Chao News client writer Zeng Yangxi Huang Yunling.
Photo by tide news reporter Huang Yunling.
A small square table, two decks of playing cards, four people in pairs, and a game of egg cracking is complete.
In 2023, Egg Cracking will become the "Game of the Year" in the hearts of many people. For a period of time, the explosive egg is like a circle projected on the social field, dividing the world into "those who can beat eggs" and "those who can't beat eggs". In the circle, entrepreneurs and investors are keen on resourceful "duels", depending on the situation of all things; Outside the circle, some netizens are confused about "double down", "upgrade" and "over A", and they are confused and vigilant about the sudden popularity of the egg.
This grassroots card game, which originated in Huai'an and has been popular in Jiangsu and Anhui for half a century, why did it suddenly attract people's favor at this stage? Compared with intellectual sports such as Go, chess, and bridge, what is special about egg hunting? With the popularity of egg hunting, is there a risk of "playthings losing their minds"?
In the past few days, Chao News reporters have explored the origin and boom of eggs in Huai'an, the birthplace of eggs, as well as Hangzhou and other places; Dive into multiple hands at the same time and observe the philosophy of egg hunting in the game.
Egg brand photo by tide news reporter Huang Yunling.
Chinese-style poker games are popular all over the country
You still have five cards left, a high probability of three with two, play a clear pair of cards to let you go. "You have to learn to judge the quality of your hand to determine whether to play the main attack or the cooperation. "You must be cautious when playing the cards of your home, unless you are sure that you will play the head" ......
At the end of a round of eggs, Jin Hongrui, a new Hangzhou person, quickly classified the hands that had been mixed together and began to review the game. The next family is a novice, he breaks down the opponent's card type in every detail, and outputs the way to play, although it is only a year since he learned to break eggs.
I came across egg wrenching at a peer dinner last year, and I've been organizing games almost every weekend since then. Jin Hongrui said that he works in the market in the construction industry, and beating eggs can be regarded as his new "social password" - meeting friends with cards and quickly getting acquainted with strangers. "The egg is very quick to get started, friendly to novices, and at the same time there are many changes in card types, and you will not get tired of playing for a long time. Today, Jin Hongrui is a member of the Hangzhou Shangcheng District Egg Breaking Association, and every time the association organizes egg breaking competitions, he will participate as long as he is free.
Mu Yuehua and Jin Hongrui are in the same association, the difference is that he not only knows how to beat eggs, but is also a second-level referee recognized by the China Social Art Association. Recently, he participated in the 2024 World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs New Year Annual Meeting as the chief referee, and refereed the egg breaking points competition for more than 150 well-known entrepreneurs, members of business associations, and egg lovers in enterprises and institutions in Zhejiang Province. "In the past two years, only from December last year to January this year, the association sent referees to participate in no less than 20 large and small competitions, most of which were in Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Wenzhou. ”
The egg originated in Nanzha Town, Huai'an District, Huai'an City, on the shore of Baima Lake in northern Jiangsu (now Caoyun Town), and is the meaning of "throwing bombs" in Huai'an dialect. According to Chen Jing, executive vice president of the Huai'an Egg Federation, after about 40 years of epidemic in Huai'an District, the egg spread to Huai'an City and even outside the city in 2000, especially in the Suzhou and Anhui areas, and has been popular in the past two years. Since January this year, he has received more than 10 waves of guests from the egg association or sports industry from all over the country, "everyone around the development of egg fighting, competition organization experience and exchanges are getting closer and more frequent." ”
For a long time, it belonged to the folk entertainment, the name was uncertain, the rules were scattered, and then it gradually groped for standardization. Chen Jing introduced, especially after embarking on the competitive sports track, egg breaking has been rapidly promoted across the country, and egg breaking organizations in various places have also generally developed.
According to the data, there are currently more than 400 egg-related enterprises in the country. Egg associations are also blooming everywhere.
Chen Jing introduced that in addition to Jiangsu, Hainan, Xinjiang, Guizhou and other places have established provincial-level egg associations. Not long ago, the Shanghai Egg Sports Association also held the first meeting of the first general meeting, at which the chairman of Oriental Fortune was elected as the chairman of the first council. "At present, there are about 10 egg breaking associations at the provincial level, and more than 50 at the city level. ”
In addition, according to incomplete statistics, there are more than 1There are 400 million egg wrenching players, and more than 20 million people in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces alone regularly participate in various egg wrenching activities.
Wingfeng Games, an authoritative domestic chess and card game platform, is the first platform to bring the egg game online. Following the web version, in 2012 Winger developed a mobile version of the egg game, and later launched a mini program version. According to data from Wingfeng, at the end of January this year, the DAU (number of daily active users) of the Winger Egg Game App has exceeded one million, becoming the first domestic egg game with DAU exceeding one million, far ahead of similar competing products.
Feng Jing, assistant president of Wingfeng Network, introduced that before 2022, the online players of Doudanan were mainly concentrated in the Jiangsu and Anhui regions, and then began to radiate across the country, and the growth in 2023 will be particularly obvious, especially in the past year, the number of daily active users has increased by more than 50%.
The egg game covers a wide range of age groups, both young and old, the main group of people is between 35 and 50 years old, and the ratio of men to women is about 2:1. Feng Jing said that according to her observation, emerging places such as Shandong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places, eggs are more popular in some circles, and have not yet penetrated into almost all people like the Suzhou and Anhui regions, "so the potential of eggs is still very large." ”
The scene of the 2024 World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs New Year Annual Meeting **From "Zhejiang Merchants" magazine.
The doorway and philosophy behind the explosion of eggs
In the hearts of players, the "fire" of the egg comes from the "way" of the egg.
This card game is a combination of card play, such as race to the top and 80 points, where four people sit down and team up at the table, with the goal of playing all the cards in their hands as quickly as possible. When playing cards, you can play a bomb with other cards by "matching people". In the eyes of players, how to combine bombs, how to use them, how to crack them, how to prevent them, and how to trick each other's bombs are full of uncertainty.
Variety is the charm of the egg, and it is essential to pay attention to strategy and flexibility. Liu Xiang, president of the Huai'an Qingjiangpu District Egg Association, said. He has served as the coach of the Huai'an Egg Men's Team for many times, and believes that the egg needs to pay attention to cooperation, the player and the opponent are allies, and the four of them are friends and enemies, and they must cooperate with each other in the process of playing cards, but also make themselves stand out, which is the trick of the masters.
There is more than one chess card that can be fried and has to be cooperated, why is the red one an egg?
In the view of Li Dansheng, president of the China Egg Research Institute, mahjong is inconvenient to carry, golf needs a specific venue, Go and bridge have a high technical threshold, and some poker games may be fun, but rely on luck and strategy. Compared with other chess and cards, the egg is simple to get started, varied, easy to learn and play, and it is the best combination of entertainment and competitiveness in chess and card sports, so it can gather traffic.
Li Dansheng also taught at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, where he lectured on "Egg Game Strategy and Management". He believes that the egg is secretly in line with the business doorway. Similar to business management, egg hunting also pays attention to strategy and tactics. For example, decking is a tactic where "when you're playing the main offense, the core of decking is to reduce your hand size and gain more control." When playing with cooperation, the number of hands is not the core indicator, which requires a clear understanding of positioning, judging the situation, and adjusting in time to form the optimal solution. This dynamic resource allocation is also applicable to the adjustment of hand-held resources when running a business. ”
The "way" of breaking eggs, because it requires the cooperation of people in the bureau, can quickly close the relationship between people. In some circles, the egg is regarded as a "circle-breaking artifact" for social networking.
Since last year, many people around me have been playing with eggs, and I have learned from them. Miao Xueyan is engaged in industrial incubation and investment-related work in an institution in Zhejiang, and she agrees with the social function of the egg, "Now business people are popular to play with eggs, and my work often needs to contact the company. ”
In the egg game, some people play the game, and some people play the chance. In the financial circle, the news of the prevalence of egg hunting is in the headlines. In all kinds of public information, Zhejiang businessmen**, Suzhou Financial Trade Union, China Development Bank and other units and institutions have organized events, CITIC ** presented egg gift boxes to customers, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business's egg speech PPT was widely disseminated ......Eggs have become the "traffic responsibility" of the financial circle.
Chen Jing believes that the fire of breaking eggs is actually well-founded. In the place of origin, as early as 2014, the egg was listed as the Huai'an Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage. At the same time, in 2017, Huai'an Egg was "absorbed" by the Chess and Card Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and entered the ranks of competitive sports. At the end of 2022, the Chess and Card Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of China also formulated a unified competition rules ...... for the competitive egg breaking event
The popularity of eggs is not a day's work, and it is inseparable from the participation and promotion of multiple parties from the official to the non-governmental. Chen Jing said.
Data map of the 5th National Smart Games performance project egg breaking competition ** from Xinhua News Agency.
The industry calls for a new concept of healthy development
The poet Schiller said that man plays only when he is fully human; He is fully human only when he plays.
How do you evaluate the Egg Cracker? On social platforms, people have different opinions about egg cracking.
In this game, many people who can play said that they have gained values such as leisure, improving brain power, and socializing. And some people who can't play are puzzled why the poker game of a place of origin suddenly came out of the circle and became a unique "**".
The debate doesn't stop there. Recently, Hubei Yichang Tianwen Education Group arranged a winter vacation homework, requiring everyone to learn to "break eggs", and set the egg breaking project as the school-based curriculum for the new semester. This has also aroused widespread attention and heated discussions among netizens.
The evaluation is divided into two factions - some netizens questioned its necessity. Some netizens also said that it is good to promote board games, which can improve thinking ability and exercise the mind.
Around this matter, ** views are not the same - there are ** commentator articles pointing out that "breaking eggs" should not become children's winter vacation homework, and there are also ** diametrically opposed views that "breaking eggs" winter vacation homework should not be regarded as an outlier.
Rational analysis, everything has an ab side, the key is to see how to use it correctly. From the perspective of mass games, if players are too addicted, there is a risk of affecting physical and mental health. However, if it is used as an intellectual game, it can add color to the spiritual and cultural life.
We never play for money, just the process of playing cards, you can get a lot of competitive fun. Li Tianzuo, president of the Guizhou Chamber of Commerce in Zhejiang Province and chairman of Guizhihui (Hangzhou) brand management, said. He has been playing egg hunting for more than a year, and in his leisure time, he always asks his business friends to have a few games, just to enjoy the process.
If a very small number of 'go astray', it actually has little to do with the egg itself. For the general public, 'plaything' and 'opportunistic' play, whether it is egg hunting, or any other game, is not feasible, even if you play it during breaks, you must pay attention to the atmosphere. Liu Xiang said.
At the level of competitive sports, although the egg has accelerated the pace of development and has been listed as a performance event of the 5th National Mind Games, there is still a long way to go to become a perfect official sport. Many details in the competition, such as event arrangements, competition rules, professional athlete training programs, and coach level recognition, still need to be improved at multiple levels.
At present, the "Competitive Egg Breaking Competition Rules" we are using were approved by the Athlete Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of China in 2022, but it is still a trial version. Next, the official should also discuss and revise the problems encountered during the trial. Liu Xiang said.
Where should the development of the egg be headed?
We judge that in the near future, Egg Breaking will become a national hit, and Winger's strategy is user-oriented, so that players can get the ultimate gaming experience. Feng Jing said that it is with the user-oriented strategy that the new users and daily active users of Wingfeng Egg have achieved significant growth.
She said that in the next step, Winger will still adhere to the user-oriented concept, do a good job in product experience, and add more innovative gameplay. At the same time, it will also cooperate with the Sports Bureau and other countries to develop egg-breaking events, dig deep into the egg-breaking culture and spread it more widely.
On January 13, the finals of the "Yahai Cup" National Egg Breaking Open Tournament was held in Laixi, Shandong. During the competition, representatives of relevant practitioners from all over the country exchanged and studied on the topic of high-quality development of eggs.
According to the official of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China during the exchange and discussion, although everyone's views are not consistent, they all agree that we should not forget the original intention of the emergence and development of the project, and at the same time better regulate and lead the development of the project, we cannot artificially set up obstacles and cannot restrain the hands and feet of the people to participate in this sport.
The development of the egg industry must have a new development concept, which has become a common voice of everyone.
*Please indicate the source".