Using two decks, players must throw down poker and other special card combinations to clear their hands before opponents. Like bridge, the classic staple, the game is played among four players paired up in teams. Yu Longze, a broker based in Beijing, said his boss this month ordered all staff to learn the game. “During a game which can stretch for hours, we are bound to chit-chat, and sometimes useful information gets passed around after people feel comfortable and trust you.” Amateur players take part in a competition of guandan, a poker-like card game, in Beijing, China. “In finance, information is currency,” said Yang, for whom a game of guandan has become a standard gambit before wining and dining local officials. Path to build connections amidst dimming investmentĪs investment prospects darken, financiers increasingly view the game as a way to build ‘guanxi’ or connections with officials who hold the purse strings on local projects, especially those overseas investors might consider too risky. Total US-based venture-capital investment in China plummeted to $9.7 billion (Rs 80,125,880 crore) last year from $32.9 billion (Rs 2.71 lakh core) in 2021, PitchBook data shows.ĭomestic private capital has also dwindled as President Xi Jinping signalled his preference for a bigger state presence in the economy by launching crackdowns over the last few years in areas from technology to real estate and private tutoring.
