your grandmothers or aunties would most probably have played this game. it used to be the favourite pastime of old folks, especially elderly ladies. i hardly see senior citizens playing this card game these days. it is a bit like mahjong and it has some of the characters of chinese chess. however, unlike mahjong, you cannot draw and keep a card; whatever is drawn must be shown to the other players.
a friend just told me that he had seen some aunties playing si sek pai at a void deck in ang mo kio.
i suppose like any card game, there is bound to be some modifications of the rules and there are variations to the game. if you have played gin rummy with different groups of friends, you may most probably have to adjust to the rules laid down by the different groups. with some groups, the first meld thrown down has to be four cards, although generally three cards is the rule. even when it comes to counting deadwood - those cards caught in your hand - when someone else has 'ginned', some count ace as 1 point, some, 10 points and yet others, count it as 20 points.
in si sek pai, the regular group of people would set their own rules to suit their playing style and to suit the circumstances.
in si sek pai, these 3 different characters of the same colour, green in this case, actually form a meld. this is a 3-card meld consisting of the chariot, the horseman and the cannon. a 3-card meld can also be made up of three identical cards, which in mahjong, is called a 'pong'. a meld which is in your hand or which you have drawn yourself is normally worth more than one which is displayed.
another 3-card meld that comprises three different characters is that of the general, adviser and elephant. in si sek pai, the general can form a meld even when it is by itself. this means you can have a one-card meld, something which does not happen in mahjong. in the game of mahjong, the smallest meld is the 2-card or 2-seed which is referred to as the 'eye'.
in si sek, the 4-card meld may be formed by the same character in four different colours or they can be the same character in one colour.
each si sek pack contains 112 cards, 28 of each of the 4 colours - green, white, yellow and red. again, different groups of players play with different number of cards. some play with two packs of cards while others play with one-and-a-half packs of cards. some even have jokers in their pack of cards.
this particular group which i was watching lay down the rule that you can 'game' only when you have a minimum of 20 points for the total of your melds. however, there are other groups which stipulate that 21 points is the least before declaring yourself a winner. why is there this disparity? as with other types of games, there are different ways in which they score and different scores for the same meld.
it would seem that the aunties play this game as a pastime as the stakes were small. even then you could hear arguments now and then and if your luck was bad, you could incur quite a substantial loss, say your one week of marketing money.
13 comments:
In addition to being like mahjong and Chinese chess, the colour combinations remind me of how Uno works too.
ivan, you are right. i realise that uno is also a 4-colour card game. in place of white, in uno, you have blue. the wild cards in uno could be the jokers in some si sek packs.
yg, you said you seldom see senior citizens playing the si sek pai, I guess maybe these cards are not on sale or no longer available in shops. As a young kid in the early sixties,I observed the seniors playing it, but, of course, I was too young to understand the game.
fl, i don't know where they get them. this year, when i was in geylang during the 7th (ghost) month, i saw some of these cards spilled on the altar table. i think you can still get them in some of the towns in malaysia.
This is interesting. :) Ive seen some other people play it too! I think its in sale in Singapore. Theres this company in Singapore who manufactures these cards. Its called Hua Goi. :)
anonymous, thanks for the info. the company hua goi, located at tagore lane, seems to have the four colour cards.
a friend claimed that si sek pai was a teochew card game. coincidentally, two of my other friends who used to have si sek pai sessions at their homes are teochews. but i also know of some hokkien families who played this card game.
I had seen my grandmother and one of my aunts in Taiwan played this game. I think this game originates from around Fujian. In Canada, I had seen elderly Vietnames and Filipino Chinese played this game.
anonymous, i think you are right. the northern chinese are not familiar with this game. the elderly vietnamese and filipino chinese must have picked this up from chinese who came from the south of china, like fujian and guangdong.
Its a pity this is a dying culture. Wondering if there is any way to promote this or make it more accessible to the public because its quite rare.
Cambodian people play this game all the time. However, our rules for the game seem very different. The cards can be found in any Asian market in Long Beach. I have been teaching this game to many of my friends (mostly my friends from college). Let's keep the tradition alive!
Well would you believe it ..I was in Singapore & Sabah ..1962 to 1965 .i learnt to speak Malay and mostly the Swale words in the local chines lingo.. When I played majong..I learnt very quickly that observers were telling there mates what game I had ..so I achieved the knack of being able to feel the cards with my thumb .and keep them close down ..by cards I mean the bricks ..it took a long time to learn the game ..properly & be able to play with the locals at the speed ..what an exciting game ..I used go to bed..dreaming of it ...I also learnt to play ..si..sek..which means ..four colours.. I have some packs. of unused ..si sek..those were brilliant times and I still have a yearning to play again ..you learn a lot about the culture. Of the east..and I had the best time of my life in Borneo at ..Kota..belud .in the foothills of mt Kinabalu..in the sixties...in those days it was mostly jungle and only tracks ..or sampaning on the rivers ..drinking ..baha.. With .dusons in there kampongs ..I will never forget these wonderful people ..how lucky I was ..if i can .say 'thank you'. to all the lovely people I met on my travels .. Mr nobby clarke
The cards are still commonly sold in five-and-dimes and stationary shops in Taiwan. Somebody must still be playing si-sek pai there.
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