Chinese Ten
Chinese Ten, also known in Chinese as Jian Hong Dian (拣红点), which translates to Pick Up Red Spots, is a simple card game for two to four players. It is a member of the fishing family of games, where players try to capture cards from the table using cards in their hand. In Chinese Ten, players are trying to make pairs of cards whose values total ten. However, there’s one other little quirk of this game—the red cards are worth the vast majority of the points; the black cards are mostly worthless!
Object of Chinese Ten
The object of Chinese Ten is to amass the highest score by capturing red cards from the layout. Cards are captured by pairing them with another card, such that the total pip value of the pair is ten. Cards that already have a pip value of ten are paired by matching.
Setup
To play Chinese Ten, all you need is a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. To make sure your deck of cards stands up to the rigors of extended play, always make sure you play with a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards.
Divide 24 by the number of players in the game. This number is the number of cards to deal each player. That is, in a two player game, deal twelve cards to each. In a three-player game, deal eight cards to each. In a four-player game, deal six to each. Place the stub in the center of the table, face down, forming the stock. Turn four cards face up from the top of the stock, putting them at the corners of the stock, as shown in the diagram above.
Game play
The player to the dealer’s left goes first. A player’s turn begins with them playing a card from their hand face up to the table. If the pip value of this card plus the pip value of a card already on the table add up to ten, the player captures both cards. For example, a 7 on the table can be captured by playing a 3. A player can capture face cards and 10s on the table by playing another card of the same rank.
When a player captures a card, they place both it and the card used to capture it in a face-down won-cards pile on the table in front of them. Players do not add cards to their hands; the cards they are dealt initially are the only cards they will have for the whole game.
After playing a card from their hand, the player turns a card up from the stock. If this card can capture a card on the table, the player makes the capture. Otherwise, the card is simply left on the table with the others. The turn then passes to the left.
Special rules apply to face cards, 10s, and 5s, to prevent them from becoming uncapturable. If the initial layout includes a three-of-a-kind of one of these ranks, the fourth card of that rank captures the other three. When the four cards of the initial layout are all face cards, 10s, or 5s, the dealer captures all four of these cards before the first player’s turn.
Scoring
The game should end with the last player running out of cards on the same turn the deck runs out, with the last card in the deck capturing the last card in the layout. Each player then turns over their won-cards pile and calculates its value, as follows:
- The A♣: 40 points in a four-player game, 0 points in a two- or three-player game
- The A♠: 30 points in a four- or three-player game, 0 points in a two-player game
- All other black cards: 0 points
- Red aces: 20 points each
- Red face cards, 10s, and 9s: 10 points each
- All other red cards: Pip value
The player with the highest score wins the game.
