| 字牌 | |
Zi Pai card deck
|
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| Origin | China |
|---|---|
| Type | Trick-taking |
| Players | 3 |
| Cards | 80 |
| Deck | Chinese |
| Play | clockwise |
Zi Pai (字牌, Mandarin: "letter cards"), is a card game played with a specially printed deck. The game originated in China and is popular mainly in the southern part of Mainland China, especially Hunan Province. It is also known as "Pao Fu Zi" or "Pao Hu Zhi" (跑胡子) in different dialects.
The special deck has two series of cards and 80 pieces in total, numbered from one to ten. One series of cards features numbers written in an "ordinary" style (数字小写), while the other series of cards has numbers written in a "formal" style (数字大写). Numbers 2, 7 and 10 are printed in red, and all others are printed in black. Usually there are only three players in each game. The winner is the player who reaches 18 credits first.