Patent Application
20100301561
The present invention is in the field of card games played with the Chinese Poker Deck™.
For well over 400 years, there has only been one universally popular card deck, namely the International 52-card pack, known to people all over the world. A myriad of games have been invented for this 52-card deck ranging from family games for kids of all ages, adult games such as Bridge and friendly Poker to casino games such as Baccarat, Blackjack and the currently vastly popular casino Poker game, Texas Hold'em. Through the years past, there have been numerous other card decks introduced specifically for playing one or more card games. However, there has never been another card deck like the International 52-card pack so well loved, respected and played by people of all ages for as long as we can remember.
As it turns out most people believe today that the International 52-card pack has its origin traced back to China circa 10th Century A.D. One of the reasons for this conclusion is the fact that the Chinese were known to be the only people that knew how to make thick paper during that time. Through the Silk Road, the early version of the card deck found its way through the hands of merchants to Central Asia. During the early 13th Century, it was the crusaders that brought the four-suited decks with court cards evolved in the Moslem world to Europe. For the hundreds of years that followed, it was the Europeans that finally developed and drafted the final version of what is the International 52-card pack of today.
During the past two decades, as more and more affluent Chinese and Asians gamblers, a direct result of the so-called “Globalization Process” taking place, came to Las Vegas and Atlantic City to play, there has been a growing sense of opportunity for the casinos to come up with new games in order to attract the attention of these new customers. Common sense will have it that if these new games could be devised based upon the cultural folklores and ancient concepts that the Chinese and Asians revere, such as Yin Yang (two opposing forces) and Feng Shui (wind and water), the chance of these new games being enthusiastically accepted by the new corners will be greatly enhanced.
Furthermore, if these new games could blend the old and popular Chinese gambling games such as Mahjongg, Tin Gau, Sic Bo and Fan Tan(the so-called “Big Four”), with the traditional western style gambling games such as Roulette, Poker, Blackjack, Baccarat etc., the so-called gaming fusion of the East and West, then the chance of success should even be greater.
A direct result of this thinking led to the invention of the so-called Chinese Poker Deck by the current inventor (U.S. application Ser. No. 11/058,471 filed Feb. 14, 2005 referenced herein). The Chinese Poker Deck was created from scratch but based upon the eastern cultural thinking and the concept of the International 52-card pack, or the Western Deck, in order to take full advantage of the idea of gaming fusion between the East and the West. For that reason, the Chinese Poker Deck or the Eastern Deck was created also with 52 cards. Furthermore, its content reflects not only a skillfully extracted portion of the 2,000 years old Mahjongg tile set, but also cleverly blends in the five most revered Chinese Feng Shui parameters into the deck. This unique concept of construct for the Eastern Deck enables literally any card game that has been created for play with the Western Deck can also be analogously played with the Eastern Deck. For example, there are parallels for all the Poker games played with the Western Deck including the vastly popular Texas Hold'em. When this Poker game is played with the Eastern Deck, it is called the Yangtze Hold'em™. For the casino game of Baccarat for the Western Deck, there is Taraccab™ for the Eastern Deck. Even the famous Bridge game played with the Western Deck has its counterpart called the Dragon Bridge™ played with the Eastern Deck.
While the creation of the Chinese Poker Deck has handsomely fulfilled its objective to fuse a significant part of the Western gaming concept with the East, it has an even greater mission to accomplish and that is to save the venerable 2,000 years old Mahjongg tile game in time from its literal extinction. Few people are actually aware of the fact that the traditional Mahjongg tile game, one of China's national treasures, is heading towards extinction if no attempt is made to save it. The reason is that it has today outlived the modern lifestyle of people, particularly those that are living in China and most Asian countries. In that part of the world where Mahjongg used to rule, young folks today working long hours and living in small quarters with family have neither the space nor time to learn how to play this complex game. Thus, after perhaps a couple more generations, the traditional game of Mahjongg might well become a fond memory of the past.
The traditional Mahjongg game, played with 136 tiles, is actually a rather complex game to learn how to play. On the average it would probably take hundreds of actual playing hours before one can aptly call oneself a Mahjongg player. Even then, he or she is a novice at best. Furthermore, four players are required to play the game. The game also needs to be set up with a square table big enough to sit four comfortably and equipped with a soft pad on top for reducing the sound during playing and shuffling of the tiles. The Mahjongg set itself meanwhile is rather heavy and difficult to move around or store. But the most damaging circumstance for the game is still the limitation of space and time for new corners especially young folks to learn to play the game. Thus unless something is done to salvage this 2,000 years old venerable game, very few people, especially the young folks, will know how to play it and that will be equivalent to the game eventually becoming extinct.
Thus it is an objective of the present invention to come up with a new game that will not only keep the spirit and fun of the old Mahjongg game but reformulate and simplify it such that it will fit into people's modern styles of living. This and further objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art in connections with the drawings and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment set forth below.
The present invention is generally directed to a game for two to four players played with a deck of 52 cards containing five wild cards, three suits with nine numbers in sequence and five groups of four identical cards in which a series of hands are played in which each player progressively takes a turn starting as the dealer and each hand is scored to come up with a total score and the total scores for all the hands in the series of hands are added up for settlement. Each hand is begun by dealing each player seven cards and using the remainder of the deck as a draw pile. The dealer begins play by drawing a card and taking one of three steps. First, if the dealer has four of the same cards, the dealer can declare a gong operation, draw another card, and then proceed again with another gong operation or one of the following two steps. Second, the dealer can end the hand by declaring a winning hand containing a pair of identical cards and two triplets; the triplets can either be a pong group of three identical cards or a tsee sequence of three consecutive numbers in a single suit of cards. Third, the dealer can discard a card face up to start a draw pile. After the dealer discards, the play follows sequentially and the next player either draws a card from the draw pile or the top card in the discard pile, unless another player out of sequence invokes a rule for picking up the top card in the discard pile. After a card is drawn from either the draw pile or the discard pile, the drawing player takes one of the same three steps the dealer could have taken, and play continues until a winning hand is declared or the draw pile is exhausted and no player picks up the last top card in the discard pile.
In a first, separate group of aspects of the present invention, the rules for drawing the top card in the discard pile are that if two or more players want to pick up the same card, the first player according to a player position ranking with the highest hierarchical ranking from a hierarchical ranking system will be allowed to pick up the top card in the discard pile. The hierarchical ranking system, in order from highest to lowest, is that the top card in the discard pile will be used to create the winning hand, perform the gong operation, form the pong group, or form the tsee group, and the player position ranking with the highest ranking is the drawing player followed by the remaining players based upon a preselected rule based upon the unique designations for the hand.
In other, separate aspects of the present invention, the set of scoring rules is that a basic structure score is calculated for the winning hand by combining a basic structure score with any applicable enhancement score. The basic structure score is that if the winning hand is a chicken chow hand in which the two triplets are a first pong group and a second tsee sequence, the chicken chow hand is worth half a fang; if the winning hand is an all sequence hand in which the two triplets are two tsee sequences, the all sequence hand is worth one fang; and if the winning hand is an all 3-of-a-kind hand in which the two triplets are two pong groups, the all 3-of-a-king hand is worth two fangs.
The fang scoring structure is a half fang is worth 1 unit, one fang is worth 2 units, two fang is worth four units, three fang is worth 8 units, four fang is worth 16 units, five fang is worth 32 units and six fang is worth 64 units and, if the winning player is the dealer, the unit score is doubled.
In further, separate aspects of the present invention, unless the winning hand has two tsee triplets, the following enhancements each add one fang to the enhancement score: a pong group of a preselected unique designation not associated with any of the players or the unique designation of dealer and/or the winning player, the winning hand does not contain any wild card, the draw card is obtained from the draw pile, the winning hand is obtained by the gong operation or the winning hand is obtained by drawing the last available card from the draw pile.
When the wining hand is the all 3-of-a-kind hand and the winning player had two gong operations for the winning hand, four fangs is added to the enhancement score. If the winning hand is the all sequence hand, each of the following enhancements that apply will add one fang to the enhancement score: the winning hand does not contain any wild card, the draw card is obtained from the draw pile and the winning hand is obtained by drawing the last available card from the draw pile. In an all sequence hand, three fangs is added to the enhancement score if the two tsee sequences are in the same suit unless they are consecutive to each other, in which case four fangs is added.
In a still further, separate group of aspect of the present invention, if the winning party draws the top card in the discard pile as the draw card for the winning hand, the party that discarded said top card in the discard pile as the draw card for the winning hand is responsible for all scores of any other player due the winning party for said winning hand.
In yet another, separate group of aspects of the present invention, the deck has three suit designations of bamboo, circles and script, each with numbers 1 through 9, the five sets of four cards are each of the four wind directions of East, South, West and North and a Green Dragon and the five wild cards have feng shui designations (which may represent longevity, luck, wealth, health and fertility).
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a game that has similarity to the game of mahjongg, but is played with a Chinese poker deck having fifty-two cards, five of which are played as wild cards.
This and further objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art in connection with the drawings and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment set forth below.
The present invention takes advantage of the availability of a newly invented deck of cards called the Chinese Poker Deck™. Like the International 52-card pack or the Western Deck (i.e. a deck of 52 cards, having four suits—clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades—each of which has 13 cards comprised of 2-10, jack, Queen, King and Ace), it also uses 52 cards, but the cards integrate various aspects of the traditional Chinese game of Mahjongg and Asian culture. The result is a novel deck that allows the East to meet the West, and vice versa.
The Chinese Poker Deck is comprised of 27 numbered cards in three suits and 25 additional non-suit cards as depicted in
The incorporation of the three suits of circle 2, bamboos 3 and scripts 4 (see
The Chinese Poker deck™ departs from any similarity to Mahjongg by the addition of five Feng Shui cards 5 (see
The current invention, Q Mahjongg, is a reformulated version of the old game which uses a 136-tile set to play. The Q Mahjongg is played with the 52-card Chinese Poker Deck™ or Eastern Deck. Whereas each of the four players for the old game has 13 tiles, players of Q Mahjongg always only have 7 cards each whether 2, 3 or 4 players are playing the game. One can see right away that comparing Q Mahjongg with the old Mahjongg, the former is now much easier to set up and close down because one only needs a 52-card deck instead of 136 tiles to play the latter game. Furthermore, Q Mahjongg can be played virtually anywhere, indoor or outdoor. It requires very little space to play or for storage. The playing of the game is also very quiet, and allows 2, 3 or 4 people to play.
The Q Mahjongg game of the present invention can be played by 2-4 players using the Chinese Poker Deck™. In general this game is played almost exactly like the regular Mahjongg game but with the following exceptions:
In Q Mahjongg the scoring is limited by a maximum of six levels or “Fangs”. The game's win-loss stake is dependent upon how much (how many units) one is willing to assign per Fang of the winning hand when it is scored by a player (non-banker) other than the banker. In Q mahjongg, one Fang is always assigned value of 2 units. Thus,
In Q mahjongg, the total score as manifested in Fangs and units comprises two parts, namely the Basic Structure Score and the Enhancement Score according to the following rule:
Total Score=Basic Structure Score+Enhancement Score
In Q mahjongg, there are only three basic structures of a winning hand. The first one is called the “Chicken Chow” and is worth half a Fang or 1 unit when the winning hand is scored by a non-banker player. The “Chicken Chow” is a one-two-three scoring structure of a pair of any cards, one sequence of three cards in any suit and one group of 3-of-a-kind cards. An example is shown in
The second basic structure is “All Sequence” and is worth 2 units or 1 fang when the winning hand is scored by a non-banker player. The “All Sequence” is a one-two-three scoring structure with a pair of any cards and two sequences of three cards in any suit. An example is shown in
The third basic structure is “All 3-of-a Kind” and is worth 4 units or 2 Fangs when the winning hand is scored by a non-banker player. The “All 3-of-a-Kind” is a one-two-three scoring structure with a pair of any cards and two groups of 3-of-a-Kind cards. An example is shown in
Dependent upon the contents of a scoring hand for a particular basic scoring structure as described above, the score of the winning hand can be enhanced. The enhancement contents are different for each of the above three basic scoring structures. They will be described separately for each of the three basic scoring structures below. They will also be summarized into an Enhancement Table as shown in
The enhancement score is individually worth a one Fang increment if
The enhancement score is individually worth a one Fang increment if
The enhancement score is individually worth a three (3) Fangs increment if
The enhancement score is individually worth a four (4) Fangs increment if
The enhancement score is individually worth a one Fang or 2 units
Any winning hand containing two groups of 4-of-a-kind cards is automatically awarded the highest scoring level (6 Fangs or 64 units).
Playing with Only 2 or 3 Players
The regular Mahjongg game is normally played with four players. Each player represents a “Wind” (direction) location, namely East (E), South (S), West (W) or North (N) respectively. Players rotate clockwise as Banker and every time when a hand is scored, the Banker location will advance one position in a clockwise direction. One full rotation of four Wind locations, namely starting from East to South, to West and finally to North is called one “Wind round” of play. The game is played in multiples of 4-Wind round. Thus one 4-wind round game comprises the playing of 16 hands. An 8-Wind round game comprises 2 4-wind round plays or the playing of 32 hands and so on.
The Q Mahjongg game is designed to be played by either 2, 3 or 4 players using the Chinese Poker Deck™. For two players, one only uses two “Wind” locations instead of the usual four, namely East and South only. Player No. 1 starts as the Banker and holds the East location and Player No. 2 (a player) the South location. For the next hand, Player No. 2 is now the Banker and holds the East location and Player No. 1 (now a player) holds the South location. There are no West or North “Wind” locations in this case. Thus one Wind round comprises only two hands of play and a 4-wind round comprises only 8 hands of play. All the regular rules pertaining to the playing of Q mahjongg game apply unchanged to the 2-player game. Because of this reason, it is easy for an individual to teach another individual to play the 2-player version of the Q Mahjongg game. Since the rules are basically the same as the regular Mahjongg game, once one masters the Q Mahjongg game, he or she will soon master the regular old Mahjongg tile game as well.
Similarly, three people can also play the Q Mahjongg game instead of four. In this case, only three “Wind” locations are used, namely East, South and West only. One round of play comprises only three hands of play. The Banker always assumes the East location while the player to his/her left assumes the South location and the third player the West location. For a 3-player Q mahjongg game, one Wind round comprises 3 hands of play. A 4-wind round game comprises 12 hands of play. Again, all the playing rules for Q Mahjongg apply also to the three-player version, just like they apply to the four-player version.
For ease of reference for players,
While the invention has been described herein with reference to certain preferred embodiments, those embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and not to limit the scope of the invention. Additional embodiments thereof will be obvious to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this detailed description. For example, if one wanted to try to invoke the same game with its functions as is described herein, but depart further from mahjongg, one could create a deck that could be used to play the same functions but not invoke the familiarity of mahjongg. Thus, such a deck might not use the traditional mahjongg suits or the Wind directions or the Green Dragon, and might even use a sequence different than 1-9. Although such a deck would not be preferred, it could be used in connection with the present disclosure to capture the concepts taught herein. Similarly, the enhancements or scoring methods might be modified. In this regard, there are a number of ways to score mahjongg and the lack of unity is actually a detriment to universal learning; it is believed that the present scoring system will help promote more widespread use. However, one might easily image a rule that the number of fang obtainable not be limited to six fang, but have a higher or no limit. Also, while the present invention has been described by reference to physical cards, the teachings disclosed herein can easily be adapted for play in video poker games, or other electronic devices (such as cell phones, PDAs, and the like) or for play over a network (such as the Internet). In such scenarios, the play of the game taught in the present invention might be against other players, or even against programs of artificial intelligence, or, for learning purposes, the other players might be true “dummies” that can not form a winning hand, in which case the goal of the play could be to achieve the highest score playing a number of wind rounds which, in essence, is somewhat akin to a brand new form of solitaire using the game taught herein. And, of course, since mahjongg is often played with betting, it is easy to envision the present game being adapted for play as a table game at a casino where gambling is allowed. Further modifications are also possible in alternative embodiments without departing from the inventive concept.
Accordingly, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that still further changes and modifications in the actual concepts described herein can readily be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed inventions as defined by the following claims.
The present application is a continuation-in part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/804,180 filed May 17, 2007 which itself is a continuation-in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/058,471 filed Feb. 14, 2005, entitled “CHINESE POKER DECK,” the disclosures of which are specifically incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 11804180 | May 2007 | US |
| Child | 12788143 | US | |
| Parent | 11058471 | Feb 2005 | US |
| Child | 11804180 | US |
