How to Play Fortune Pai Gow

Dating back to the Song Dynasty, the Chinese domino game of pai gow (meaning "make nine") is the oldest form of gambling game played in modern casinos. Although complex, it is possible to learn the game after a few hands. Here's how to play.

Things You'll Need

• 32 Pai Gow tiles/dominoes
• Four six-sided dice, one of a different color than the others
• Dice cup
• Playing table
• Two to eight players

Instructions

Beginning Play

1. Designate one player as dealer. (In a casino, the dealer works for the house).

2. Offer each player, going counterclockwise around the table, the opportunity to bank the hand. As the banker must be able to cover all bets, casino players usually decline this right in favor of the house, or split the duties 50-50 with the house.

3. Shuffle the tiles into eight "woodpiles" of four tiles each.

4. Place bets on the outcome of the game.

5. Have the dealer place the dice in a cup, shake it, and slam it mouth-down on the table, announcing, "No more bets!"

6. Count counterclockwise around the table, starting with the dealer, up to the number rolled on the three like-colored dice. This person gets first choice of the woodpiles.

7. Assign woodpiles to the remaining players in turn.

Building Hands

1. Organize your tiles into two hands, a high hand and a low hand. The object is to have both of your hands beat both of the dealer's hands. If they do, you win the bet; if neither does, you lose the bet; if only one does, you get back your bet but no additional money.

2. Look for the wild tiles: the 1-2 combination and the 2-4 combination. Either combination may be counted as three or six points when paired with another tile; played together they form "Gee Jun," the Supreme Pair, the highest possible hand.

3. Find matching pairs among the tiles, if any, from among the following list, in order of rank: "Heaven" (matching 12s or "Teens"), "Earth" (matching 2s or "Deys"), "Man" (matching 8s in 4-4 combination), "Goose" (matching 4s in 1-3 combination), "Flower" (matching 10s in 5-5 combination), "Long" (matching 5s), "Board" (matching 4s in 2-2 combination), "Hatchet" (matching 11s), "Partition" (matching 10s in 4-6 combination), "Long Leg 7" (matching 7s in 1-6 combination), and "Big Head 6" (matching 6s in 1-5 combination).

4. Go after unmatched pairs: "Mixed 9" (4-5 and 3-6 combinations), "Mixed 8" (3-5 and 2-6 combinations), "Mixed 7" (3-4 and 5-2 combinations), and "Mixed 5" (3-2 and 1-4 combinations).

5. Play the 12 with either of the nines to form the "wong" combination "King of Heaven" or play the two with either of the nines to form the lesser wong "King of Earth" if you can't make a pair. If you don't have nines, play the 12 with either of the eights to form the "gong" combination "Treasure of Heaven" or play the two to form the lesser gong "Treasure of Earth." If you don't have nines, play the 12 or two with a seven to form "high nine."

6. Count the total value of the pips in each of your hands if you are unable to make a pair, wong, gong or high nine. The goal is to make a total of nine or come as close to it as possible, with scoring similar to baccarat in that the value of the tens digit is discarded: a two-pip tile and an eight-pip tile together score 0, not 10.

Tips & Warnings

• The dealer determines how to create his hand according to the number rolled on the colored die as part of a set of rules called Star City's Pai Gow House Way. Players may choose to set their hands this way or as they choose.

• When the dealer and players each hold hands with the same numeric total value, the value of the highest ranking domino is used to determine the winning hand. If the values of both dominoes in the respective hands are equal, the player's hand is declared a "copy" hand and loses. If both hands evaluate as 0, the dealer wins regardless of the values of the individual tiles.

• A simple way to evaluate the rank of hands is to treat pairs as worth 14 points, wongs as worth 11 points, gongs as worth 10 points, and score everything else baccarat fashion.

• Because both hands must beat the dealer's hands to win money, it is not always a good idea to form the strongest possible high hand, particularly if the low hand is left exceptionally weak.

Resources

• Download a Pai Gow computer game from Dicedealer.