be beaten.
Number of players
Often four people play, but one player always rests in turn, that is, there are only three active players. Or only three players play, without a fourth resting one. I also saw four active players with the 24 tiles deck, but then each player will receive only six tiles.
Combinations
Since there are not enough military tiles in a set of 24 tiles, there are no mixed combinations, only pure pairs. But two combinations of three tiles are added: [1:1][2:2][3:3] and [4:4][5:5][6:6]. The second beats the first, nothing beats the second.
Trade
After the deal, the players declare whether they will play or not. If no one wants to play, then there is a rematch, if the applicant is alone, then he immediately wins. If there are more applicants, then the game is played and the settlement is made only between the players who have declared the game.
Trading is not done in turn, but simply by laying out the domino tiles.
Unfortunately, I did not understand the principle of trading and which tile means what. I suspect that one of the top four civilian tiles means “play” and the rest “don’t play”. It is clear that players who declared a “game” and lost pay more than those who “passed”. But how exactly – I don’t know. Unfortunately, I was only able to glean information about this game from a video and from one not fully understood answer from a Chinese forum (given below).
Victory and calculation
Taking the last trick is not the most important thing in all options. Sometimes they just look at the number of tricks.
The calculation in the folk version is often simplified. For example all losers give a winner one chip. Also, I read about an option where all tricks are worth one point, and the last one is worth five. The calculation takes place accordingly.
I would like to note that the calculation in the game for three with 30 tiles or four with 24 tiles cannot be done classically, since the total number of tricks is 10 or 6, respectively (and not 8, so one cannot calculate tricks “below 4”).
Video sources:
https://www.ixigua.com/6692629485155516935
https://www.ixigua.com/6808288260763157007
https://www.ixigua.com/6746167153143054855
https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzk2ODU0ODUxMg==.html
“Ancient tiles” variant
There is probably a 32-tile variant with no combinations at all, called Ancient Tiles (古牌, gupai). The source is a book in Portuguese about games played in Macau, but the author may have confused something. Since the words Ancient and Bone are homonyms in Chinese, the players were probably just playing GuPai (bone tiles), and the author thought they were talking about some “ancient tiles”. Since the author was confused in other places, I cannot claim that she has indicated everything correctly here.
Nevertheless, it is quite likely that one of the popular options is just such a game – Tien Gow with 32 tiles without combinations.
Tien Gow for two
If there are two players, then they can play the Moving Mice option (老鼠恡家).
This is a game for two, with a set of 32 tiles. First, eight tiles are dealt to both players and the game is played according to the usual rules, then the rest of the tiles are dealt and played as usual. No calculation is done, simply tricks are taken.
After two such first rounds, each player takes 8 tiles from their tricks, starting with the oldest tricks, and the game continues. At some point, a player will have less than 8 tiles in tricks, then he takes them all and his opponent takes the same number. That is, if a player has only six tiles in his tricks, then he and his opponent take six tiles each and continue playing.
The one who remains without tricks loses.
This game was described to me in a letter by one Chinese, a lover of Chinese dominoes, Mr. Min FanXin (闵凡信). I’m not sure if this option is common, but I brought it up anyway.
Nau Tin Kau
Nau Tin Kau is a gambling game described by Culin and requires no skill at all, only an understanding of the suits and the hierarchy of the tiles. It can be considered a distant relative of Tien Gow, since this game also has tricks, only that players do not receive tiles in their hands, but draw them during the turn from the deck, which completely eliminates the element of skill.
The first player draws one tile from the deck and shows it. The second player does the same. If the second player has a tile of the same suit and is higher in the hierarchy, then he takes both tiles for himself and the turn passes to him. If not, then both tiles are taken by the first player and he continues playing first.
At the end of the game, the players count the red spots on their hands, and whoever has fewer of them pays the difference to the second player.
Source: Culin’s description
Bagchen
This is a Tibetan variant of Tien Gow with a double set of dominoes, i.e. a 64-tile game. This game is for four players who play in teams (which is otherwise unusual for Chinese domino games). Although the game is similar to Tien Gow, there are many differences – some combinations are added, some, on the contrary, are subtracted. Also, before passing, dice are thrown and the values thrown are used in the game.
This game is beautifully described on the Pagat website. Maybe one day I will move the rules on this website.
Folk Tien Gow Chinese description
I once came across this description and even tried to translate it. But I didn’t really succeed. Since this text has already disappeared from the Internet, I will simply copy this text here, maybe someone will understand:
24张骨牌，就是牌九的32张去掉八张杂牌（杂八2张，杂七2张，杂五2张，杂六1张杂三1张）其中老千（12个点）1对，虎头（11个点）1对，黑十（10个点）1对，红十（10个点）1对，家九（9个点，1个三六九，1个四五九）1对，血八（8个点）1对，土七（7个点）1对，长六（6个点，由两个斜3就是色子上3点组成）1对，短六（6个点，由色子上的1点和5点组成）1对，长四（4个点，形状像麻将的四筒）1对，鹅四（4个点，由色子上的1点和3点组成）1对，地抠（也叫地幺或幺抠，2个点）1对，共24张加一个色子。
三玩家斜对面坐桌，把牌四张一堆依次码好，由任一家打色子决定庄家同时说出从哪头抓牌，庄家抓第一堆和第四堆，下家抓第二堆和第五堆，末家抓第三第六堆。
每人八张，庄家先说话或出牌，比如庄家出一对老千加一个虎头，那么两闲家打不起，就把三张小牌或没有用的牌面朝下交给庄家，此时出来的九张牌都为庄家所得，得够九张就算赢。
此时每人手里五张牌，共15张，还能决出一个赢家。
如果一家得了18张，叫做刺牌，两输家所输的筹码加两倍，如果一家得了24张牌，叫做贺牌或者满贯，两输家所输的筹码加四倍。
如果庄家认为自己不能赢，可以说坎牌，意思是认输，下家如果认为自己不能赢可以说不掀牌，如果认为自己能赢可以说掀牌，但是掀牌者如果输了，除了要付给赢家基础筹码外，每掀牌一次要付给坎牌者一定的筹码，一般是一个或两个基础筹码。
掀牌者若赢了则不需要付掀牌的筹码。
如果一家赢了之后再坎牌，没有人掀牌，则是两家输。每一局的输赢状况可能出现输两家、赢两家、一家输一家赢、一家刺牌或贺牌、流局等情况。流局就是庄家坎牌没有人掀牌。
牌点的大小：大点压小点，大对压小对，大顺（由老千、黑十、血八3张牌组成）压小顺（由地幺、长四、长六3张牌组成）。
出牌由第一家开始到第三家结束，谁大归谁。
Chinese Dominoes GuPai 