Pai Gow: How To Play

The Banker

The objective of the game is for the player to beat the banker. The first task before each hand is to establish who will be the Banker. The Banker can be any player or the casino. A player who banks the game must be able to cover all wagers during their time as the Banker (some casinos allow the banker to share that responsibility with the house on a 50-50 basis). They must also have wagered in the previous round when the casino acted as Banker. The option to be the Banker is offered to each player in a counterclockwise direction. Players are not obligated to bank, and if all players decline, the casino banks the game. When the casino banks the game, its hands are always set according to a house formula for making hands. Players do not have to used that formula when they bank, and are free to arrange their hands any way they choose.

The Deal

Play begins when the house dealer mixes the tiles and then creates eight stacks of four tiles. After the players place their bets, the dealer shakes three dice in a cup. The number rolled determines which players receives the fist stack of tiles. To decide which player gets the first stack, the dealer counts counterclockwise from the Banker around the eight places at the table (for example, the Banker would get the first stack if the dice totaled 9 or 17). After determining where to start, the house dealer then gives a stack of four tiles to each player, and the players arrange a high and a low hand (each containing 2 tiles).

Scoring

The value of a hand is based on both the numeric value and the symbolic ranking of the tiles. To find the numeric value of a tile, count the right-hand digit if the total is higher than 9 (for example, a 12-spot tile has a value of 2). The main ojective is to make your high hand and your low hand each as close to 9 as possible. To form a hand, add the total number of spots contained on the two tiles, again discarding the left-hand digit of any two-digit total.

When two hands have the same numeric value, the symbolic ranking of the tiles determines the winner. To find which hand is higher, take the highest ranked tile in each hand and compare them. Casinos have charts that show the symbolic value of the tiles for this purpose. When two hands have the same numeric value and identical high tiles, it is called a "copy" hand. The Bank wins all copy hands. When two hands have a numeric value of 0, regardless of the high tile, the Bank also wins.

Arranging The Tiles & Winning

To win you must win both hands, and to lose you must lose both hands. Winning one and losing the other is called a push or a ties. For this reason you don't want to have an extremely strong big hand and a very week little hand, as this will usually result in a push. You want to have hands that are relatively strong on the big and little ends. The top five hand rankings are Supreme Pair, Matched Pairs, Unmatched Mixed Pairs, Wongs, and Gongs (see Rankings for more information).

There are four basic steps to follow that will help you correctly set most of your hands:
1. Look for pairs. Matching pairs are easy to recognize because the tiles are identical. There area also Unmatched pairs, like 5-2 and 3-4. Remember that you can always ask the dealer for an explanation.
2. When you don't have a pair, look for the 12 (Teen) or 2 (Dey) tile and combine it with a 7 to make High 9, or an 8 to make a Gong or a 9 to make a Wong.
3. Look for two small tiles that total 9 or less and play them together.
4. Put the largest tile with the smallest tile.
For Strategy for more information)