pai gow

Pai gow (Chinese: 牌九; pinyin: pái jiǔ; jyutping: paai4 gau2) is a Chinese gambling game that is played with a Chinese dominoes tile set. Pai gow is played in unsanctioned casinos in most Chinese communities.[citation needed] It is played openly in major casinos in Macau, China, Las Vegas, Nevada, Atlantic City, New Jersey, in many California cardrooms, and in some Australian and New Zealand casinos. It dates back to at least the Song Dynasty, and is a game steeped in tradition.
The name "pai gow" is sometimes used to refer to a card game called pai gow poker (or “double-hand poker”), which is loosely based on pai gow.
Starting the GameTiles are randomized on the table, and are stacked into eight stacks of four tiles each in an assembly known as the woodpile. Various ritualistic "shuffles" are made, rearranging the tiles in the woodpile in standard ways that result in a new woodpile. Bets are then made.
Next, each player (including the dealer) is given four tiles with which to make two hands of two tiles each. The hand with the lower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand. If a player's front hand beats the dealer's front hand, and the player's rear hand beats the dealer's rear hand, then that player wins the bet. If a player's front and rear hands both lose to the dealer's respective hands, the player loses the bet. If one hand wins and the other loses, the player is said to push, and gets back only the money he or she bet. Generally seven players will play, and each player's hands are compared only against the dealer's hands.
Evaluations of three basic hands.Basic scoringThe name "pai gow" is loosely translated as "make nine" or "card nine". This reflects the fact that, with a few high-scoring exceptions, the best a hand can score is nine. To find the value of a hand, simply add the total number of pips on the two tiles, and drop the tens place. So for instance, a 1-3 tile (a tile with one pip on one end and three pips on the other, for a total of four pips) used with a 2-3 tile (with five total pips) will score nine, since four plus five is nine. A 2-3 tile with a 5-6 tile will score six, and not sixteen, because you drop the 1. And a 5-5 tile with a 4-6 tile will score zero, since ten plus ten is twenty, and twenty reduces to zero when you drop the tens place.
A Day tile (left) and a Teen tile (right}Gongs and WongsThere are special ways in which a hand can score more than nine points. The double-one tiles and double-six tiles are known as the Day and Teen tiles, respectively. If a Day or Teen tile is used with an eight, the pair is worth ten instead of the usual zero. (This is called a Gong.) If a Day or Teen tile is used with a nine, the hand is worth eleven instead of one. (This is called a Wong.) But a Day or Teen tile used with a ten is only worth two, not twelve; this is because only eights and nines can be combined with Days or Teens for higher values. (In other words, when Day or Teen tiles are combined with tiles other than an eight or nine, follow the normal scoring rules.)