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US-Sino tensions help spawn China card game craze

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-sino-tensions-help-spawn-china-card-game-craze-2023-08-28/

China's bankers and business executives have become increasingly reliant on domestic capital in recent years as foreign funding has dried up, but a popular way to unlock that cash may very well involve "throwing eggs".

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/7415121

The game in question is Guandan, where you and your teammate try to make poker hands to discard your cards before the opposing pair does, which lets you level up. Teams can only win the entire match by reaching level A while avoiding having the player who discards all cards last.

The game looks interesting, has anyone played?

8 comments

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

BEIJING, Aug 28 (Reuters) - China's bankers and business executives have become increasingly reliant on domestic capital in recent years as foreign funding has dried up, but a popular way to unlock that cash may very well involve "throwing eggs".

The term refers to Guandan, a poker-like card game that has been around for decades, but has gained fresh life among venture capitalists a few years ago as they awoke to its popularity among wealthy local government officials in eastern regions.

The growing interest in business circles has spawned a craze for the game nationwide, driven partly by financial constraints stemming from souring ties with China's biggest trade partner, the United States.

This month U.S. President Joe Biden barred some investment in semiconductors and set controls on other sensitive sectors, aiming to curb trade and funding that could give rival Beijing an edge in technology.

As investment prospects darken, financiers increasingly view the game as a way to build 'guanxi' or connections with officials who hold the purse strings on local projects, especially those overseas investors might consider too risky.

Customers ranged from retired people to young professionals seeking to build new social ties, said Hua Min, who this year opened the first bar dedicated to hosting guandan games in Beijing, the capital.

The original article contains 657 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

adhocfungus

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Sounds a lot like Tichu, a team-based 4 player trick taking game where you play quadi-Poker hands and try not to be the last out with cards in hand. Our group has a lot of fun with that, although Tichu seems simplified in a few areas. You have 14 cards each instead of 27, there is only a single wild card, you count points instead of levels, and bombs are more rare.

This might be an interesting upgrade.

Profilename1

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Tichu is the bomb, literally.

yads

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Never played, but thought it was interesting that it's not played for money. More importantly playing it for money is viewed as being in very poor taste.

Deebster

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My understanding wasn't that they weren't gambling, just that they claimed they weren't (gambling is illegal in China). The Chinese have a reputation for loving gambling, despite its illegality.

Chinese officials have been censured in the past for receiving bribes through the playing of card games

How would this happen if they weren't gambling?

wahming

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Yes, we do. Small stakes gambling is part of our culture, even kids do it on festivals

yads

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Yeah that's what was surprising. I read that this game specifically discourages gambling, but like you said, maybe they were just making sure they don't get their hands slapped

Sandra

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I've played a lot of Applewood lately. I love shedding games but I prefer ones were bombing is very limited or non-existent (Dalmuti is awesome without bombs, and Haggis (Applewood's predecessor) strikes a fun balance where there are bombs but they're fairly distributed).

When bombs are too plentiful, sequencing your hand gets foggy.