Doofus Pai Gow:

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The Basics

Each player and the banker are dealt four tiles, dice are used to determine who gets the first set of tiles in a real game. With your four tiles you make two hands of two tiles each. If your high hand is higher than the banks high hand, and your low hand is higher than the banks low hand, then you win. If only one of the hands is higher than the bankers matching hand, then it's a tie or push, and nobody wins. If neither of your hands is higher than the banks hand, then you lose. In the Navada casinos, and Doofuse Pai Gow, a 5% commission is assessed on all winning hands.

Noticed that both of your hands have to be higher than the bankers hands in order for you to win. If your hand and the banker's hand tie, then the banker wins that hand. More about that later. To know if you have won or lost, you need to know the rankings of the hands.

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Hand Rankings

Two tile hand rankings are as follows:
1.)   Pairs
2.)   Wongs and Gongs
3.)   Highest Total

Pairs

The highest hands are the pairs, and the highest pair is Gee Jun (Supreme). These two tiles are considered Wild Cards because either one can be used as a six or a three, when played separately. Also when these tiles are played separately, they are the lowest individually ranking tiles. Commonly either of these tiles is referred to as Gee. The Pairs are ranked as follows:

Gee Jun	Teen	Day	Yun
Gor	Mooy	Chong	Bon
Foo	Ping	Tit	Look
Chop Gow	Chop Bot	Chop Chit	Chop Ng

If you move the two tiles that make up Gee Jun from front to end, the above table is also a table of the individual tile rankings. Pai Gow is full of exceptions, so let me qualify that last sentence. Each tile of a pair is of equal rank. That is obvious for the pairs where the tiles match, but it is also true for the less obvious cases of mixed (Chop) pairs. An exception would be that you may see the 2:4 tile ranked higher than the mixed fives (Chop Ng). The 2:4 tile is ranked higher only when it is used as a six, remember you can use the wild card as either a three or a six. In this case the 2:4 would be higher than a five if played with the five. But when played with a five it would be used as a three to make an eight and therefore, would rank lower than the five. You really don't need to know any of the 2:4 ranking parodox, I just thought it was interesting. One more thing about hand rankings, only one tile is used in determining the hand rank. As an example, these two hands are of equal rank.

   Has the Same Rank as    

The value of each hand is 8 + 6 = 14 for a hand value of 4. Only the last digit is used in determining the hand value. Notice that the 1:2 is used as a six since 8 + 3 = 11 for a hand value of only 1. The highest tile in each of the hands is the 4:4 (Yun) and it is the tile used to determine which hand is higher. When the hand ranks are equal, the bank wins.

Wongs, Gongs and High Nine

The Wongs consist of either a Teen (12) or Day (2) with a nine, the Gongs are the Teen or Day with an eight, and the High Nines are a Teen or Day with any seven. The Wongs and Gongs are special hands while the High Nine is simply the highest nine you can have when adding the dots on each of two tiles. By the way, the color of the dots has no significance when playing Pai Gow.

& or Teen Wong

& or Day Wong

& or or Teen Gong

& or or Day Gong

& or or Teen High Nine

& or or Day High Nine

Highest Total

The hand total is the two tile total, using the last digit. Just considering the last digit means that a nine is the highest hand after the Gongs. Since the twelve or Teen is the highest tile the highest nine is the nine that has a twelve and a seven as shown above. This seems like a good place to mention that the name of the game, Pai Gow, means make nine or makes nine. In the table of pair rankings, you may have noticed that the pair of nines is called Chop Gow, meaning mixed nines. In determining a hands ranking, only the higher tile is considered. A Teen Gong with a high eight is equal to a Teen Gong with a low eight, and the Teen High Nine with a high seven is equivalent to the Teen High Nine with a low seven. When the banker and player have equal hands, the banker is the winner. This may seem like a big advantage for the banker, but actually it doesn't happen all that often.

The lowest hand is zero. A total of zero doesn't happen all that often either since a twelve or a two with an eight is a Gong, and the three is wild and can be used as a six, that only leave the eleven and nine, non-pairing tens, or a six and a four. When both the banker and the player have a zero, the bank wins. High tile is not considered in hands totaling zero.

Obviously it is very important to know the ranking of the tiles. The first seven, twelve through low four, pretty much have to be memorized. There isn't much logic you can use to help you here, other than the fact that the twelve and two are powerful in that they are part of the Wongs and Gongs. There doesn't appear to be any reason why the high eight would be next followed by the high four. After the low four are the tiles that have matching pairs with non-matching upper and lower halves. These are ranked in order consistant with their numerical value, 11, 10, 7, and 6. Then the remaining tiles are the mixed pairs in numerical order, 9, 8, 7, 5, and Gee.

These are the basic rules of the game. By knowing these rules you should be able to play Pai Gow, but maybe not very well. In order to play well, you need to learn some basic strategy. Over the centuries, the Chinese have developed a traditional Pai Gow strategy. This strategy is what the casinos use and is generally referred to as the House Way.

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Basic Strategy (House Way)

The House Way depends on whose house it is. From casino to casino there are a few hands that will be played differently, but for the most part there is very little variation. Hopefully, the Doofus House Way is fairly close to what you'll find at the casinos. What is presented here is the basics of the Doofus House Way. Not all the exceptions are discussed here. From time to time, you may notice some of the exceptions when you chose to run the statistics while playing the game.

Before you can set your tiles, you need to know what you have. You need to be able to recognize pairs, spot the Wongs and Gongs and recognize the wild cards. If you have a Gee look for a 4, 5 or 6 to go with it. Next, look for any two small tiles that add to nine or less. After that, consider playing the highest numerical tile with the lowest. If you don't have a Pair, a Wong, or a Gong, or two numerically low tiles that play well together then quite often playing the tile with the most dots and the tile with the least dots together will produce the best hand.

Pai Gow strategy starts with simple basic ideas. But it seems as though every rule of strategy has an exception, and most of the exceptions have an exception. Anyway, the first three Basic Rules of traditional strategy are:

Make two strong hands.
When you have two strong hands, deciding how to play your tiles is easy. Two strong hands would be two pair, or any combinations of a pair, Wong, Gong or High Nine. Actually, I would consider having a high seven as my low hand as having two strong hands.

Make one strong hand at the expense of the low hand.
When dealt a pair, Wong, Gong or High Nine, you will usually want to play that high hand without even considering the low hand. Also, you'll want to play a seven or higher in your high hand when the best low hand possible has a value of 3 or less.

Play the low hand and the high hand as close together as possible.
Unfortunately your going to have a lot of hands where this rule applies. As an example, consider getting the four tiles, 9, 8, 7 and 6. You could play 7 - 3, 6 - 4 or 5 - 5. The better play would be the 5 - 5.

Side Note   When I discuss Pai Gow hands, and when the hands are displayed in the Doofus Pai Gow game, the high hand is always first. If you have read about Pai Gow anywhere else, you probably saw the low hand displayed or mention first. There is a reason for this, and it took me a long time to figure it out. But I'm pretty sure I did. Most of the books are written from the perspective of the dealer who stands on the opposite side of the table. So when he places his low hand to the left, it will be to the right when viewed from the other side of the table. I've never been a dealer, just a player, so I've always seen the high hand on the left.

Always Play Pairs Except:

Split the Gee Jun pair when you are also dealt either a 6 and 4, 6 and 5, or non-pairing 6's. By splitting Gee Jun in these cases you will produce hands of 9-7, 9-8, or 9-9. If you play the Gee Jun pair you would have hands of Pair-0, Pair-1, or Pair-2. Of course, if you play the Gee Jun, the highest pair, you will never lose, but you will seldom win. Having said that, the house way never splits Gee Jun. You might want to run the statistics for these hands and see which way you think is better.

Split 12's or 2's to make hands of 8-6 or better. Also split them when the other tiles are a 9 and an 11. Of course, if your third and fourth tiles are a pair, forget the 8-6 rule and play the two pair. You will find that you will split the 12's and 2's more often than not. Even though you will be giving up a high pair, the result will be two strong hands, or a Wong-3 instead of Pair-0 in the case of being dealt the 9 and 11 with the pair.

Split 9's with any non-pairing combination of 12, 2, and 10. This will produce hands of Wong-Wong, Wong-9 or 9-9. Keeping the pair would result in hands of Pair-4, Pair-2, or Pair-0. Our very first rule was to make two strong hands when possible.

Split 8's with any non-pairing combination of 12,2,11, and 10. Also split the 8's when the other two tiles are 11 and 9. Splitting the 8's with an 11 and 9 will result in a 9-7 hand as opposed to a Pair-0. The 9-7 hand will win more often than it will lose, while the Pair-0 hand will never win, but will result in a lot of pushes.

Splits 7's with a 12 and a 2, or with a 12 or 2, with an 11 or 10. To split 7's, you must be able to make a high nine in your high hand. Notice that with a pair of 7's, you do not split them when your other two tiles are 11 and 9. Doing so would result in a week hand of 8-6, a hand that loses far more often than it wins. With the Pair-0 you will get a lot of pushes.

You should not split any of the other pairs, 4's, 5's, 6's, 10's or 11's. You might consider splitting 11's with non-pairing 8's and play the 9-9 with a pretty good 9 in the high hand, but if you run the statistics you'll see that the Pair-6 is a better play.

Play Wongs, Gongs and High Nines

Always play a Wong, Gong or High Nine when dealt a 12 or 2 with 7, 8, or 9. If you have a choice, play the High Nine instead of a Wong or Gong, and play a Gong instead of a Wong. Also, if you are dealt both a 12 and a 2, play the 12 in the high hand. One other exception, if you have an 11 and 9 with a 7 or 8, play the Wong. This is another basic rule, Play the Obvious Playing a 9-0 or Gong-0 instead of Wong-8 or Wong-9 just doesn't make sense.

There are two more exceptions. Play a Wong rather than a High Nine when dealt a 12 (or 2), 9, 7 and low 4. Play a Gong rather than a High Nine when the fourth domino is any 4. These particular plays are consistant will a subsequent rule concerning when to improve the high hand at the expense of the low hand. After you have played awhile, you will get into the habit of looking for the Teens (12) and Days (2) as you will soon see the value of these tiles. Having one or both of these tiles will improve your chances of winning.

Play the High Hand and Low Hand as Close Together as Possible

This is one of the basic rules we started with, but it warrents some discussion. In most cases, playing the tile with the most dots with the tile with the least dots will satisfy this rule. However, if two small tiles total 9 or less, you should consider playing them together. As an example, consider having the four tiles, 4, 5, 8, and 9. You would play the 4 and 5 together to have a hand of 9-7. This is also another example of playing the obvious.

Play the highest numerical tile with the lowest.   Examples:

4 - 4

and

5 - 4

Play two small tiles that total 8 or 9 together.   Examples:

9 - 5

and

8 - 8

Play the Highest Ranking tile in the LOW hand if the hands total 9 - 7 or less.   Example:

9 - 7

Play the Highest Ranking tile in the HIGH hand if the hands total 9 - 8 or higher.   Example:

9 - 8

When dealt both the 12 and 2, play the 12 in the HIGH hand if the high hand is an 8 or higher.   Examples:

8 - 7

and

7 - 6

Play the HIGH hand as high as possible if the Low Hand is less than a 3 and a High Hand of 7 or better can be obtained.   Examples:

8 - 0

and

7 - 1

There is a variation to this House Way that you will come across, and is a variation that the Doofus Pai Gow uses. Rather than using any three as the breaking point, low hands less than a Long Three are considered too low, and the high hand is built as high as possible if a least a 7 can be made. A Long Three is a three made up of a high 6 (Chong) and a 7. The long three rule doesn't come into play often, but here is an example where it does make a difference.

Any 3 Rule: Play 5 - 3

Long 3 Rule: Play 8 - 0

Exceptions to the Rules:   Avoid playing two high ranking tiles in the same hand.

Play - High 10 + 9 = 9	High 6 + Low 10= 6
Play - High 10 + Low 8 = 8	High 6 + Low 10 = 6
Play - High 10 + 7 = 7	High 6 + Low 10 = 6
Play - High 4 + 11 = 5	High 10 + Low 4 = 4
Play - High 8 + 7 = 5	High 4 + Low 8 = 2
Play - High 8 + Any 6 = 4	High 4 + Low 8 = 2

Exception to the Rules:   When to Play a 9 - 7 rather than an 8 - 8.

Play - Any 6 + Gee = 9	(12 or 2) + 5 = 7
Play - High 4 + 5 = 9	Low 4 + Gee = 7
Play - High 8 + 11 = 9	High 10 + 7 = 7

Notice that the last 9 - 7 play also conforms to the previous exception rule of avoiding playing two high ranking tiles in the same hand. The house way is to play this 9 - 7 only with both the High 8 and High 10. However, if dealt either the High 8 or the High 10 the 9 - 7 hand is a better play than the 8 - 8.

Exception to the Rules:   An Exception to the Exceptions

9 - 3

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created by Stephen J. Rindom, geejun@cox.net
Last modified: May 7, 2007