Are any/many of you familiar with the Chinese/Asian game of Big 2 where 4 players get 13 cards each and like Uno your goal is to dump your cards as quickly as possible until one player is finished and then the other 3 pay off based on how many cards they are still holding with the 3d being the lowest card all the way up to the 2s. I've been playing this for many years but only recently at my home game has the guys decided to play a few hands of this for $5/pt when some people took a smoke/bathroom/phone break. Would be interested in discussing.

I've played it. It was many years ago. I think the suit order was different (s,c,d,h in order low to high) but basically the same game. 3s had to go first (or I suppose 3d in your case)? And 4OAK and 2x3+ runs could trump a single 2 I believe? By 2x3+ runs I mean double runs of at least 3 ranks (ex: 667788 or 55667788, etc).

we call this a 'cop killer', idk why. and it trumps in my game

love this game, there is a 1/2 way decent app for it on the apple store, i think its called dai di, or something like that.

Very familiar with this game. I think the rank order of the suits from lowest to highest to my knowledge is diamond-club-heart-spade.

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There are 2 different games. Big Two involves poker hands. Thirteen, also known as Tien len in Vietnamese or American Killer or Killer does not, but it has triples, 4-of-a-kinds, runs of 3 or more, and pair sequences. The ranking of the suits is different. In Thirteen it's s,c,d,h from low to high (what Lattimer said), while for Big Two it's normally d,c,h,s (as natureboy said) but there are variations like c,d,h,s to match bridge and 7-stud (alphabetical) or c,d,s,h or c,s,h,d.

Bah, it was Tien Len that I was thinking of. I'd call it that or Killer because I often played it with Vietnamese friends. I may have played Big Two once or twice because I recognized the name but after reading the wiki it's not familiar enough for me to feel I played it often.

The original Big 2 is a more Cantonese Southern China game that is more associated with Chinese games while the other version with long straights 3456789, etc... is the Vietnamese version. Both are very interesting.

One guy in my game (we play the Chinese version), no matter the situation always has to trump or go over the previous person when the previous person has thrown down a high single card. i.e. if the previous person throws down the 2h (we play from smallest to highest d, c, h, s) this guy will always throw down the 2s if he has it. This is usually horrible strategy because the 2h player will most likely throw down a small single card, a small pair, or a small 5 card hand and then this guy can get rid of some garbage in his hand. This player just doesn't get this simple strategy.

This player will also 100% drop a 5 card hand if he goes first to avoid any chance of being doubled or tripled (when you have 10-13 cards left in your hand when the game is over). This is true even when he has like a royal flush and can just drop that anytime someone throws down a 5 card hand. He is afraid we will go singles and pairs the whole game and he will be stuck, etc...

I am not sure if it is paranoia or what, but it quite funny.

Dropping 5 card ASAP (or stopping others doing so) is a core part of strategy, because winning a hand has little to gain, while making someone losing the maximum by doubling/tripling is the goal of the game.

are there any big 2 games in the casino/online? cant seem to find any

For those that love the game like me. We created a new online version and seeking beta testers that can give us feedback about their playing experience.

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We would very much appreciate your feedback on playing experience or requests for modification and bug reports. Enjoy playing. It is free.