Sources

We are now moving to games whose rules were not easy to reconstruct. Before describing them, I would like to explain where the rules come from — and who Culin is, since his name will appear often from this point on.

Where did the rules come from?

So where did I get the rules for all these games?

Two games — Pai Gow and Tien Gow — are still actively played today. There are plenty of references to them, so finding reliable information is not a problem.

With most other games, things are more complicated. Even with Ding Niu, which is still played in China (mostly by the older generation), clear descriptions are not always easy to find.

One of the most important sources is Stewart Culin’s book “ Chinese Games With Dice and Dominoes “ (1889).

Culin described games played by Chinese immigrants in the United States. Because of this, he used Cantonese transliterations of game names rather than Mandarin. He did not provide the original Chinese characters, so I had to search for them in other sources.

Culin described slightly less than half of the currently known Chinese domino games. Unfortunately, some of his descriptions contain mistakes or are difficult to understand.

For example:

• Some rules seem to be broken. Computer simulations show that the Korean collecting game Jjak-mat-chu-gi ends in a draw in about 90% of cases.

• Some games break common gameplay patterns — for example, one collecting game allows two moves in a row, which is more typical of fishing games.

• In some cases, the number of tiles mentioned in the text does not match the illustrations (as in the Turtle solitaire).

• The most confusing description is probably Barbarian Tablets (Ho-hpai). The explanation is so complicated that many websites simply copy it without clarification, hoping someone will understand it.

Despite these problems, Culin’s book contains invaluable information. Some games are described clearly, and others can be reconstructed with logic and comparison. So we should still be very grateful to Culin.

Other English Sources

Many English-language websites simply copy Culin’s rules without editing them.

A notable exception is pagat.com, a site mainly dedicated to card games but with a section on dominoes. Its author, John McLeod, clearly cares about preserving these games. While he may not personally test every rule (which is understandable given the number of games), he carefully considers unclear points and listens to feedback from readers.

Pagat lists only those Culin games whose rules can be reasonably reconstructed. For example, Barbarian Tablets is not included there (at least at the time of writing).

In fact, Pagat was my main entry point into Chinese domino games. It includes playable versions of Culin’s games, as well as additional games from other sources (some of which I helped to find).

Pagat rarely speculates. You will not see something like: “Here are the rules; I am not sure how they work, but maybe like this.” This is good in terms of reliability, though sometimes it means less detail.

Fortunately, I had active correspondence with John McLeod. He shared with me some games whose rules he could not fully decipher, and I shared with him translations of games found on the Chinese internet.

Chinese Sources

Naturally, Chinese-language sources are essential.

Chinese Wikipedia turned out to contain descriptions of games that were completely absent from the English-speaking internet — for example, Xiang Shi Fu and Guo Wu Guan. These games have since appeared on Pagat.

Wikipedia also described connecting games that were only partially known in English.

Since Wikipedia is blocked in mainland China, I also used Baidu Baike, the Chinese equivalent. There I found more detailed rules for Ding Niu. Unfortunately, even these descriptions were sometimes unclear. The problem was not my limited Chinese — native speakers also told me the explanations were confusing.

To be fair, describing game rules clearly is genuinely difficult. It is easy to omit small but important details, or to mix strategy advice with actual rules. This explains many of the inconsistencies.

Other Books and Blogs

I also translated parts of a Portuguese book about games in Macau: Jogos, brinquedos e outras diversões populares de Macau

The book mostly repeats Culin, but it includes at least one unique game: Da Ling (Playing Zeroes). It also describes Tau Ngau, with slightly different calculations than those listed on Pagat.

At one time, I explored Chinese blogs on blog.sina.com.cn. Unfortunately, many of them are now unavailable (one of these blogs was located here: http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1654037892 and maybe one day it will be online again). From those blogs, I learned rules for some solitaire games and Little Mahjong.

On one of these blogs I found an email address. I wrote to it — and to my surprise, received a reply. This is how my correspondence with Mr. Ming FanXin (闵凡信) began. He clarified many unclear points, including rules mentioned on Wikipedia, and shared additional games such as Moving Mice and Eight Trigrams.

Videos and Real Play

I also searched for Chinese videos of people playing dominoes. These helped me see how games are played in practice, especially Ding Niu and Tien Gow.

In some videos, Tien Gow was played by rules that differ from the standard version. Since this variant has no specific name (players simply call it “domino”), I refer to it as Folk Tien Gow.

Other Materials

There were also forum discussions and blog posts dedicated to individual games. Whenever possible, I cite sources on the relevant pages.

Finally, while not exactly a source, you may find it interesting to look at the Java code I wrote to simulate the games. I used it to test how the rules behave in practice and to detect logical problems:

https://github.com/navpil/gupai

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