Maxi tupu 馬戲圖譜

Maxi tupu 馬戲圖譜, also called Dama tujing 打馬圖經, is a short text on a Chinese board game. Authorship is attributed to the Song-period 宋 (960-1279) poetess Li Qingzhao 李清照 (1084-1155), who wrote several poems on horse racing (e.g. the rhapsody Dama fu 大馬賦). The word maxi today denotes horse performances in a circus, while the word dama means "horse racing" or any other way of using horses in games, like in polo. This is also like the board of the game is designed. Each participant moves forward by the numbers on two dice. The designations for combinations of the pips are listed in a long table.

The text is found in the series Shuofu 說郛, Yueyatang congshu 粵雅堂叢書, Yimen guangdu 夷門廣牘 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.

Figure 1. Board and pieces of a Maxi board game

The table to the left presents the name of combinations of pips on three dice, beginning with four of a kind (tangyin 堂印), and six of a kind (biyou 碧油).