How to play
Pai Gow Tiles is played with a set of 32 Chinese dominoes. You and the dealer each get four tiles and split them into two hands of two tiles: a high hand and a low hand. Your high hand must be at least as strong as your low hand.
- Place a bet and press Deal. Your four tiles are face up; the dealer’s are face down.
- Tap two tiles to put them in your low hand. The other two form your high hand. House way splits them the way the dealer would.
- Press Set hands. The dealer’s tiles are turned over, already split by the house way.
- Your high hand plays the dealer’s high hand, and your low hand plays the dealer’s low hand.
- Both win: your bet pays 1:1, less a 5% commission.
- One wins and one loses: push, your bet is returned.
- Both lose: you lose the bet.
Ties go to the dealer (a “copy”), and so does any 0-0 tie.
Hand values
From highest to lowest:
- Pairs. Two matching tiles beat any other hand. The highest pair is Gee Joon (the 1-2 and 2-4 tiles together), then Teen (6-6), Day (1-1), Yun (4-4), Gor (1-3), Mooy (5-5), Chong (3-3), Bon (2-2), Foo (5-6), Ping (4-6), Tit (1-6) and Look (1-5). Last come the four mixed pairs: the nines (3-6 with 4-5), the eights (3-5 with 2-6), the sevens (3-4 with 2-5) and the fives (2-3 with 1-4). No other combinations count as a pair: 4-4 with 3-5 is not one.
- Wong: Teen or Day with a nine (3-6 or 4-5).
- Gong: Teen or Day with an eight (4-4, 3-5 or 2-6).
- Points: add up all the pips and keep the last digit, so 5-6 with 1-5 (17 pips) is worth 7. The Gee Joon tiles count as 3 or 6, whichever is better.
Breaking ties. When two hands have the same value, the one with the higher-ranked single tile wins. Single tiles rank in the pair order above (Teen highest), except the Gee Joon tiles: the 2-4 ranks just below the sevens and the 1-2 ranks lowest of all. If the best tiles are equal too, the dealer wins.
Strategy
With four tiles there are only three ways to split them, so the choice is quick. House way checks all three and picks the legal split with the best combined chances of winning each hand against the kind of hands the dealer usually makes.
- A pair usually stays together. In our simulation the house way split a pair in about 9% of the hands that held one, when splitting it gave better combined chances.
- Teen and Day are valuable beyond their pips: they make Wong and Gong, and they win ties.
- Keep an eye on the Gee Joon tiles: each one can count as 3 or 6.
In our simulation of 1,000,000 hands with both sides using the house way, the game kept about 2.3% of the bet on average (give or take about 0.2%). About 40% of hands were a push.
More games like this. Pai Gow Poker uses cards and a joker, with a five-card and a two-card hand.
If you enjoy Pai Gow Tiles, try Pattern Bingo or Peg Drop next.
