Talk:Liubo

Holy crap!
User:BabelStone, excellent work on expanding this article! I have taken the liberty of lifting its status from "start" to "B" class. Cheers.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 13:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was wondering how to get the article a new rating. I've also submitted it to DYK as a 5x expansion. BabelStone (talk) 22:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It's certainly worthy of a DYK!-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 23:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Liubo is like birds flying around pool to hunt fish
《焦氏易林》：「豫之:剝：野鳶山鵲，奕棊六博；三梟四散，主人勝客. 」、「否之:睽：野鳥山鵲，來集六博；三鳥四散，主人勝客. 」  --Outlookxpxp (talk) 11:21, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reference. I didn't know about this source, and will try to incorporate it into the article. BabelStone (talk) 20:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 《古博經》：「其擲採以瓊為之. 二人互擲採行棋. 棋行到處即豎之，名為驍(Owl, 梟)棋，即入水(water pool)食(eat)魚(fish)，亦名牽魚. 每一牽魚獲二籌，翻一魚獲三籌. 若已牽兩魚而不勝者，名曰被翻雙魚，彼家獲六籌，為大勝也. 」 --Outlookxpxp (talk) 02:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Chupu is not like a variant of Liubo
Please see a Japan Profess's article, or read《國史補》、《五木經》to understand the rules of Chupu. --Outlookxpxp (talk) 15:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Chupu (樗蒲) is like Sho (board game), not like a variant of Liubo (六博). Chupu and Sho don't need any board to be played. The latter uses shell to make a space for pieces, and the former uses 矢 to do it. Chupu of China also is not like 저포 of Korea.
 * The dices of Chupu is not very like Liubo's.
 * From what I've seen from the provided link of the game of Chupu, like Liubo it has six pieces per player and the board looks like an overlysimplified version of Liubo's (an square in the center joined with the corners, but with more squares marked). The set shown uses five sticks instead of six as dice-equivalent, but such a change is not unheard of in game evolution. My take is that Liubo pieces and boards, like tarot cards, where used as material for a wide range of games, with the occassional simplification or modification of the game components. Thus, it may very well be that chupu was a game born for Lubo sets, while not being the original Lubo (let's remember that at least three different sets of rules and objectives were given, which may very well point to three different games played with the same components), and with time the set was fine-tuned for the game's needs (dropped the unused stick, color-coded, grid made more apparent...). Like I said, it would not be the first time something like that happenned (check the vast difference between check variants, including checkers, as well as playing cards, where the original tarot game has been lost long since but variants of the deck are still used for a lot of other games). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.147.200.211 (talk) 16:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Not a sentence
This caption is not a sentence:"Mural from an Easter Han Dynasty tomb at Luoyang, Henan showing a pair of Liubo players in the foreground, the player on the right with his right hand raised up as if about to throw down the six throwing sticks."because it has no verb, so, the terminal punctuation (period) s/b taken off. (I did but was reverted by User:BabelStone.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. I reverted myself and apologized a few seconds after I reverted you as I realized I had made a mistake. Sorry. BabelStone (talk) 20:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I see that now. No prob. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

A question
What is exactly the influence of liubo on other Asian board games? Komitsuki (talk) 06:23, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hard to establish without more info on the game itself. People disagree. Some Chinese scholars argue it's the actual antecedant of Chinese chess. — Llywelyn II   02:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Also spelled 陸博?
Can it also be spelled 陸博? If so, can this information be added to the article? 173.88.241.33 (talk) 03:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right. I have added "陸博" to the article. Thanks. BabelStone (talk) 13:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Haihun text
It's been years. There should be more information somewhere (at least in Chinese) about the actual rules contained in the over 5000 slips discovered at the tomb of Liu He (, Liú Hè), marquis of Haihun (海昏, Hǎihūn hóu), in northern Xinjian District, Nanchang Prefecture, in Jiangxi in 2011. Obviously it takes time but the slips had been excavated and photographed by 2016, processed by 2017, and they'd figured out they were about liubo by 2019. Apparently the work is being done by the Peking University Excavated Manuscript Research Center (, Běijīng dàxué Chūtǔ wénxiàn yánjiūsuǒ). Unhelpfully, the name of the text changed during analysis, going from the colorful Wǔsè Shíshèng (《》, "Five Color Eating Victory") to the fairly dry Liùbó Qípǔ (《》, "Liubo Rules")... but someone somewhere should know what's going on with this. Obviously whatever they found will rewrite a good deal of the article, like how the sides were identified as verdant and white instead of black  and white. — Llywelyn II   02:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
Obviously whatever the manuscript is being called, it's more important and throws everything before it into near obsolescence but still



is a pretty thorough but appropriately limited and skeptical solid tour of what's known from all other sources up to 2016. — Llywelyn II   05:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)