See Sek

This entry serves to represent the various games (mainly rummy games) that may be played with the See Sek deck of cards.

See Sek (also translated as Soo Sik; in HanYu PinYin it is Si Se) literally means four colors in Hokkien. This derives from the four colors (red, white, green, yellow) that form the suits of this deck of traditional Chinese playing cards. In English, these are sometimes described as Chess cards because they depict the Chinese characters from Chinese chess (XiangQi). As with most Chinese traditional playing cards, the cards are much longer than they are wide. However, there are regional variants with shorter cards.

Note that See Sek is different from Chess cards that only come in two colors and which are used for a different game.

A full deck consists of 112 cards: 28 cards in each of 4 suits (the colors). Each suit has the Chinese characters for the seven types of XiangQi pieces, repeated four times.

They are often used to play Rummy-type games and the melds may be three or four of exactly the same kind, three or four of a kind but in all different colors, single-card melds (the General or Ong), and three-card melds in 'sequence' and in the same color. There are two 'sequences': Ong, Soo and Chiau (Jiang, Shi, Xiang); and Koo, Beh, Pow (Ju, Ma, Pao).

In Singapore and Malaysia, these card games are often played by Hokkiens and Teochews.