The history and culture of Tiến Lên

Tiến lên means roughly 'go forward' or 'advance' in Vietnamese, which describes the game well: every play has to move the table forward with a higher combination than the one before. In English the game is often called Thirteen, after the thirteen cards each player is dealt, and sometimes Killer 13 or Vietnamese Poker, although it has little to do with poker.

The full name of the most common version is Tiến Lên Miền Nam, Southern Tiến Lên. It is the version played on t13nlen.app, with chopping 2s, bombs and instant wins.

Tiến Lên belongs to a large family of card games known as climbing or shedding games. In these games players try to get rid of all their cards by playing higher and higher combinations, and the first to empty their hand wins.

Its closest relatives are played across East and Southeast Asia. Big Two (Cantonese: Choi Dai Di) is popular in Hong Kong, southern China, Taiwan and Singapore. Pusoy Dos is played in the Philippines. They share the core ideas with Tiến Lên: the 2 is the highest card, the player with the lowest card starts, and singles, pairs, triples and runs must be beaten by the same type of combination. The details differ. Big Two uses five-card poker hands, while Tiến Lên has runs of any length, consecutive pairs and bombs that chop 2s.

Nobody knows exactly when or where the first of these games was played. What is clear is that the Vietnamese version developed its own rules and its own culture during the twentieth century, and that it became one of the most played card games in the country.

Tết is the most important holiday of the Vietnamese year. Families travel home, visit relatives, give children red envelopes with lucky money and spend long evenings together. Card games are a big part of those evenings, and Tiến Lên is the one almost everybody knows.

Part of the appeal is that the game works for every age. Grandparents and grandchildren can sit at the same table, the rules are learned in a few rounds, and a round takes only a few minutes, so players can come and go. The game is also loud: a well-timed chop of an opponent's 2 is often met with shouting and laughter from everyone watching.

Many families play for small stakes or simply for bragging rights. On t13nlen.app nobody plays for money. Rounds are played for points, coffee beans and a place on the leaderboard.

From the late 1970s onwards, large numbers of Vietnamese people settled in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Norway and many other countries. They brought Tiến Lên with them. In many of these communities the game became a link between generations: a way for children who grew up abroad to share something with their parents and grandparents.

That is also how t13nlen.app started. We are a group of friends from NTNU in Norway who grew up playing Tiến Lên with our families, and we wanted a way to keep playing together even when we live in different cities and countries.

Because Tiến Lên is mostly passed on at home, almost every family has its own small house rules. Some allow 2s in runs, some use different instant wins, and some reward chops differently. Northern Vietnam also has Tiến Lên Miền Bắc, a stricter version where a combination must usually be beaten with cards of the same suit or colour.

The rules on t13nlen.app follow the most common Southern version, so players from different families can sit at the same table without arguing about the rules first.

Tiến Lên is still played the traditional way, with a deck of cards on the floor, but it is now played online too. Online play makes it possible for a family spread over several countries to sit at the same virtual table on Tết, and for new players around the world to learn a game they would otherwise never have met.