Pai Gow (牌九) is a Chinese gambling game. It is played with the Chinese dominoes tile set. The game is played in underground casinos in most Chinese communities. It is played openly in major casinos in Macau, China, Las Vegas, Nevada, Atlantic City, New Jersey, in many California cardrooms, and in some Australian casinos. It is an ancient game, thousands of years old, and steeped in tradition.
The name "Pai Gow" is sometimes used to refer to a card game called Pai Gow Poker (or Double Hand Poker ), also popular in Nevada and California, and which is loosely based on the Chinese game.
Rules
The set-up
Tiles are randomized on the table, and are stacked into eight stacks of four tiles each. This assembly is known as the
woodpile. Various ritualistic "shuffles" are made, rearranging the tiles in the woodpile in standard ways that result in a
new woodpile. Bets are then made.
Next, each player (including the dealer) is given four tiles with which to make two hands of two tiles each. The hand with the
lower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand. If a player's
front hand beats the dealer's front hand, and the player's rear hand beats the dealer's rear hand, then that player wins the bet.
If a player's front and rear hands both lose to the dealer's respective hands, the player loses the bet. If one hand wins and the
other loses, the player is said to push, and gets back only the money he or she bet. Generally seven players will play,
and each player's hands are compared only against the dealer's hands.
Basic scoring
The name "Pai Gow" is loosely translated as "Make Nine" or "Card Nine". This reflects the fact that, with a few high-scoring
exceptions, the best a hand can score is nine. To find the value of a hand, simply add the total number of pips on the two tiles,
and drop the tens place. So for instance, a 3-1 tile (a tile
with three pips on one end and one pip on the other, for a total of four pips) used with a 2-3 tile (with five total pips) will
score nine, since four plus five is nine. A 2-3 tile with a 5-6 tile will score six, and non sixteen, because you drop the 1. And
a 5-5 tile with a 6-4 tile will score zero, since ten plus ten is twenty, and twenty reduces to zero when you drop the tens
place.
Gongs and Wongs
There are special ways in which a hand can score more than nine points. The double-one tiles and double-six tiles are known as
the Day and Teen tiles, respectively. If a Day or Teen tile is used with an eight, the pair is worth ten instead of
the usual zero. (This is called a Gong.) If a Day or Teen tile is used with a nine, the hand is worth eleven instead of
one. (This is called a Wong.) But a Day or Teen tile used with a ten is only worth two, not twelve; this is because only
eights and nines can be combined with Days or Teens for higher values. (In other words, when Day or Teen tiles are combined with
tiles other than an eight or nine, follow the normal scoring rules.)
The Gee June tiles
The 2-1 and the 2-4 tiles are called Gee June tiles (or sometimes called wildcards). Either tile can count as 3 or 6, whichever scores more. So a 2-1 tile can be used with a 6-5 tile to
make a hand worth seven points, rather than four.
Pairs
The 32 tiles in a Chinese Dominoes set can be arranged into 16 pairs, as shown in the picture at the top of this article.
Eleven of these pairs have identical tiles, and five of these pairs are made up of two tiles that score the same, but look
different. (The latter group includes the Gee June tiles, which can score the same, whether as three or six.) If a hand is made
up of a pair, it always scores higher than a non-pair, no matter what the value of the pips are. (Pairs are often thought of as
being worth 14 points each.)
When two pairs are compared, the higher-valued pair wins. This is not determined by the sum of their pips, but by aesthetics.
It must be memorized which pairs score more than other pairs. The highest pairs are the Gee June tiles, the Teens, the Days, and
the red fours. The lowest scoring pairs are the mismatched nines, eights, sevens, and fives. But even the lowest-scoring pair
will beat any non-pair.
Ties
When one of a player's hands is compared to one of the dealer's hands, it sometimes happens that both will have the same
score. For instance, a player may have a front hand worth one point, consisting of a 7-4 tile and a 2-2 tile, and the dealer may
have a front hand also worth one point, made up of a 6-5 tile and a 5-5 tile. In these cases, determine which tile in each hand
has a higher value, as determined by the pair rankings mentioned above. In this case, the 2-2 tile is in a higher-ranking pair
than the 6-1 tile, and the 5-5 tile is in a higher-ranking pair than the 5-6 tile. (Again, the rankings of the pairs follows no
obvious pattern and must be memorized.) Since the 5-5 pair outranks the 2-2 pair, the dealer would win this front hand. In the
case of a true tie, where the dealer's high tile would be in the same pair as the player's high tile, the dealer wins the
tie.
There are two exceptions to the method described above. First, although the Gee June tiles form the highest-ranking pair, they
are considered to have no value when evaluating ties. Second, any zero-zero tie is won by the dealer, regardless of the tiles in
the hand.
Strategy
The basic decision to be made in Pai Gow is how to arrange one's hands. Given any four tiles, there are always three ways to
arrange them into two hands (although some arrangements may be functionally identical to others). Sometimes one way will be
clearly superior to another, but at other times it is difficult to determine the best strategy.
For instance, consider the four tiles at right. It would clearly be unwise to combine tile A with tile B, since each hand
would be worth zero. It would make more sense to combine tile A with tile C, in which case both hands would be worth 5. Or you
could pair tile A with tile D, in which case your front hand would be worth 3 and your rear hand would be worth 7. Which is a
better choice?
If you think the dealer will have poor hands, such as a front of 1 and a rear of 6, you would want to pair tile A with tile D
in order to maximize your chance of winning. If you are afraid the dealer may have a better hand, such as a front of 4 and a rear
of 9, then you will want to pair tile A with tile C in order to maximize your chance of pushing. You might also consider that
pairing tile A with tile D will make it more likely that a tie would break in your favor.
Experience will help a player get a feel for which hand combinations will work well in which situations. Many players use
various superstitions as well, believing that one should (for instance) never pair a 6-4 tile with a nine.
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