Pai Gow

Pai Gow is a gambling game that uses Chinese Dominos.

In order to play the game, the tiles are first made into eight stacks each containing four tiles. This is known as the woodpile. The piles are then shuffled and the bets are then able to be made.

Each player is dealt four tiles and the player makes two hands both containing two tiles. The hand with the higher value is referred to as the rear hand and the hand with the lower value is referred to as the front hand. The player wins his bet if his front hand beats the dealers front hand and his rear hand also beats the dealers rear hand. If the player can only meet half of that requirement, with either his rear or front hand beating the dealer’s corresponding hand there is a push and stakes are returned. If the player loses both of the showdowns his bet is lost.

Apart from a few exceptions, the best hand the player can make in Pai Gow is a 9 (in Cantonese Pai Gow means Make Nine). If one of the tiles has a number of dots in the double figures, the second digit is always used, for example, if the tile has a 5 and a 6, adding up to 11, the score for that tile is counted as 1, likewise 10 is counted as 0 and 12 is counted as 2.

In some cases it is possible to make a score that is better than 9. The double one tile is referred to as the Day tile and the double six tile is referred to as the Teen tile. If one of these tiles is used with an 8 then the score is 10, rather than 0. If one of these is used with a 9 then the score is counted as 11. These are known as a Gong and a Wong respectively.

The tiles marked 1-2 and 2-4 are referred to as the Gee Joon tiles. Either tile can be used as a 3 or a 6, whichever suits the player best. Pairs are also important in Pai Gow. There are 32 tiles and these can be sorted into 16 pairs. Eleven of them have identical tiles and the other five have the same score but a different arrangement of dots. If the player uses a pair this will beat a non pair, regardless of the scores. If two pairs come up against each other, the higher score wins.

The key strategy to follow is to seek out pairs, especially those with different arrangements that are harder to spot. If a Gong or Wong is received, they should be played with any tile that totals 7, 8 or 9. Participants should look to play the two smallest tiles that total 7,8 or 9 and finally care should be taken as every hand can be played three entirely different ways. A high and low hand will most commonly result in a draw but two evenly matched hands will more often than not result in a victory.