Tien Gow is the name of a Chinese trick-taking gambling game for 4 players. The game is played with a set of Chinese dominoes. Heaven is the top rank tile of the civilian suit; Nine is the top rank tile of the military suit of the domino set.
"Tien Gow" is sometimes spelled Tin Kau, and is the transliteration of two Chinese characters (天九) in Cantonese: Heaven http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%d1&category=wholerec
ord and Nine http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%45&category=wholerec
ord . In Mandarin, it is pronounced as Tian1Jiu3.