Dou dizhu is described as easy to learn but hard to master, requiring mathematical and strategic thinking as well as carefully planned execution.

Less popular variations of the game do exist in China, such as four-player and five-player dou dizhu played with two packs of cards.

The class struggle during the land reform in the 1950s after the Chinese Communist Party took over China encouraged peasants to take up arms against the landlords, hence the name dou dizhu.

China's Generation Y, who are among the most enthusiastic player groups, has no personal experience of this specific overt class struggle (compare with the covert contemporary property bubble).

Dou dizhu is played among three people with one pack of cards, including the two differentiated jokers.

The rules are extremely complicated; basic knowledge of poker hand rankings helps players get started.

The Rocket and the Bomb are groups of cards that work differently in terms of game play.

Gameplay proceeds, and turns out to include one bomb and a rocket, but all players get to play multiple times.

The four-player version of dou dizhu is played mainly in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, including Shanghai.

The combinations that can be played differ from those in the three-player game (listed above), as follows: Another variation of dou dizhu is the edition with wild cards.

In September 2007, YunNanHong held a traditional, offline competition of dou dizhu in Kunming, Yunnan province, where over a hundred players competed for the first prize.

Dou dizhu was once just a provincial game in China, originating in the Huangshan District[2] and Anhui.

[5][clarification needed] There are almost 1 million concurrent dou dizhu players on the Tencent QQ game platform alone.