Tien Gow is the name of a Chinese trick-taking gambling game for 4 players. The game is played with a set of Chinese dominoes. Heaven is the top rank tile of the civilian suit; Nine is the top rank tile of the military suit of the domino set.

"Tien Gow" is sometimes spelled Tin Kau, and is the transliteration of two Chinese characters (天九) in Cantonese: Heaven (http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%d1&category=wholerecord) and Nine (http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%45&category=wholerecord). In Mandarin, it is pronounced as Tian1Jiu3.

External link

• an article dated back to 1893 (http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum/Archive/Culin/Dice1893/tatinkau.html)
• A contemporary description (http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/DominoTienGow.html)