Chinese dominoes

Ming author Xie Zhaozhe (1567–1624) records the legend of dominoes having been presented to Song Emperor Huizong in 1112.

The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) author Zhou Mi (1232–1298), who listed "pupai" (gambling plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Song Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189).

[2] During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the suits known as "Chinese" and "barbarian" were renamed to "civil" and "military" respectively to avoid offending the ruling Manchus.

[4] Tiles with blank ends, like those found in Western "double-six" dominoes, once existed during the 17th century.

Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two suits: military and civil.

Each tile pattern in the Chinese domino set is equivalent to a single outcome when two six-sided dice are thrown.

Eleven of these 21 unique patterns are repeated to make a total of 32 tiles in a Chinese dominoes set.

The hendiatris of heaven, earth, and man [zh] (天地人) dates back for over two thousand years [10] while the harmony (和) of the three have been in dice and domino games since at least the Ming dynasty.

Since there is only one of each military tile, these are usually grouped in four mixed "pairs" of equivalent total points: nines, eights, sevens, and fives; for example, the 3-6 and 4-5 tiles "match" because they have same total points (nine) and both are in the military suit.

This pair when played together is considered a suit on its own, called the gi jun (至尊 supreme).

Half of the pips on the 6-6 domino are colored red to make them stand out as the top ranking tiles.

15 Lake Cards [zh] (Chinese: 十五湖牌) have the 21 patterns (from the 2d6 combinations) quadruplicated to form an 84-card deck.

[11] The eponymous game of Bone Tiles (gǔpái in Mandarin) is played in northern and central China and as far south as Hunan.