Domino-Suited Playing Cards

Domino‑suited playing cards are traditional Chinese (and Southeast Asian Chinese) decks whose faces bear the black‑and‑red pip patterns of Chinese domino tiles. Such decks typically have 32 cards (often with high cards duplicated) and use a two‑rank system inherited from the Chinese domino set: a civil (wen‑zi) suit containing all the doubles (top card “Heaven”, 6‑6) and a military (wu‑zi) suit containing the other tiles (top card “Nine” [6‑3/5‑4]). This scheme underlies classic games like Tien Gow (Heaven and Nine) and related regional trick‑taking games, reflecting the cards’ origin directly in domino‑tile gaming.