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Pai gow is an ancient Chinese gambling game that is played with domino like tile set. It can be translated as ‘make nine”. The game is played between a dealer and a maximum of seven players. The tiles are first mixed up on the table and then assembled into eight stacks of four tiles each. This arrangement is known as the woodpile. This arrangement is known as a wood pile.
Each tile has two sets of pips and each set can have from one to six pips arranged like the face of a die. The value of a tile is the total number of pips on it. The value of a two tile hand is obtained by adding the value of the tiles and dropping the tens digit. For example the value of the hand with a 2-3 tile and a 6-4 tile is 5, arrived at after dropping the tens digit from the total of 15. Normally the maximum value of a hand is 9. After the players place their bets, one stack of four tiles is given to each player and one to the dealer. Each player is required to make two hands of two tiles each. The hand with the lower value is known as the front hand and the hand with the higher value is known as the rear hand. In turn each player’s front hand is compared with the dealer’s front hand and each player’s rear hand is compared with the dealer’s rear hand. The hand with the higher value wins. If the player wins both hands he wins and is paid out at 1:1. If the dealer wins both hands then the payer loses his wager. If the player and the dealer win one hand each then it is a push and the wager is returned to the player. If the player’s and the dealer’s front or rear hand have the same value, then the tie is broken by an elaborate set of rules. There are special combinations of tiles that are valued at more than nine. A “day” tile is the tile with two 1s and a “teen” tile is the tile with two sixes. If either of these tiles is used with a tile that is worth 8, then the hand value is 10 instead of 0. This hand is known as a “gong”. And if either of these tiles is used with a tile that is worth 9, then the hand value is 11 instead of 1. This hand is known as a “wong”. The day and teen tiles used with any tile other than an 8 or 9 are scored normally. The 1-2 and the 2-4 tiles are known as the “gee joon” or wild card tiles. The 1-2 tile counts as either 3 or 6, whichever is more favorable to the player. The same applies to the 2-4 tile. 16 two tile hands are defined as “pairs”. 11 of these are actually pairs, whereas the other five are not pairs by looks but are deemed pairs. A hand with a pair is valued at 14 and is the highest valued hand in pai gow. |
