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. 

进忠棋牌= Jinzhong Chess cards

进忠棋牌，2688 56+4副

Yet another set of cards based on Chinese chess pieces. Similar cards are called Si Se Pai -- Four Colour cards; and have been featured several times before (Eg This, This, and This ). However, the deck featured here has but two suits, red and black.

The red suit. In the middle of each card are found depictions of two Chinese lanterns. On them are written the words 棋牌 QiPai = Chess Cards. 

The black suit. Like actual chinese chess sets, the characters for the equivalent ranks are written slightly differntly between the suits. 

This deck is unusual, as the black suit has an extra card, (shown on the far right of the image) which is the "Brave" 勇. 

The Box 

Four suited money cards 2-- Six Red cards 六紅牌

'Three A Strip cards' [Six red cards] Ningpo three A Group co. Ltd.  36c.
三A 條牌[六紅牌], 寧波三A集團有限公司 -- 36副

Some readers are already familliar with the Hakka Six tiger cards. These belong to a family of Chinese money suited cards that have four suits, instead of the usual three.

The deck featured here is called  六紅牌 Liu Hong Pai --Six Red cards. They are also known as 狗兒牌 Gou'er pai -- Doggy cards. Before you ask -- Kitty cards （貓貓牌, maomao pai) do exist. 

These cards are used in Leshan, Sichuan 樂山, 四川. The four suits are  拾 Shi, tens ; 貫 Guan "Strings of a thousand coins" 束, Shu, "strings" and 毛 Mao, "coins". The Chinese Wikipedia Article  describes the cards. The cards are used to play a game called 扯馬股, The Wikipedia article also notes the game is played with a stripped-down "Poker" [i.e. Anglo-American] deck. For such a game, only the Ace-9 of each suit are used.

拾
The shapes of the suits are extremely stylized. The author cannot identify the names of the suits with absolute certainty.

The Ace (?) has the character printed in red, rather than Black. The characters on it seem to be a distorted version of  百元  = Bai Yuan = Hundred Dollars?

貫

The suit sign looks like a scowling man or some pedestal. Note the curiously shaped Nine, which is printed in red. It resembles an elephant's trunk or a person's leg. 

束

The figure of the suit resembles a fish. Again, the Nine is printed in red. 

毛？

The author cannot identify the suit with certainty. The nine is in this instance, printed in black. The card labelled "1" he thinks is the Ace. However, he is not sure of its identity, or what are the highly stylized characters are. 

Here are the numerals of the deck. 

Four suited money cards 1: Kitty cards (MaoMao pai)

[Kitty cards], Jingzhong Tianzi No. 2065 , 36c.
[貓貓牌] 進忠天子 No. 2065, 36副
These cards were made in Chongzhou , Sichuan.
There is almost no information about this deck online. The Chinese wikipedia article considers this deck to be a kind of Six Tiger card, which comes from Chongzhou, Sichuan. I have doubts if the cards are actually used to play the game of 'six tigers'. However, there is nothing in the structure of the deck that prevents you from doing so. The name literally translates as 'kitty cards'. Before you ask, yes, Doggy cards do exist.

The suit of tens 拾. 

The first thing to note about the cards, is their central illustration. Each card has  rather elegant line drawing of a flower. The suit-symbols of the cards are less stylized than other cards of their family; they still bear some resemblance to the normal forms of the chinese numerals. 

The card labelled '1' in the above illustration seems to have the inscription 歪子- "Slanted child"

That card has the maker's telephone number on it 

The suit of 贯, or Guan

Note the red mark on the Nine of each suit. 

The suit of 索, or strings. 

The suit- character is so stylized the author cannot identify it with certainty. 

The suit of cash, or 钱. 

The character has been abbreviated to 戋, the right-hand portion of the full character. 

The card labelled 1 seems to be the ace in this suit, but the author cannot identify it with certainty. Like the card in the suit of tens, it has the maker's telephone number written on it. The deck featured on the Chinese wiki article has a maker's name in its stead.  The maker's name is Wang Yi 王亿. From an examination of the deck, we find it is identical to the present deck, the maker's name excepted. 

Shang Da Ren cards 2 - Hubei

"Shashi Excellent Shang Da Ren cards" , Shashi, 96c.
《沙石精品上大人》,沙石, 96 副

These cards are popularly used in Wuhan, a place in Hubei. Unlike the cards featured previously These cards have a variant form of the text. The text is identical to the standard version, except the last line/ This reads Fu Lu Shou 福祿壽 "Fortune, Rank and Longevity" instead of the usual Ke Zhi Li 可知禮 "And hence understand courtesy and manners" . Decks that possess such an alteration are called 'Fu Lu Shou cards"; indeed, a game bears this name

The altered text thus reads as follows:

Ch	Pinyin	Translation, after Hans Steinmüller
上大人	Shang da ren	His greatness,
孔乙己	Kong Yi Ji	Confucius,
化三千	Hua San Qian	has taught three thousand children,
七十士	Qi Shi Shi	of which Seventy became virtuous scholars.
爾小生	Er Xiao Shen	A young scholar like you,
八九子	Ba Jiu Zi	should study from eight or Nine sages,
往作仁	Wang zuo ren	should learn to be benevolent,
福祿壽	Ful Lu Shou	Fortune, Rank, Longevity"

N.B. The author has altered The last line of Hans Steinmüller's translation to reflect the Deck's composition. 

It is tempting to read the altered last line, as describing the benefits of being benevolent. Or it could be an attempt to inject an added layer of auspiciousness to the cards.

N.B. The numbers are ordered from Right to Left 

1:上   2:大   3:人   4:孔  5:乙   6:己

The First Six cards. The most notable feature of the cards, is they are coloured. The colours follow a consistent pattern-- Red for the first character of each line, Green for the second, and black for the third. 

The other notable feature of this deck in particular are the 'indices' In the top left-hand corner, rendering the cards in a more legible font. This is rather helpful. Note the great variance on the way the character on card 4 ("Confucius")  is written, and its standard form 孔. 

 7:化   8:三   9:千 10:七   11:十   12 :士   

The next six cards. Note card 8 ("Three"), written in a manner that suggests brushstrokes. 

13:尔(=爾) 14:小 15:生   16: 八   17 :九  18 :子

Card No. 13 ('You') is written using the cursive form of the character 爾. 

19: 佳 20: 作 21:仁 22:福 23:祿  24:壽

The last two lines. Cards 22-23 are particularly stylized. 

As mentioned above, the last three characters read "Fortune, Rank and Longevity" instead of the usual "And hence understand courtesy and manners“。 

The box contains the delightful inscription

严禁賭博

仅供娛乐

Yan Jin Dubo
Jin Gong Yu Le

Gambling strictly prohibited;
For leisure only

Four colour cards [3] Guangshui Cards

[four colour cards] Anon, 112c, China
《四色牌》112副
This deck comes from Guangshui, 廣水 a city in Hubei 湖北,

The red and white suits. The first thing to note is the form the characters take. They have become extremely stylized. My transcriptions into standard font are seen below, as well as their English equivalents. As for the Valet and Soldier, I am not certain about their identification, and they may have been transposed. 

The backs of the cards (A) are plain, grey cardboard. Note, that in the white suit the cards have a small tinge of red on their narrow edge. 

The green and Yellow suit. For a comparison, see here,"Hokkien"  "Double Phoenix" and  Singaporean  Cards. 

Note that all the characters in the four suits are identical in this deck. 

The Chinese Wikipedia has an Article about the cards, and the game played with them. 

Shang Da Ren cards 1

"Shang Da Ren" cards, Taizhou Luqiao playing-card factory ,96 c.
[上大人牌]，台州市路桥商海字牌厂  96副。

We now turn our attention to a sort of playing-card that is hardly known in the west-- the Shang da ren cards. These cards pop up occasionally in the literature, but to my knowledge,nothing substantial has been written about them.

These cards are based on an old Chinese text, that is 24 characters long. It was much used in former times as a penmanship exercise. It goes:

Shang Da Ren, Kong Yi Ji, Hua San Qian, Shi Qi Shi. Er Xiao Shen, Ba Jiu Zi, Wang Zuo ren, Ke Zhi Li. 

"His greatness, Confucius, has taught three thousand children, of which Seventy became virtuous scholars. A young scholar like you, should study from eight or Nine sages, should learn to be benevolent, and hence understand courtesy and manners" 

The first translation is by  Hans Steinmüller, in Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China, p.189. Pages 188-194 contain a fascinating discussion of the game involving the cards ( called Shaofo in the book).  Another translation is found in the 1901 Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber page 193. In my opinion, it is slightly less accurate than Steinmüller's. 

For the reader's convenience,the table above shows the characters of the text. The characters are numbered and have the pinyin Romanzation added to them. The two translations are also presented, broken down line-by-line. 

The cards are named after the first three characters of the text, Shang Da Ren- "His greatness" 

Each of the playing-cards bear one character of the text. This unit is repeated a number of times, to form the whole deck. In the deck below, the basic unit is repeated 4 times, yielding a 96 card deck.

 There are a huge variety of Playing-cards bearing this 24 character text. Some of them alter the phrasing of the text, others omit large sections of it. In all cases, the characters used are  heavily stylized, almost illegible except to the initiated. There are a variety of games played with these decks, which I hope to explain in a subsequent post.

This particular deck comes from Hubei, a province in Northern China. The cards are popular there.

1:上 2:大 3:人 4:孔（邱?）5:乙 6:己 7:化 8:三 9:千

The first three lines of the text. Cards 1, 2 and 3, "His Greatness" are printed in red. The inscriptions on cards 4, 5, and 6,(孔乙己) show barely any resemblance to the standard forms of the characters. 

[ The author suspects the card 4 does not depict the word Kong 孔, Confucius' family name, but a highly stylized version of Qiu,邱 his given name] 

10:七   11:十   12 :士   13:爾 14:小 15:生   16: 八   17 :九  18 :子
The next three lines of the text.  Note that the middle card of each trio is marked with a red spot. Card No. 13, I think is 爾, but cannot say for certain. 

19: 佳 20: 作 21:仁 22:可 23:知  24:礼

The last two lines of the text, in their glorious illegibility.

Below is a very brief and general summary of the games played with this family of cards. 

The game played with these cards is similar to Rummy or Mahjong, which it more closely resembles.
Players are dealt a hand of cards. In each turn, a player draws a card from the stock, forms melds with it (if possible) , and then discards a card from his hand. The subsequent player may capture the previous player's discard to form a meld of their own.  Players win by successfully melding off their entire hand.

 There are several types of meld. the first form is multiple copies of a single card, as for example three copies of the card 大 ( No. 2).  The second form is three cards that constitute a sentence of the text, as for example 化三千 ( cards 7,8, and 9).   Melds involving certain cards are reckoned to score higher than others. 

Long cards 4: 樂山圈牌 Leshan cards

No. 8090,  Leshan Quanpai, Leshan Wanchengda industry Co Ltd, 80+10c.

No. 8090 樂山圈牌， 萬盛達 80+10

This is yet another form of "Long cards". They are used in Leshan, a part of Sichuan, China. These cards do indeed deserve the title of "Long cards". They are significantly longer than most kinds of Chinese playing card, ( 12 x 2.5 cm).

These cards belong to a family known in the west as "Character cards". The Chinese Name, 圈牌, Quanpai, "Round cards" may refer to the distinctive shape of the figures printed on them. The cards are also known as 樂山橋牌 -- Leshaqn Qiaopai -- "Leshan Bridge cards".  The Western game of Bridge shares the same name 橋牌Qiaopai , but as far as I know the games played with the Leshan deck have nothing to do with the Western game. They are occasionally known as 樂山貳七拾, Leshan er-qi-shi --Leshan Two-Seven-Ten  , after a game played with the cards,

As mentioned in a previous post, these cards use the two forms of Chinese Numeral as "Suits" , each suit containing the ranks from 1 to 10.

The suit of "Large writing" Below the cards are the standard forms of the characters depicted, as well as the Arabic numbers they correspond to.  The characters have become extremely stylized, more so than other kinds of card. 

The 1 of this suit reminds me of a stout man wearing a bowler hat. 

The maker's name, Wanchengda is printed in the middle of each card. 

The suit of small writing. Again, the corresponding standard forms of the characters are printed below each card.  In this deck, the large suit is printed in red, and the small suit in black. This is unlike other forms of Number cards, like the Luzhou deck. In such a deck, only the Two, Seven and Ten of each suit are printed in red, the rest of the cards printed in black.

Note card of rank 9 (2nd from right). The prominent Loop has three gaps in it. This suggests the cards were originally printed by stencil. Examination of the large suit bears this out. There are no complete white-on-red shapes. All shapes have a small gap in them, necessary for supporting the stencil. 
The brash simplicity of the 1 is rather pleasing.

The deck comes with a set of Ten extra cards, each numbered with an Arabic Number from 1-10. The first three are shown above. Each card possesses the same motif on both sides (i.e, no "Backs"). I have yet to find out their function. 

Games played with this deck:

As mentioned above, the main game played with the deck is called " Two-Seven-Ten" 

樂山貳七拾, Leshan er-qi-shi --Leshan Two-Seven-Ten. This game is of the same family as rummy and mahjongg, but is closer to the latter. Players attempt to form melds of multiple copies of the same card, or sequences of cards. The game also has a special meld, which consists of the Two, Seven and Ten of each suit, hence the name. 

Gaming tiles from Singapore

[Gaming tiles], 32c. Anon. 

The tiles in their box. 

Some years ago, I saw a set of gaming-tiles from a Mahjong shop in Singapore. The tiles were extremely peculiar. The proprietor was ignorant about their function, and the objects themselves seemed very old. I nonetheless bought them, and they have been a mystery ever since. 

The box contained 32 tiles. The design of the tiles resembled the ones used for mahjong, but the similarities ended there. 

The complete deck

The complete 'Deck' contained 32 tiles, engraved on long, thin pieces of plastic. This sort of shape is typically associated with Chinese dominoes. But it had radically different subjects. As mentioned above, it had mahjong-like pips with ranks from 1 to 10, plus three 'Court cards', indexed in large Roman letters. The result is a sort of single-suited deck.

The Pips (1)

There is an unequal number of copies of each subject, as you can see here. There are two copies of the ace, the 2, 3, 4,5, 6, and 7 have three copies each. The 8,9 10 and courts again have two copies. 

The Pips (2)

The 7, 8, 9 and 10.  Up to the 8, the arrangement of pips agrees with those in mahjong tiles. The Nine and 10 diverge.  In mahjong tiles, the pips for the Nine are arranged in 3 rows of three. In this deck, they are arranged 5,4. The Ten is absent in a mahjong deck, so our engraver has arranged it 6,4

Three of the six courts. Note the large roundel that shows their rank. 

What sort of game is played with this deck? We can speculate. Counting was clearly an element in the game. But how the numbers were used is another open question. Why are there some cards with two copies of each, and others with three? A game like black-jack is a likely candidate. But the uneven distribution of cards would make the deck awkward to use for such a game. . There are Seven subjects that have two copies of each card (A, 8,9,10, J,Q,K), and Six subjects that have 3 copies of each (2,3,4,5,6,7)

Rank	Number of copies	Total
Ace, 8, 9, 10 Jack, Queen, King,	2	14 cards.
2,3,4,5,6,7	3	18 cards
Total number in deck -----------------------------------------		32 cards

Another possibility is a 'comparison' game, like Daun Tiga or Koo Kiew. The relative scarcity of high-ranked cards in the deck might make these games more challenging. 

The other three courts. 

The game might also have been played with English playing-cards, as the inclusion of the courts suggests. Three of the courts have a blue "Index", and the other three have this painted in red. Does the difference in coloring mean the color of the cards was significant in the game, or is it merely the maker wanting to introduce variety? 

The tiles. 

I do not think the set is incomplete. The tiles fit the box provided perfectly. The distribution of the ranks seems unlikely to be resulting from chance. But if it is not chance, what is the rationale? We can only speculate.


If any reader has more information on what these tiles are, or what game is played with them, the author will be most grateful.

Daun Tiga, or three cards-- part 2

" Daun tiga 'lei "
For part 1, see here 
Walter William Skeat's monumental Malay Magic: An introduction to the popular religion and folklore of the Malay Peninsula is a survey of the customs and folklore of the Malay Peninsula. To give an idea of the expanse of the work, here are some chapter headings "Crocodile folklore" "Funeral prayers" "Birth ceremonies". It was published in 1900.

The book contains two separate accounts of this game. The first and longer account was written by Sir W.E. Maxwell, the second by Skeat himself. Maxwell's description was previously published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic society.  Both descriptions are fairly patchy. They appear to be more concerned with the customs and rituals surrounding the game, than the game itself.

Both authors agree that there are regional variations in the game. Maxwell gives the version played in Perak. Skeat gives the version played in Selangor.

Play
  The cards are shuffled, and the player to the right of the deler cuts them. The player who cut the cards looks at the bottom card of those he lifts. If he thinks the card is lucky, he accepts the cut, and puts down the cards he lifted. The dealer reunites the deck. He then cuts and looks at the cards as before.
 Three cards are dealt out to each player.
Two stakes are deposited by each player, the Kepala ( head) and Ekor ( tail). The Ekor is usually of greater value than the Kepala.
 The cards of the players are then compared against the dealer. [Presumably, players whose hands rank higher than the dealer are paid out, and vice versa. Maxwell does not describe the process of payouts, other than the following detail--]
  If the dealer has one of the hands called Tĕrus (see below), and the player holds a less valuable hand, both Kepala and Ekor are taken.
 If players please, they may bet amongst one another, instead (or in addition to-- the book is unclear) of betting against the banker.

  Scoring 
The hands are ranked according to the point-score assigned to them. If the point-score exceeds 10, then ten is deducted from the total points to give the final score.
Malay Magic does not tell us the exact system of points, apart from saying "A Knave, ten and nine is a good hand" From this, one can assume that the scoring system is similar to the one in Dobree.

The following hands are known as Tĕrus. These hands outrank all other hands.

Three Aces, called Sat Tiga
Three Courts, called Kuda or Naik Kuda ( Three Horses -- A.L)
A hand with the value of Nine
A hand with the value of eight.

In Perak, a hand of three threes is considered bad luck. Whoever is dealt such a hand throws it out. Here's Maxwell:

"A Hand of three threes, being Nine, is really a good hand, but it is considered a propitation of good luck to throw it down ( without exposing it), announcing that one is buta ("out"-- literally "blind" A.L.), in the hope of getting good luck afterwards"

Any player who holds a score of exactly 30 is said to be out, unless he holds three court cards.

In Selangor, the hands considered as Tĕrus are slightly different:

Three Aces, called Tiga Sat
Three threes, called Tiga Jalor 
Three 10s, called Tiga Puloh ( Puloh = Puluh = Ten-- A.L)
Three Courts, called Tiga ankong 
A hand with the value of Nine
A hand with the value of eight.

Reading both accounts, one gets the idea that Dobree's game is a simplified version of the version found in Malay Magic. In Malay Magic, the contract of Long is obligatory. Apart from that, there are few differences between the games. 

The whole book may be seen here: 

https://archive.org/stream/malaymagicbeingi00skeauoft#page/486/mode/2up

車九 -- Koo Kiew (Che Jiu), A Chinese gambling game

I have recently been reading C. T. Dobree's remarkable The Gambling games of Malaya. This book, published in 1955. Dobree was the Assistant commissioner of police in Malaya at that time, and he intended the book to be used as a guide for policemen prosecuting illegal gambling dens [!]

There are several games of cards that are mentioned in this book, that have are otherwise unrepresnted in the english literature on this subject ( to my knowledge). One such game Dobree calls " Koo Kiew", or 車九. He also tells us that it is also called "Ten Kiew" 象九, and "Soo Kiew" 仕九

  Note that Dobree seems to be giving the names of the games in a variety (Hokkien? Teochew?) of Chinese. In standard Chinese (Mandarin) the names are rendered "Che Jiu", "Xiang Jiu" and "Shi Jiu" respectively.
 Regardless of the variety of Chinese, the names of the game all allude to the various ranks in the deck of cards used in the game. 車九 literally translates to as "Chariot-Nine", 象九 means "Elephant-Nine" and 仕九 means "Valet-Nine". The "Nine" in the name probably alludes to the highest point-score that can be obtained ( See below)

In Dobree's words: “ No skill at all is required for this game"; and for that reason I feel that it is ripe for reveival as a party game. It is a game that shares similarities to poker and baccarat.

This game is played with a deck of 四色 ( four colour) cards. For a description of this deck, see http://anthonylesq.blogspot.sg/2013/03/four-colour-cards-hokkien.html and http://anthonylesq.blogspot.sg/2016/01/four-colour-cards-2.html . If you do not have such a deck, you can follow the instructions at the bottom of the page for making one.

Play:
Up to 56 people can play at this game. Before play starts, a banker is selected.
The cards are shuffled. Two cards are dealt to every player, face down.
Without looking at the cards, all players stake whatever amount they please.
When all the stakes have been placed, all cards are revealed. Players whose cards score lower than the banker lose their stakes. Players whose cards score higher than the banker receive a payout.
In cases of ties with the banker, the banker wins.

Scoring:
A pair is two cards of the same rank and colour.
A mixed hand is a hand that contains anything other than a pair (this includes hands which contain two cards of the same rank, but of differert colours)

1. Pairs of the same colour take precence over any mixed hand.
2. For pairs, the ranks are valued as follows:
Highest:  将, ( General)
               士  (Valet)
               相/象  ( Minister/ Elephant)
               車   ( Chariot)
               馬 ( Horse)
              炮   (Cannon)
Lowest  卒  ( Soldier)
So, a pair of yelow valets beats a pair of yellow cannons, a pair of Red generals beats a pair of red ministers.

3. The colours (or "suits") rank as follows.
Highest : Yellow
                 Red,
                Green
Lowest:   White.
So,  a pair of green vales beats a pair of white valets, and a pair of yellow valets beats a pair of red generals.

4. When comparing mixed hands, each card is assigned a point value. Hands with the higher point value wins.

将, ( General) -- 1 pt
士  (Valet)-------- 2
 相   ( Minister)-- 3
 車   ( Chariot)--- 4
馬 ( Horse)------- 5
炮   (Cannon)---- 6
卒  ( Soldier)-----7
Note that  the point value is directly opposite to that of the rank.

5. If the point value of a hand exceeds 10, then only the last digit is considered. So a score of 14 rekons as 4, and a score of 10 reckons as 0.

6. When the point values are tied, then the hand that contains the higher-ranking colour (as decided by rules 3 and 4) wins.

Here are some examples.

Case 1: Hand A:  Pair of Yellow horses

Hand B: Pair of Yellow generals

Hand B wins, as a pair of Generals outranks a pair of horses ( Rule 2)

Case 2: Hand A:  Pair of Red Soldiers

Hand B: Red general, and White general

Hand A wins. Pairs of the same colour outrank those of different colours, regardless of the rank (Rule 1)

Case 3: Hand A:  Pair of Green Generals

Hand B: Pair of Yellow Soldiers. 

Hand B wins, because the yellow suit outranks the green suit ( Rule 3)

Case 4: Hand A:  White General, and White Minister

Hand B: Red General, and Red Minister

Hand B wins, because the Red suit outranks the White suit ( Rule 3)

Case 5: Hand A:  Green Soldier, Red Valet

Hand B: Red Horse, and White Chariot. 

Point score of both hands is equal, being 9 points. 

Hand A wins, because its highest-ranked card( Red Valet) is greater than that of hand B (Red horse)

Case 6: Hand A:  Red Chariot, Green horse 

Hand B: Yellow Chariot, White horse 

Point score of both hands is equal, being 9 points. 

Hand B wins, because its highest-ranked card( Yellow Chariot) is greater than that of hand A (Red Chariot) ( Rule 6)

Case 7: Hand A:  White Chariot, Red horse 

Hand B: Green General, Red general. 

Hand A wins, as point score of hand A ( 9 points) is greater than that of hand B ( 2 points) ( rule 4)

Case 7: Hand A:  Red horse, Yellow Soldier

Hand B: Green Valet, White Chariot

Hand B wins. Although hand B has a score of 12 , the initial "1" is dropped. Thus the final score is 2 points.(rule 5)  

*********************************************************************************

If you do not have access to a deck of four-colour cards, you can make one yourself using four decks of normal playing cards. 

Remove, the 5s,6s,7s,8s and 9s from each of the decks. The remaining cards ( shown below) are used in the game:

                    Corresponds to

King------------ General

Queen---------- Valet

Jack------------ Minister

4--------------- Chariot

3--------------- Horse

2--------------- Cannon

Ace----------- Soldier

For The  ranking of the suits, you may use the system adapted in Bridge: 

                             Corresponds to
Spades-----------   Yellow
Diamonds-------      Red
Hearts-----------     Green
Clubs ------------    White


Of course, you can come up with your own system. 

"Chik Kee cards"

"Chik Kee cards", 金星/Gold star , 159c,
( N.B: New edit as of 20th October 2017)
This deck of cards was found in an old shop in Singapore. It had probably laid there for several decades undisturbed, as the shop transformed from what was probably a general store to a dedicated lottery shop. When I spotted it, its fragile cellophane wrapper was nearly falling apart, and the edges of the cards brown. I gladly paid for it, even though shopkeeper inflated its price by several dollars.

This card is one of an extremely rare species of "money suited " cards. They apparently were once very common, but now have disappeared. The suit system is familiar to any player of mahjong. such cards have three suits, viz; coins, bamboos, (or in this case, strings of coins) , and myriads or wan. Within each suit are nine ranks. In addition to these three basic suits, these cards typically include a set of extra cards, usually three or four in number.

This particular example is rather extraordinary, for two reasons. First, it incorporates colour in its designs. Second, its ranks structure is very unusual.

Most decks of money-suited cards have four copies of each card. This particular deck has five copies of each card. ( embarrassingly , this fact escaped me for over a year!). The distribution of cards is as follows:

Suit	Ranks inside suit	Number of cards
Coins	Ace to Nine, 5 copies of each	45
Strings	Ace to Nine, 5 copies of each	45
Myriads	Ace to Nine, 5 copies of each	45
Odd cards	千, nine copies	9
	老道 5 copies	5
	白花 5 copies	5
	金玉 5 copies	5
TOTAL		159

Here you see the suits of coins( top row) and myriads ( bottom row). 

Note the ornately decorated ace of coins ( top row, 1st from right), and the small blossom on the seven of coins (Top row, 3rd from left)

The suit of myriads contains almost cartoon-like depictions of human figures. The Chinese inscription above each card shows its rank. The Nine of myirads ( Bottom row, 1st from left) shows a man holding a flag with the character 令-- A Military commander?  The five of Myriads ( Bottom row, 5th from left) shows a man holding an axe standing beside a child. 

 For some reason, the captions of the 2. 3,4 and 7 are white on black, while the rest are black on white. Whatever significance this may have, I do not know. 

 The one, five, and nine are coloured in. This might have a role in the games played. 

The suits of strings ( top row) and the bonus cards). The strings in question refer to the ancient Chinese practice of stringing together large quantities of coins by their central holes. As before, the ranks are from one to nine. The one of the suit is coloured. The nine of the suit has a bold red overprint, showing the Chinese character for nine. 

The extra cards are on the bottom row. Translations of the inscriptions:

A: White flower

B: Golden Jade

C: Old Tao ( Perhaps a scholar or a Taoist priest-magician?)

D Thousand 

E: The back of the cards. Worthy of op art. 

It should be noted that the cards have a  form of indices. The black rectangle on the top and bottom of the cards displays the suit, and rank of the card in question. You can see it in the following table:

The rank is marked by means of a simple geometric shape. For example, the twos have a small circle; the fives two small circles, and sixes have a pair of white rectangles.

The suit is represented by the presence of a semicircle. The suit of coins has no semicircle. The suit of strings has the semicircle on the bottom of the rectangle. The suit of myriads has the semicircle on the top of the rectangle. 

The pack also includes a quality control certificate Although its inscription is much faded, I reproduce it below, with a translation. 

If any reader can provide a better translation, I am happy to receive it.