Quick Start
This page will help you get familiar with Chinese dominoes as quickly as possible.
Chinese dominoes are quite different from Western dominoes. There are no blank tiles, and the set contains 32 tiles instead of 28. Some tiles appear twice, but not all of them. As in a standard double-six set, each tile has two ends with one to six pips.
The colors matter. Ones and fours are always red, and half of the pips on the double-six tiles are also red. In some games, the color of the pips affects the rules.
The tiles are divided into two suits: civilian and military. All doubles belong to the civilian suit. The remaining tiles are divided between the two suits in a way that may seem random at first. There are 10 different military tiles and 11 different civilian tiles. All civilian tiles are duplicated, which gives a total of 32 tiles.
This makes the Chinese domino set fundamentally asymmetrical. For example, there are more sixes than twos in the deck. This asymmetry is considered a feature, not a flaw, and many games use it in interesting ways. Some games increase the asymmetry even further by removing certain single tiles, as in Ding Niu or Mo Hua Hua.
Many Chinese domino games use the idea of tile combinations, which does not exist in traditional Western dominoes. The most common combinations are the Classical pairs, but there are other combinations as well, such as Classical Triplets.
There are also many more types of games played with Chinese dominoes than with Western dominoes. Of course, there are Blocking dominoes (the type most familiar to Western players). Because of the asymmetrical set, these games feel different. The mechanics are slightly different too - for example a player must either play a domino or discard it face-down.
But Chinese dominoes are also often used the way Westerners use playing cards. In fact, there are paper domino card sets made especially for these games. There are trick-taking games similar to Whist, collecting games similar to Rummy and even Gambling games, similar to Baccarat. There are also Solitaire games some of which are connected to fortune-telling traditions, and fishing games, which have no well-known Western equivalent.
The most popular modern games are probably Jie Long (a connecting game), Tien Gow (a trick-taking game), and Pai Gow (the best-known gambling game with Chinese dominoes). Among fishing games Shi Wu Hu is still played. It is usually played with paper domino cards, but it can also be adapted to a standard Chinese domino set.
Many other games were popular in the past but are now almost forgotten. Some, like the solitaire game Zen solitaire or the Korean collecting game Tok are quite interesting and are still played by small groups of enthusiasts.
Chinese domino sets often include dice. The dice are traditionally used for dealing, and in some games they are an important part of the gameplay itself, most notably in the Tibetian game Bagchen.
Crash Course in Chinese Dominoes
If you want a quick but solid introduction, start with these pages:
Articles:
- Chinese deck and traditions - to understand the structure of the deck
- Tiles and pairs ranking - to learn the ranking system used in many games
Games:
Or you can return to the Home Page and read the modules in order, or simply explore whatever interests you most.