Dmytro Polovynka

Folk Tien Gow

When searching for videos of people playing Tien Gow, I often encountered games that differed noticeably from the classical rules. The core trick-taking mechanics remained the same, but many details - deck composition, combinations, bidding, and scoring - varied.

I refer to these versions as “Folk Tien Gow”, because the players themselves simply call it Tien Gow, even though it differs from the classical form.

If you have not yet read the article on classic Tien Gow rules , 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 what the deck contains:

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.


Example of a Folk Tien Gow deck

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.

When played with 30 tiles, three people play and everyone receives 10 tiles.

Combinations

Since there are not enough military tiles in a set of 24 tiles, there are no mixed combinations. Only pure pairs remain.

But two combinations of three tiles are added:

The second beats the first, nothing beats the second.

Bidding

Sometimes there is a bidding round after the deal. The players declare whether they will play or not. If no one wants to play, then there is a redeal. If the bidder is alone, then he immediately wins. If there are more bidders, then the game is played and the settlement is made only between the players who have declared the game.

Bidding is not done in turn, but simply by laying out the domino tiles face down and then revealing them at the same time.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine precisely which tiles correspond to “play” or “pass.” My working hypothesis is that one of the top four civilian tiles may indicate “play,” and the rest “pass,” but this remains speculative.

It is also possible that players who declare “play” and lose pay more than those who passed.

My reconstruction is based primarily on video evidence and a partially understood forum answer (given on a separate page). For comparison, see the Mo Hua Hua rules, which contain a clearer example of similar bidding logic.

Victory and calculation

In many Folk Tien Gow variants, taking the last trick is not decisive. Instead, players count total tricks won.

Scoring is often simplified. For example:

Notably, classical Tien Gow scoring cannot be directly applied in:

In these cases, the classical “below four tricks” logic does not function, since the total number of tricks differs from the standard eight.

Mo Hua Hua

Because I reconstructed these Folk Tien Gow rules from videos and fragmentary sources, errors are possible.

However, there exists a related game — Mo Hua Hua — whose rules, although not entirely clear, are better documented. Despite being played with paper dominoes, it shares many structural similarities with Folk Tien Gow and can help clarify several obscure aspects.

I therefore recommend reading about Mo Hua Hua next.

Video sources: