# Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 45/Some Notes on Malay Card Games

Some Notes on Malay Card Games.
R. O. Winstedt.
In preparing these notes, I have used as a ground-work the chapter on card games in Mr. Skeat's Malay Magic, but in addition to supplementing that account in some details, I have collated local variations in the rules of the games and collected. some terms which I have not seen recorded elsewhere.
I. Main chabut. This game, says Mr. Skeat, "is a species of vingt-et-un and is played with either twenty-one or thirty-one points" or pips or mata as the Malay idiom is. If the game is thirty-one points, not more than nine people can play: if twenty-one not more than seven. The "ten" cards are not used: according to Mr. Skeat, court cards also are thrown out in the twenty-one game, but I have seen court cards used in both games and counted as ten pips each. The ace (sat) is used and is worth one, ten, or eleven pips as is convenient to the player; except that, if you have two aces in one hand while playing the twenty-one game or three in one hand while playing thirty-one, the ace must be reckoned as worth only one pip. The dealer (perdi) distributes two lunas or 'keel' cards, 'poundation' cards as we might say, to each player. The nicknames for the various combinations in these 'keel' cards given by Mr. Skeat—lunas nikah, a court card and an ace; lunas dua jalor, two threes; kachang di-rendang di-tugalkan, two aces—I have found to be familiar even to the younger generation in Perak. After the 'keel' cards have been dealt, each player in turn draws (chabut) fresh cards from the bottom of the remaining cards of the pack. Whoever gets thirty-one or twenty-one pips exactly, according as to which game is being played, is said to "masok mata." In a game of thirty-one, no player can chabut more than seven cards or more than five in a twenty-one game, and if he has drawn seven or five cards ​and not yet got nor exceeded thirty-one (or twenty-one) pips, be is said to masok daun and wins even over a player who has masok mata. Of those who masok daun, the one with the smaller number of pips would win: but for two players to hold such a hand hardly ever occurs. The player who gets more than thirty-one (or twenty-one) points is said to be "dead" mati, or "blind" bola, or "to go to pot" masok pering, literally enter the plate,' alluding to the plate in the centre of the players into which he will fling his hand. When a player has drawn cards, till he has a total of twenty-six, twenty-seven or twenty-eight (or sixteen, seventeen, eighteen) points in his hand and is afraid to draw another card for fear of exceeding thirty-one (or twenty-one), he is said to be "in a small coil," blit kechil, and "passes," if this happens, when he has twenty nine or thirty pips, it is blit besar.
"When two players have the same number of pips. e.g., nine and nine or eight and eight—," writes Mr. Skeat, "the coincidence is described in the words, Jumpa di-jalan, diadu kalah, dichabut mati." This is not very intelligible. I believe, it should be explained as follows. If I have passed with twenty-nine or twenty-eight pips in my hand and another player after me does the same, it is a rule of the game that I (who first had twenty-nine pips in my hand) win before him. So, the phrase applies to the loser. If he had drawn another card, he would probably have become mati, holding more than thirty-one points: reluctant to draw another, he cannot adu or compete with the man who was blit first with the same number of pips as he.
Kena runjau, translated by Mr. Skeat "to be bluffed," I take to be the same as kena das. (Singapore) and to apply to a player who inadvertently or foolishly shows his hand, buka daun, before the rest of the players are all blit or mati or masok mata, and so has to pay up all round by way of penalty.
II. Daun tiga lei or pakau. Three cards are dealt to each player. The best hands are called daun trus. In Perak and Selangor, the very best hand is three aces; the next best in Perak is three court cards, in Selangor three threes. Then ​follow in Perak, hands of nine and eight pips; in Selangor, says Mr. Skeat, hands of three tens, and three court-cards in that order and then hands of nine, eight, seven pips and so on in descending order of value. "The highest hand counting by pips," Sir William Maxwell puts it clearly, "is that which contains the greatest number of pips after the tens are deducted." In Perak, "a hand of three threes is really a good hand, being nine, but it is considered a propitiation of good luck to throw it down (without exposing it) and announce that one is bota in hopes of getting good luck afterwards."
Apparently, Singapore players recognize a different list of daun trus. The best hand is three court-cards, tiga kuda: the next best is three threes or a nine and two court cards. And then follow hands of nine, eight pips and so on in descending scale. The tens are not used at all. Court cards are valued at zero, except when you have three in one hand and so hold the best possible of daun trus. Three aces are reckoned as three pips only: so, a hand of three aces is absolutely worthless, and a hand of two aces and a court card, for instance, makes you only two pips. If you hold one court card, one ace and one nine, the ace is counted as zero like a court-card and you score nine: so, this hand is one of the daun trus, equivalent to two court cards and a nine.
Then there are the phrases, handak kaki tiga, minta penoh, minta isi, minta kosong, used in the process, mengurut daun. "A player does not hastily, look at his three cards and learn his fate at once," says Sir William Maxwell, but he prolongs the excitement by holding his cards tight together, and looking alternately at the outside ones, and last of all at the middle one, sliding out the latter between the two others little by little. Thus it is left uncertain for some time whether a card is an eight or a seven, a nine or a ten" Handak kaki tiga is a player for a six, seven or eight cards having pips in rows of three. If after seeing my top and bottom cards I want the remaining card to have no pip in the centre; if, for example, I want a six and not a seven or eight, I am said to minta kosong: if, on the contrary, I want a pip or pips in the middle of the ​third card, want a seven or an eight, I am said to minta isi, or minta penoh. Many players make a clicking sound like one encouraging a horse, if they want a kuda or court card.
Main trop. The following are some terms in connection with this game which I have failed to find either in Skeat or in Wilkinson's Dictionary.
In main trup, when a player leads a trump card, his action is described by the words sudi or jaru. Diamonds are sometimes called batu Malacca or dobin (or jubin: Jav.=square flag-stones) spades, payong. Bibi is used of the Queen. If I and my partner have already got seven tricks between us, I ask him kiler-kah atau kot-kah should he hold no more cards of value in his hand, he says kiler and the game is over; should he hold high cards and thinks we can take all the tricks, he says kot and we play on in the hope that our opponents may kena kot, not score a single trick; but, if any of our tricks are lost, the tables are turned and we ourselves kena kot balik. Mita sus is to ask for special cards from one's partner. There are numerous masonic signs accounted by Malay gamblers proper and clever, but which we should call cheating. Thus, to open one's hand of cards fanshape like opening an umbrella is to call for payong, spades: brush the edge of your cards along the table and you ask for diamonds, because thus the batu Malacca is cut: lift your cards quickly and you ask for the card with the flying animal, klawer: want hearts and you describe on the table a circular movement with your hand of cards. Of course, you and your partner must be accomplices and your sleights pat and deft.
Main daun cheki. The following is a complete list of the names of these cards as given me:—iyu merah besar, iyu merah sa'krat, iyu kuching, iyu kosut, iyu budak, iyu panjang: kau merah, kau jalan, kau kurop: sah waji, sah burong, sah halus: si lebai, si trubu, si pinggung: chek bier, chek burong, chek halus; lah tali, lah krong, lah halus: peh pichak kapala, peh krang, peh pinggang (or tali): go babi, go tongkang, go pending: ji gendang, ji pentil, ji bengkok or burong. Cho it and chochot are names of two species of main cheki.