Ceki (pronounced /tÃÂÃÂki/) is a type of card deck and card game historically played across maritime Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, introduced by Chinese and Peranakan communities in the region. Ceki is a descendant of money suited Chinese playing cards illustrated by figures of Water Margin (水滸å³ ShuÃÂhàzhuàn) characters which underwent simplification and abstraction. Ceki decks could be played for several games, and during the colonial period ceki was played by various social groups openly as means of entertainment and socialization, and more illicitly for gambling. Interest to ceki declined considerably at the dawn of the 21st century, but today ceki is still played in certain regions such as the Minangkabau lands of West Sumatra and Bali.
Several sources assume that the word ceki (Jawi ÃÂéÃÂ, Javanese ê¦Âꦼê¦Âꦶ, Balinese á¬ÂáÂÂá¬Âᬶ) was derived from Hokkien phrases such ä¸Âæ chÃÂt ki âÂÂone cardâ or äºÂæ jë ki "two cards". The term probably referred to the game played with the deck before it was used to refer the deck itself. In some localities, ceki is still understood as a type of game while the deck itself is known by other appellations such as daun ceki, ijo/iyu/yu, kartu Cina, kertu cilik, koa/kowa, and sikiah. Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia and Kamus Bahasa Melayu Malaysia dictionaries both use the spelling 'ceki' for standard Indonesian and Malaysian Malay, but there are numerous variant spellings that can be found in existing materials such as cuki, cekian, chÃÂki, cherki, chaqui, tjeki/tjÃÂki, dan tyekén.
A ceki deck (called ê¦Âꦼꦥꦠkepala in Javanese) consists of three suits, each suit consist of 9 pips and an honor card, totalling in 30 cards. Each card has a twin, so a single deck consists of 60 cards in total and most games need at least two decks with 120 cards. The 30 types of cards used in ceki can be seen in the table below:
In a ceki deck, only cards from the myriad suit have their values explicitly written with Chinese numeral. Value across suits are marked by frame indices; cards with the same frame have the same value. Games played with ceki usually entail making visual matches, in which the value of each card is not always needed to be known. The three honor cards have variable value that depends on the type of game played.
The three suits of ceki are derived from Chinese cash which is related to mahjong suits. The suits do not have consistent name in maritime Southeast Asia and often called by idiosyncratic names by players across the region. This is partly due to the abstract imagery of the cards which are prone to be interpreted differently by players with no prior knowledge to the design conventions of Chinese playing card.
The ceki deck can be used for several games. The most basic type however, also known as ceki or koa, is a draw and discard game with similarities to mahjong, albeit with simpler rules. The basic game can be understood as follows:
Its common to see modified aspects across regions, such as in triplets requisites, or point calculations. This results in variants such as balik satu, balik lima belas, chot, gonggong, and tantanan.