Playing cards in Asia: Domino-suit cards

Case: 004.

Domino-suited cards Gwat Pai (骨牌, Domino-cards), which literally means "bone tiles“ first appeared around the Southern Song dynasty and are derived from all twenty-one combinations of a pair of dice. They became available in card format around 1600. Traditional Chinese domino games include Tien Gow, Pai Gow, Che Deng, and others. The 32-piece Chinese domino set, made to represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus have no blank faces, differs from the 28-piece domino set found in the West during the mid 18th century. The invention of the concept of suits increased the level of strategy in trick-taking games; the card of one suit cannot beat the card of another suit regardless of its rank. The idiosyncratic ranking and suits come from Chinese dice games. Domino card decks come in different sizes. Smaller decks are used in trick-taking and banking games. 32-card decks, with the civil suit doubled, are used to play Tien Gow. Larger decks, for rummy or fishing games, may have well over a hundred cards and can include wild cards.