Bêng'-goi

Bingo (Shinasthana: 並和, bêng′-goi) is a tile-based game that evolved into its current form in Themiclesia in the early 19th century and subsequently spread to other countries during the 20th. It is commonly played by four players on a square table as the playing surface, though three- or even two-player variants exist. Bingoi is a game of skill, placing emphasis on intelligence, tactics, observation, and memory as primary advantages in gameplay, and there is a degree of chance involved. It is frequently a method of gambling, which some argue have contributed to its evolution since the 19th century.

The game is played with a standard set of 144 tiles, though variations of the game may include or omit certain subsets of the tiles. Each player receives a hand of 13 tiles and take turns to draw one tile from either the deck (usually shaped into four "walls) or from the previous player's discard. Unless completing a "going out" hand of three melds and one pair, a player must always maintain 13 tiles in hand, discarding one tile from the hand after drawing one. The game provides the twin objectives of completing a hand before others and to do so following special patterns or conditions for extra score. As other hands are not fully visible, players must balance the demands of their own hand while denying opponents of a discard that might complete theirs.

Etymology

The name "Bingo" is a anglicized rendering of bêng′-goi (並和) according to a number of possible dialects of Shinasthana, where the word sounded more like bing-go. The word "Bingo" first appeared in the Camian press in 1773, though it remains to be decided whether it described this game, any of its predecessors, or something else completely. bêng′-goi means "assemble-merge" in Shinasthana, very probably a reference to the primary objective of gameplay—to assemble a hand of three melds and one pair.

Equipment

Tiles

Most Bingo tiles are rectangular with a ratio between height, width, and thickness approximating 3:2:1.5. In Themiclesian terminology, the inscribed side of the tile is the obverse (面, mngjênh), and the other, the reverse (背, pek). Regardless of the number of tiles in a set, tiles are inscribed on the obverse only, and the reverse is kept uniform to prevent identification of the tile. Some sets may be two-tone, with a plain inscribed side and a more decorative non-inscribed side, though this is not universal.

Modern tiles are most commonly manufactured out of a variety of plastics, but historically tiles have been made from semi-precious and common stones, ivory, animal bones, wood, and bamboo. Most of these materials are selected to withstand stress incurred during play and to possess adequate mass for ease of handling and resistance to vibrations. Ornate sets may have obverse and reverse sides made from different materials, though for materials such as ivory a cheaper material may be used for the reverse. Animal bone tiles are typically backed with bamboo or wood. The importation of ivory Bingo sets became illegal in Themiclesia in 1990.

Most sets from the 19th century were made to a standard of about one Themiclesian inch (2.45 cm) tall, with little regional variation or that between materials. Very large tiles exist, mostly one-off and not in a set, and may have been used as paperweights, doorstops, or garden ornaments. Most modern sets are at least slightly larger than this size, with industry-standard size in Themiclesia being about 2.6 cm tall. For leagues and associations that play variations with fewer than the canonical 144 tiles, there is a trend of using larger tiles, with some up to 5.4 cm tall.

Furniture

With dedicated furniture, Bingo is played on a square table so that each player may occupy one side and access the deck from equal distances. There is no standard height of the table, and very short dedicated tables survive from the 19th century; however, too short and grabbing tiles becomes awkward, and too tall the players cannot see the discards. The table should ideally be level and have a smooth playing surface, so that tiles can be shifted across it with minimal friction but not slide in any direction. Many modern tables are lined with felt for this purpose, but this was unusual before the Pan-Septentrion War, when wooden surfaces were normal.  A lip is present on most Bingo tables to prevent tiles from sliding off.

In recent times, mechanical Bingo tables have become common. The first mechanical table, which only provided a shuffling function, was patented in 1904 in Themiclesia but never manufactured. In 1984, modern mechanical tables that shuffled and built the four-sided deck started appearing on the market. These tables are preferred at some tournaments to prevent cheating, though their efficacy and tamper-proofness has been questioned. Such tables usually operated on two sets of tiles; one being in play, and the other in reserve. Once the current game ended, the table opened and the players may push the tiles into the aperture, and via four holes the other set of shuffled tiles emerge in the shape of a wall.

Variations

Though Bingo has a great number of variations in different regions, competitive association, and house rules, the basic manner of play and a hand good for going out are mostly consistent. Much of the variations come in hand sizes, custom sets and tiles, further restrictions on good hands, and scoring.

There are two forms of counting score, additive and exponential. The latter refers to an exponent of two, so one exponent is double the base, two is quadruple, three is eight-fold, and four is sixteen-fold. When exponents are used, it is the norm to cap (滿和) at four exponents (the fourth power of two).

Root Style

The rules and scoring method of the so-called Root Style (RS; 本格, pen′-k.rak) was first recorded in 1818 by authors writing about Themiclesian games, with fragmentary descriptions before then. It is the oldest Bingo style, with good evidence of widespread application in contemporary literature, that remains extant. Despite this name, scholars think rules primitive to RS existed, since the oldest tiles predate these rules, but the game played with them cannot be ascertained. Tentative reconstructions have been posited and accepted by some authorities, and C. R. Kep says that the influence of older card-matching games is still clearly visible in RS.

In RS, a set similar to older paper card sets is used, with only 120 tiles in three suits of 40. The suits, representing coins, strings (hundreds) of coins, and myriads (ten-thousands) of coins, run from one to nine, plus a "high" (尊, tsun) tile as the tenth, with four copies of each tile. The "one" in each suit was the "low" (卑, prjê) tile. There were no Seasons (East, South, West, and North) or Flowers, though the "high" tiles were likely ancestral to the Middle, Fortune, and White tiles (or Trumps, in some parlance). Some authors believe that an even older style was played with only two copies of each tile, though others think for every player one suit was added.  

RS is similar to modern Bingo in that players take turn to draw and discard tiles with the objective of going out with a legal hand, but unlike Bingo, there was a dealer called the "dreamer" (夢家, mjengh-kra) who dealt open tiles to players. Players declared melds as soon as they were made, but it was not permitted to take a discard to form a sequence. A quadruplet could be formed if a player was dealt a tile whose three other copies he already had. The game ended when a player has collected four melds and one pair. According to some analyses, the objective was to finish the hand as quickly as possible by declaring melds.

In terms of scoring, RS is signficantly different from most modern varieties of Bingo because melds were the main source of scores. Each triplet was worth one point, and quadruplet four. The "high" tile could be used as the tenth of a sequence, but if a triplet was formed with them, all triplets and quadruplets in the same suit, including itself) were worth double, and if a quadruplet was formed, they were worth quadruple. If the "low" tile triplet appeared, that triplet alone was also worth double. It is unclear if imperfect or perfect flushes existed during the RS period.

	Mid.	Peri.
Sequences	0	0
Triplets	1	2
Quadruplets	4	8

Old Style

By the mid-19th century, Root Style had evolved into Old Style (OS; 舊格, gwje′-k.rak) in many regions, though the shift was protracted, and even in the late 19th century some descriptions exist of gameplay similar to RS. While there were numerous changes, the most important one was the ability to retain melds in the concealed hand, which gave players the ability to construct special hands for going out, rather than passively to receive points when melds were formed. In this case, only a meld formed by a discard must be exposed. A dealer-less game was first described in 1834 and was evidently ordinary by 1847, at least in the coastal regions and the capital city. OS is thought to be the most recent common ancestor of most varieties of Bingo.

Numerous other changes also marked the transition from RS to OS. First, the number of players was fixed at four, and each player was identified with one of the cardinal directions. The Honours and Flowers were one of several sets of "Trump" tiles (將, tsjangh) borrowed from other card and tile games, usually themed after traditional four-member sequences in Themiclesian cultural diction. It should be noted that OS in the broader sense, like RS, was not a regulated style, but is characterized by widespared acceptance of certain basic principles (in this case the ability of the player to conceal melds and thereby re-arrange them into higher-scoring hands). However, a representative set of rules did emere in 1875 (see below).

As for scoring, OS extended the RS scheme of each triplet being worth one point and quadruplet four. Since players found melds formed by dealt tiles (one per revolution) more challenging than those formed by discards (three), those were declared worth double, which compounds with the double worth of melds formed by "high" and "low" tiles, collectively called "peripherals". A sequence formed by dealt tile was promoted to one point when melds were refactored to double their original value later in the 19th century.

	Exposed		Concealed
	Mid.	Peri.	Mid.	Peri.
Sequences	0		1
Triplets	2	4	4	8
Quadruplets	8	16	16	32

Since a player now had the freedom to construct entire hands, numerous rewards appeared during the OS period to reward various feats of skill or luck. These rewards came in two kinds, bonus points (加副, krar-pjegh) and bonus exponents (加翻, krar-pjar). Bonus points were awarded for challenging conditions to complete the hand, such as calling only one possible tile (獨聽, dok-l′êng), and for rare situations like going out on the very last tile (海底撈月, m′e′-ti′-raw-ngwjat). Bonus exponents extended from RS rules to the entire hand's score. An imperfect flush hand, i.e. consisting of one suit plus Honours tiles (Seasons or Trump tiles), which could only form triplets or the pair, was worth double; if it was a perfect flush, it was worth eight-fold.

The concept of "cap" (滿貫) was probably introduced in gambling settings to establish the maximum changing hands per game. The cap is set by players before start of play. If the number of points scored going out exceeds cap, the score is recorded as cap. The natural hand (天和), where a player finds his starting hand plus the first tile is already good to go out, is universally considered a cap hand. Exceptionally diffiuclt hands such as all-winds (melds of all four Winds) and all-trump (melds of all three Trumps) are also cap. If there is no cap, then custom dicatates that the natural hand cannot combine with any other bonus, as the player cannot be rewarded for skill when he has not started playing.

	Bonus points	Bonus exponents
Going out (GO)	10
Calling one tile	4
Calling two tiles	2
GO on dealt rile	2
GO on last tile	2
GO on extra tile	2
GO on steal	2
GO on peripheral	2
GO mid-sequence	2
Matching flower	4
Other flowers	2
Matching season	4
Other seasons	2
No sequences	4
Natural hand	Cap
All winds	Cap
All trumps	Cap
Matching wind		1 for meld
Trump		1 for meld
Imperfect flush		1 for suit
Perfect flush		3 for hand

1875 standard

In 1875, Bingo had become sufficiently amongst the gentry that official rules were written down for it. Classically, OS refers to the 1875 set of rules that is still followed by some communities today. Originally a commoner's game, Bingo clubs sprung up in the 1850s for social elites who sometimes squandered away fortunes gambling on it, whether as a player or bettor. These clubs then started organizing into leagues that played with each other for social and competitive reasons, though over-indulgence was considered a vice. It was originally for these leagues that the 1875 rules were written down, covering mostly scoring but also aspects of the game like etiquette and prohibitions of underhanded play.

Starting around that time, sets of Bingo tiles were made for export and spawned a number of player communities abroad. Bingo has become popular in Menghe and Dayashina, in particular, with player communities and stylistic variations that dwarf those in Themiclesia.

For a significant period of time, the 1875 standard was the standard in Bingo clubs and their leagues Themiclesia and most of the world; however, the 1875 rules have not prevented further development that lead to newer styles which are more popular than OS today. Games historian G. H. Hart writes:

Once it is established that a player can re-arrange his hand to fulfil challenging patterns, it follows that he should be rewarded for undertaking this risk and extra effort. Then arises the question how much should he be rewarded for it, and in the past there was no science in making these determinations. Creation of new criteria and re-evaluation of old ones is one, if not the main, driving force behind most of Bingo's evolved styles that exist today.

The 1875 rules are remarkably convoluted with its system for rewarding skill, risk-taking, and luck, with points for various melds and then exponents rewarded on top of some or all of them. This is certainly to be expected, as OS evolved out of RS, a game with a different objective. As the rules of a regular league with prestigious patrons, it has remained unchanged, but many evolving styles have done away with this scoring system in favour of a scale that assesses complete hands only.

New Style

While the 1875 OS rules remained dominant in competitve events, playing halls (down-market gambling dens distinguished from clubs) started offering new scoring rules that would speed up play, since frequently players were charged by number of games and the hall collected a percentage of winnings. These halls, where gambling frequently but not universally occurred, were legalized in 1901. While playing rules differed from hall to hall, the desire to play more quickly was shared with patrons, who had little leisure time after a working day. Surviving records tell that during the 19th century, Bingo was played individuals who wished to bide time away. Playing pace was sedate, and arguably the freedom of concealed hands developed to make the game slower and more complicated. The various changes gave rise to what contemporaries called New Style (NS; 新格, sjing-k.rak), though in the late 1800s and early 1900s, NS was not a regulated style like OS.

The scoring system largely dealt away with counting melds and established, in its stead, a "base" (底, ti′) for going out. Any bonus was reflected in terms of exponents, many bonus points in OS being converted to one exponent in NS. Since the base was fixed, calculating exponents was easier. However, since exponents expanded the base geometrically, most NS playing halls capped exponents at four, or 16 times base. The simplification of the scoring system has been connected by some authors to the desire of playing hall owners to expand the popularity of the game. It was possible to score highly by combining several not-so-challenging criteria, which would only be additive rather than exponential in OS. In the interest of rapid play, several bonus criteria that required more careful or even exhaustive analysis of a hand were eliminated, as these also tended to cause controversies in a gambling setting; those that were easily distinguished, quick to assemble, or luck-based (such as going out on a dealt tile versus a discard) were retained.

	Bonus points	Bonus exponents
Going out	Base
GO on last tile		1
GO on extra tile		1
GO on steal		1
GO on dealt		1
Matching flower		1
Matching season		1
No sequences		1
No exposed		1
Natural hand		Cap
GO on first dealt		Cap
All winds		Cap
All trumps		Cap
Partial winds		1
Partial trumps		1
Trump		1
Imperfect flush		1
Perfect flush		3

Modern Standard

The various styles of Bingo underwent competition during the Pan-Septentrion War, as it became a favourite pastime for troops, who brought the game home after the war. Though regional styles predominated before it, the assembly of troops from different regions fostered a need for a broadly-accepted scoring system, especially when many units sponsored Bingo recreation and tournaments. Of the facilities Themiclesian forces operated in Menghe between 1946 – 49, cinemas and Bingo halls were open to locals. The Consolidated Army sponsored the first pan-service Bingo tournament in 1948, commanding every department to run internal tournaments and present victors for a play-off. Some scholarship has been done on the effects of military lifestyle on playing habits.

As gambling was banned during war, the desire for speed and excitement seems to have promoted changes in the scoring system. This first led to lfiting the cap from four to six exponents, so that the top score was 64 times base, and then after 1950, exponential scoring was gradually abandoned in communities. The motivation for this change is unclear, though under NS the sheer multitude of compounding bonus conditions may have led to the feeling that a minor achievement giving one exponent should not double an existing, large achievement. For example, a perfect flush worth 16 times base might double to 32, because the winning tile was dealt rather than retrieved; conversely, a "plain hand" won on a dealt tile would receive double base. In the former, the dealt tile was felt to be worth an absolute amount of 16 times base, while in the latter only one time, for what is fundamentally the same criterion.

Additive scoring replaced the exponential system in the thrid Kien-k'ang Bingo Tournament, held in 1952. This shift further simplified counting, as the base was normally 20 or 50 points under NS. According to the new rules, points simply equalled exponents, so one exponent was one point, etc. On the other hand, clubs and leagues following OS rules were interrupted by the war, their socially-prominent members either called away or curtailing merrymaking during national distress, leading to that style's decline following the PSW. The demise of the social club as a political institution further diminished the popularity of OS rules. However, it has made a minor recovery and remains in use today, most prominently in "classic rules" tournaments. On the whole, however, most tournaments today conform to the "standard" rules formalized in the 50s.

	Bonus "exponents"
Calling one tile	1
Calling two tiles	1
GO on last tile	1
GO on extra tile	1
GO on another's steal	1
GO on dealt tile	1
Matching flower	1
Matching season	1
No sequences	2
Natural hand	Cap
GO on first dealt tile	Cap
All winds	Cap
All trumps	Cap
Partial winds	4
Partial trumps	4
Trump	1
Imperfect flush	2
Perfect flush	4

See also

• Themiclesia
• Menghe
• Dayashina