“Duzi He" 笃子胡-- A Chinese playing-card game

Having featured the playing-cards of Nantong, I shall now describe a game played with them. My main sources are the Chinese Baidu and Wikipidia articles , along with Hu Baishen胡柏生 and Du Guoyuan杜国元's  book Nantong long-cards-- Talking about Dazihe (Nantong Changpai-- Hua shuo dazihe 南通长牌-- 话说搭子和). published by The People's literary and artistic publishers  (dazong wenyi chubanshe) 大众文艺出版社. This book will be referred to as H&D.

  The game goes under several names. The Baidu article calls it“Duzi Hu" 笃子胡. H&D call it Dazi hu, 搭子和. This is the name used in Rugao city, also in Nantong.

Equipment: One deck of Nantong playing-cards. Readers without access to such cards can substitute a Mahjong set, or use ordinary playing cards, as explained below

Players This is a game for four people. However only three play each hand. The player who deals the cards sits out. The dealer for the first round is selected by lot. H&D suggest using four playing cards, Ace, 2, 3, and 4. The one who gets 4 will become the dealer, and sit out. The player who drew the ace is the "Banker" 庄家. He plays first, followed by the players who drew the 2 and 3. The deal then rotates counterclockwise.

Deal The cards are shuffled and dealt. The banker is dealt 23 cards, the rest of the players are dealt 22. Once the deal is completed,  The next two cards of the stock are turned up. These are the 将牌, literally "General cards" . The cards are examined.

1) If the General cards are both "Generals", i.e:
  a: The Nine of strings
  b: The white flower
  c: The Red flower
  d: The Thousand children
Then this is called " Double Big General"
2) If the The general cards only contain One "General" , and one other card, then this is called " Big General"
3) If None of the general cards contain Generals, this is called "Small general"

Melds with these cards affect the scoring [...] 

Declarations: The players first inspect their hands. If they contain either
   a) A four-of-a-kind
   b) Sufficient General cards to make a pong or Gong [ see "Melds" ] with the turned up general. E.G. If a 5 of coins was turned up as a General, and a player's hand contains two 5 of coins, He can declare them, and receive extra points.

The former is called 撂龙 Liao Long, the latter  起插 Qi Cha  if it is a pong, or 合子 He Zi  if it is  gong.

Play.  The game is much like mahjong.

The "Banker" inspects his hand, and chooses to discard a card. [or declare a meld] The second player then draws a card from the stock, [declare any melds], and then discards another card. The card discarded does not have to be the same as the one drawn. The process repeats itself, until someone has successfully melded off his hand. This is called 胡

Players can "Pong", but cannot "Chow" [BD]

Melds. 

These melds are similar to that in Mahjong. [H&D]

1) 搭子 tazi /Stacks, also called 顺子 Shunzi / "Smooth"
A "Run". Three cards in sequence, belonging to the same suit. 7,8 and 9 of strings; 4,5,6 of Myriads are examples. The 1,2 and 3 of coins is a special meld, called 文钱Wenqian - “Cash". This meld [...]

对子Duizi  Pair--
Two cards identical and suit and rank. Self-explanatory.

2 )刻子Ke zi ” Cut ones" and 坎 "Kan" -- "Pong" 
In Mahjong, called a Pong. These refer to three cards, identical in suit and rank. E.G.  Three 5 of coins, or three 7 of strings.  Three cards of the same rank, but different suits are not considered a meld. The player can gain the cards by drawing from the stock. If he has a pair of cards, and another player discards the third card, a pong can also be made
A Pong involving the General cards is called 底插-- Di Cha


杠--Gang "Gong"
A four-of-a-kind. Can be obtained through drawing from the stock, or having a pong, and another player discarding the fourth card.

Scoring table:

The column headed "Meld" describes the meld. Each meld is split into two rows. The top row shows what the cards score if they are normal cards; the bottom row if they are General cards. Each of the columns that intersect it show the score each meld obtains, depending on the situation with the General cards.

Meld	Cards	Small Gen.	Big Gen.		Double Gen.
			Not a Pair	Pair	Not a Pair	Pair
碰Peng “Pong” As in mahjong, a three-of-a-kind, produced by capture.	Nom’l	2	4	8	8	16
	Gen’l	4	8	16	16	32
坎 Kan: As above, but present in hand[dealt] , or created by drawing	Nom’l	4	8		16
	Gen’l	8	16		32
打杠 Da Gang “Gong”.  As in mahjong. Can be created by extension of a pong	Nom’l	8	16		32
	Gen’l	8	32		64
提子Ti zi : As gong, but created by drawing	Nom’l	16	24		48
	Gen’l	12	48		96
起插 Qi Cha A Kan, involving the general cards, found in the hand when first dealt.	Nom’l	24		32		64
	Gen’l			64		128
撂龙 Liao Long : A four of a kind [gong] present at the hand when first drawn	Nom’l	16	32		64
	Gen’l	32		128
底插 Di Cha A Kan, involving the general cards, formed by drawing from the stock at play	Nom’l			24	48
	Gen’l			48	96
合子He zi When a player has a pair of cards, that is identical to the general card turned up, that is present at the start of play	Nom’l	64
	Gen’l	128
三龙会齐 San Long Hui Qi  :A Pong, kong, Ti, cha, or kan that involve the red flower, white flower or 1000 children.	和值翻双Score doubled.

The Jokers of the Nantong Deck. 

Play with jokers: Most Nantong decks come with five jokers.  The Jokers are not strictly necessary for play,and are not usually used. They function exactly like "Flowers" in mahjong. If a player is dealt jokers, or receives them from the stock, he exposes them, and draws replacements from the stock. He also gains bonus points. If the jokers are turned up as the general cards, then the scores are doubled. "The jokers can only be used when all four players agree to do so" [H&D]


Winning 

Play ends when a player has successfully melded off his entire hand, or when the stock runs out. A completely melded hand has 23 cards, consisting of a pair of identical cards, plus a number of melds. It can be done one of three ways

1:清胡 Qing Hu  "Clear game" : One pair , and Seven runs.
2 飘胡 Piao Hu  “Fluttering game" : One pair, with the rest of the cards being melded either as"Cut ones", or as "Cash", or some combination of both. [BD]
3: 塌子胡 Ta Zi Hu "Collapsed game" : One pair, plus some combination of runs and trios. 

If the stock is exhausted without anyone melding off their hand, the game also ends. The hands of all the players are exposed, and the scores of each player reckoned. Such a situation is called 黄牌 Huang2 pai - Yellow cards, or 谎牌 Huang3 Pai -- Lying cards.

Scoring
The score of the winner's hand is tabulated according to the table above.
If the player has a "clear game" [i.e. no special combinations or multipliers...


Substitutes:
If the reader has access to a set of mahjong tiles, he can easily adapt them to this game. This is done by removing the winds, flowers, and if desired, all but five of the jokers

  A substitute can also be made using four decks of western playing-cards.  Remove the court-cards of all the suits. Remove the suit of hearts, both courts and pips. Do the same for the remaining 3 decks. The ace to Nine are used to replace the 1-9 of each of the three suits . The Tens of each suit replace the  White Flower, Red Flower and Thousand Children. Add jokers if desired.

On Tarot and divination decks: Part 2

 As long-term readers of my blog may know, I used to take a rather dim view about the use of playing cards as instruments of divination. Recently, my attitude towards this has softened.

The fact that tarot was invented as a means of amusement,  this does not mean it is an an illegitimate method of divination. People have been divining using all sorts of things- thunder, stars, animal entrails, coins, the output of random number generators, etc. One can hardly say the stars were invented for the purposes of divination, but yet many people use them as such, and indeed, if we believe them, gain great meaning from doing so. 

In turn, the divinatory use of playing cards - tarot or piquet decks- is one use amongst the many uses of playing cards. Collectors of playing cards would impovrish their collections, and indeed, their knowledge of playing cards if they ignore these divinatory uses. 

Further, these divinatory meanings traced in their instruments. Consider tarot. Cards are interpreted differently, depending if they are upright or reversed. As such, this means all modern divinatory tarot decks are produced in such a manner that they are single-faced. In turn, many of the tarot pips are made in what are other contexts called 'transformation' cards; the particular figures on each card corresponding to the card's divinatory meaning 

Thus, just as much as collectors of playing cards should be aware of the games that these cards are used to play, they also ought to pay attention to the manner in which the cards are used for divination. 

Update 2: Hiatus, regular posting is to be ceased indefinitely

 Dear readers: 

This blog has been around for nearly a decade, but alas, For various personal reasons, I doubt if I am able to maintain this blog for much longer; the monthly posting schedule is unlikely to be resumed. 

Posts will still come, however they are unlikely to be on any regular schedule

 

Update:

 Dear readers:

 This account has been running for a decade now. Unfortunately for personal reasons, I had to suspend my monthly posts, and  must suspend my posting schedule from now until about July- August 

I am yours, &c. 

Anthony Lee 

A divinatory form of "Roll call patience"

Some years ago I made assertion that there is only one form patience that has a use as a fortune telling method. https://anthonylesq.blogspot.com/2013/08/oracle-patience-two-descriptions.html 

I am evidently wrong. 

This unusual form of card divination that I feature here can be found on p 30 of Muhammed Ali's "Telling fortunes by cards" [Cartlon B Case] as method D. It is a curious cross between a game of patience and a divination method, specifically, the very simple form of patience  sometimes called "Roll call" or "Hit or miss". Here is a video showing how you play it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMTJtLrH6WE (I recall reading a book saying that this form of patience, without the divinatory function, is the most efficient waster of time after television--)

***

Below is shown the original text of the work, taken from https://archive.org/details/tellingfortunesb00case/page/30/mode/2up . Another version can be found here https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42008/42008-h/42008-h.htm#Page_30

***

The instructions, are in summary: 

1. - Shuffle the 52-card pack
   
   
2. - Turn out cards, saying  " Ace , 2 [...] 10, jack, queen, king" and back to Ace. 
   
   
3. - Whenever the value of the card turned up matches that of the count, it is set aside as a "hit". 
   
   
4. - if 2 or 3 cards of the same value are also turned out, they too are set aside, even if they do not match the count.
   
   
5. - "Runs"  [e.g. 2, 3, 4] are also set aside as hits , even if they do not match the count, 
   
   
6. - the misses are reformed into a pack, and steps 1-5 are repeated with them twice more.
   
   
7. - The hits are collected (presumably without shuffling), and dealt out in 4 piles, two cards at a time. 
   
   
8. - The book shows the piles as arranged in the form of a cross, each pile named after a cardinal direction, like this: 

North
West    East
South. 

Interpretation: 

- each  pile is read is an indication of the future. North represents the most immediate future, followed by South, then East, then west,

- Carter provides two sets of meanings, one "ancient' and another  "modern" for each card of the 52 card pack. 

- Of the two the modern seems to be suited to this method; most of the ancient meanings are directly related to marriage. 

**

Astute readers would note that this method does not answer specific questions (eg "will i get a job"?) , but rather general open ended readings about what would happen in the future, probably about a week or so. 

Regarding the ancient and modern meanings of the cards,  (pp 12 and 20, respectively) they too are worth commenting upon. Consider the auspiciousness of the suits: In the ancient system, the suits are ranked thus: 

Clubs: Most Auspicious suit signify happiness
Hearts: "lovemaking, invitations and good friends"
Diamonds: Money,
Spades : Least auspicious suit, annoyance, loss. 

But, in the modern system, Case reverses the auspiciousness of clubs and diamonds,  so diamonds (representing wealth) are more auspicious than clubs, which are reinterpreted as "business matters". Those with a marxist bent would clearly see the stamp of capitalism on this matter-- wealth literally trumping relatonships... 

"Lad" pattern 童子

"Lad" pattern, 童子, anon 128 cards, namely 

3 suits

9 cards each suit + 3 extra

4 copies of each of the above;

to which are added 

additional 8 cards   

. 

A deck of money-suited cards purchased in China. They are made of plastic, and have square corners. 

The suit of coins, on the left, the ace, and so on till the 9; the penultimate card on the right 

Notice the delightfully careless way the 8 of coins is arranged

The leftmost card [i.e. the one with the red stripe is the 白花, White Flower] 

The suit of strings. As you may have noticed, these cards have scoops in the top, which serve as indices

the 9 of coins is also arranged in a delightfully careless manner 

The leftmost card is what appears to be a bonus; he has a red X on his chest 

The suit of myriads. The faces are rather mask-like. The 8 of myriads has a small dab of coloir on his head. 

The fouur bonus cards on the deck. 

The third card from the left, depicting a standing figure, is the 童子, or boy

The fourth card from the left, with two red squiuggles is the 千萬, thousand myriad

The back depicts the word 福, prosperity 

Yellow Fish 黄鱼

 黄鱼 = yellow Fish, 120c [30 x 4] 

This deck of money-suited cards comes from _______, China. It is structured much like most common money-suited cards, but it has several interesting features. 

The suit of coins. As you can see, the first unusual feature of this deck is its colour: It is printed in on a yellow background. Ace is on the left, and the 9 is the penultimate card on the right. The 2 of coins contains the word 成, "Complete". 

 The rightmost card is akin to the "Dragons" in Mahjong. Its name is 代宗, one of the emperors of the Tang dynasty, 

The suit of strings. On the left is the ace of strings, which has been depicted as a fish, hence the patern;s name. Notice the marks in the black portion of all the cards; these are the indices. For example, all the aces have a scoop cut on the left, the 2s have a circle, etc. Unlike other decks of money-suited cards, the markings here do not change with the suit. 

The bonus card [rightmost card] depicts Wu Song 武松, one of the heroes of the Chinese novel The water Margin  水浒传. 

The suit of myridads.Each depicts a human visage, and is named after a character of the Water Margin, The 8 of myriads is not named, and instead marked with 福 meaning Luck. The extra card  [2nd from the right] is labelled 刘唐

The back is shown as the rightmost card, The central motif is again the character Fu, meaning luck. 

"Blue Owl" lenormand

 Lenormand J.M.C. "Blue Owl"  Koningsfurt Urania (i.e. Cartamundi), 36c. 

This deck is one of a category of decks that are called "Lenormand" decks: cards specially produced for fortune telling purposes. As many of my readers are unlikely to be knowledgable in fortune-telling, but would nonetheless be interested in knowing more about these cards, I have generated a short introduction to them. 

These cards are named after the 18th century french diviner Madam Lenormand. However( and this is the consensus in the divinatory community) these cards only appeared after her death.  The earliest antecedent of these cards was a set of "coffee cards" published in 1796. https://marykgreer.com/2013/07/12/a-new-lenormand-deck-discovery/, and subsequently taken up by German publishers. 

These cards are a French-suited deck of 36 cards, [i.e. 6-10, J, Q, J, A in each suit] structured identically as those which are used to play Jass. 

The playing-card motifs are consigned to a small corner of each of the cards. The vast majority of each card is taken up by a symbol. It is this symbol that is most immediately important to divinatory purposes. Indeed, some decks omit the playing-card figure entirely.  

There are 36 symbols, one for each card of the deck. Unlike the exotic trumps of the tarot, these symbols are perfectly mundane. Examples include, the Lilly, the Scythe, The Key, the book, and the Dog. A full list of them (along with basic divinatory meanings) can be found here. https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/learn-tarot-with-labyrinthos-academy/an-introduction-to-lenormand-cards-plus-lenormand-card-meaning-list

 Each card in this deck is numbered continually from 1 to 36, although not in the manner that seems logical. Here is the layout 

There are several Lenormand decks made by playing-card companies. This is the most common, made by Koningsfurt Urania, the arm of cartamundi that produces divinatory decks.  It is typically  called the "Blue Owl" from the design of its back

As mentioned above, the pips of the cards are consigned to a small corner of the deck; Nonetheless, they are still legible; they show a french-suited deck that has no indices. The author has been unable to conclusively identify what pattern these cards are of. 

The number answering to each cards is fund in a circle on the left-hand corner. Some cards have numbers in both circles; others, like this, have only one number, the other taken up with monogram "M" 

These cards are made fairly small- much smaller than both poker and European-style decks. There is a pragmatic reason behind this. Many of the "spreads" used in  fortune-telling involve spreading the cards out on a surface. In one case, the "Grand tableau", all 36 cards are spread out. Hence, the cards must be made as small as possible, so they can take up less space. 

The aces of Hearts and spades play a special role in this fortune-telling system. They are respectively, the Man and the woman. These cards represent the person who is setting the question to the oracle, the man if the :querent is a man, and the woman if the querent is a woman. By examining the cards that immediately surround this card, predictions may be made on what would happen to the querent 

The box. The left hand side shows the back of the cards, which depicts a Blue Owl. It is this feature that gives the cards their common name 

Trumps of the Bourgeois Tarot

The subjects of the trumps of Italian suited tarots have been the subject of much attention. The subjects on the french-suited counterparts have not been so well-studied. Granted, there is much diversity in French-suited tarots as a whole. But one particular variety, the  Bourgeois Tarot displays remarkable stability in the subject of the trump-cards.

 I shall thus attempt a thorough description of the trump cards. I have used three decks in my research:
1: A deck published by Grimauld of France, purchased c. 2011 ( previously featured Here)
2: A deck published by "Corfalu Kim'play", Purchased c. 2012 ( Previosuy featured Here)
3: A deck published by Modanio,

Some attempts have been made to describe the trump-cards [ https://sites.google.com/site/tacticclub/Home/introduction/l-histoire-du-tarot ( in French) and http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards28.htm], but none of them have been extremely detailed in their descriptions. I therefore attempt to provide such a description.

No	Description of scene	Polett’s titles	Wikipedia’s titles
1	Jester and lady/ Man in frock coat talks to Perrot	Individual Foolishness	Folly, individual.
2	Girls play at skipping, dolls, etc, / Boys play at soldiers	Childhood	Childhood
3	Three women promenading in street/ Men and women loiter in park	Adolescence	Youth
4	Seated women with child on lap, girl sitting in door playing flute/Interior scene,  Two men  seated in table talking	Mature age	Maturity
5	Interior scene. Two seated women, one sewing other knitting while girl looks on. / Bearded man talks to girl, two boys playing at soldiers standing by	Elderly age	Old age
6	Reapers in field/ Interior scene, Two women seated at table drinking tea.	Morning	Morning
7	Workingmen and women resting in a field/ Interior scene, seated woman holds letter to seated man	Midday	Afternoon
8	Family scene; seated man and women with girl on knee, another girl looks on / Man accompanied by lady pianist sings to an audience	Evening	Evening
9	Man standing with one leg on rock, dog looks on/ Man enters doorway, looks furtively at another smoking, but looking other way	Nighttime	Night
10	Men breaking stones/ Shepherd sitting in field with goats	Earth and Air	Earth/air
11	Man rows woman on lake / men and women at a picnic	Water and fire	Water/ fire
12	Country dance/ Ballroom dance	Dancing	Dance
13	Rural women buying cloth at a draper’s / Urban men and women in a room (department store?)	Shopping	Shopping
14	Hunting party with dogs/ Men fishing with nets on boat, and angling	Open air	Open air
15	Man painting while girl looks on/Man take photograph of seated woman	Art	Visual arts
16	Sheep-shearing scene/  gardener waters plant while well-dressed family look on	Spring	Spring
17	Horse-racing scene / Women winnowing?	Summer	Summer
18	Market scene / Men threshing grain	Autumn	Autumn
19	Interior scene, Women spinning, man reading / Skaters	Winter	Winter
20	Men play at lawn bowling/ Men play at cards	Games	The game
21	Ballroom dance / Military parade, with jester looking on.	Collective foolishness	Folly, collective