The smooth return to Chinese rule in 1999 marked the arrival of billions of patacas local currency in gambling cash from the mainland, where the pastime is strictly illegal. The big players from. Chinese are compulsive gamblers and they probably are the world's biggest gamblers. Xu Beixi 's comments are anecdotal and the chart she provided is quite different to the ground realities, somehow I do not quite agree. Chinese gambling game is a crossword puzzle clue. Clue: Chinese gambling game. Chinese gambling game is a crossword puzzle clue that we have spotted 6 times. There are related clues (shown below).
Pai Gow Chinese Domino Rules
How To Play Pai Gow Dominoes
Pai Gow is a Chinese Gambling game played with the Chinese dominoes tile set.The game is played in underground casinos in most Chinese communities. It is playedopenly in major casinos in Macau, China, Las Vegas, Nevada, Atlantic City, New Jersey, in many California cardrooms, and in some Australian casinos. It is an ancient game, thousands of years old, and steeped in tradition.
One of the first games I ever played in a casino was called sic bo, which is played with three 6-sided dice. 'Sic bo' means 'dice pair' in Chinese. I was familiar with the probabilities when rolling three dice because I played Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager.
The name 'Pai Gow' is sometimes used to refer to a card game called Pai Gow Poker (or Double Hand Poker ), also popular in Nevada and California, and which is loosely based on the Chinese game.
The Set-Up
Tiles are randomized on the table, and are stacked into eight stacks of four tiles each. This assembly is known as thewoodpile. Various ritualistic 'shuffles' are made, rearranging the tiles in the woodpile in standard ways that result in anew 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 thelower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand. If a player'sfront 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 theother 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.
Basic ScoringThe name 'Pai Gow' is loosely translated as 'Make Nine' or 'Card Nine'. This reflects the fact that, with a few high-scoringexceptions, 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 tilewith 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) willscore 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. Anda 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 tensplace.
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 asthe Day and Teen tiles, respectively. If a Day or Teen tile is used with an eight, the pair is worth ten instead ofthe usual zero. (This is called a Gong.) If a Day or Teen tile is used with a nine, the hand is worth eleven instead ofone. (This is called a Wong.) But a Day or Teen tile used with a ten is only worth two, not twelve; this is because onlyeights and nines can be combined with Days or Teens for higher values. (In other words, when Day or Teen tiles are combined withtiles other than an eight or nine, follow the normal scoring rules.)
The Gee June tilesThe 1-2 and the 2-4 tiles are called Gee June tiles (or sometimes called wildcards). Either tile can count as 3 or 6, whichever scores more. So a 1-2 tile can be used with a 5-6 tile to make a hand worth seven points, rather than four.
The 32 tiles in a Chinese Dominoes set can be arranged into 16 pairs, as shown in the picture at the top of this article.Eleven of these pairs have identical tiles, and five of these pairs are made up of two tiles that score the same, but lookdifferent. (The latter group includes the Gee June tiles, which can score the same, whether as three or six.) If a hand is madeup of a pair, it always scores higher than a non-pair, no matter what the value of the pips are. (Pairs are often thought of asbeing worth 14 points each.)
When two pairs are compared, the higher-valued pair wins. This is not determined by the sum of their pips, but by aesthetics.It must be memorized which pairs score more than other pairs. The highest pairs are the Gee June tiles, the Teens, the Days, andthe red eights. The lowest scoring pairs are the mismatched nines, eights, sevens, and fives. But even the lowest-scoring pairwill beat any non-pair.
TiesWhen one of a player's hands is compared to one of the dealer's hands, it sometimes happens that both will have the samescore. For instance, a player may have a front hand worth one point, consisting of a 3-4 tile and a 2-2 tile, and the dealer mayhave a front hand also worth one point, made up of a 5-6 tile and a 5-5 tile. In these cases, determine which tile in each handhas a higher value, as determined by the pair rankings mentioned above. In this case, the 2-2 tile is in a higher-ranking pairthan the 3-4 tile, and the 5-5 tile is in a higher-ranking pair than the 5-6 tile. (Again, the rankings of the pairs follows noobvious pattern and must be memorized.) Since the 5-5 pair outranks the 2-2 pair, the dealer would win this front hand. In theunusual case of a true tie, where the dealer's high tile would be in the same pair as the player's high tile, the dealer wins thetie.
There are two exceptions to the method described above. First, although the Gee June tiles form the highest-ranking pair, theyare considered to have no value when evaluating ties. Second, any zero-zero tie is won by the dealer, regardless of the tiles inthe hand.
StrategyChinese Gambling Game
The basic decision to be made in Pai Gow is how to arrange one's hands. Given any four tiles, there are always three ways toarrange them into two hands (although some arrangements may be functionally identical to others). Sometimes one way will beclearly superior to another, but at other times it is difficult to determine the best strategy.
For instance, consider the four tiles at right. It would clearly be unwise to combine tile A with tile B, since each handwould be worth zero. It would make more sense to combine tile A with tile C, in which case both hands would be worth 5. Or youcould pair tile A with tile D, in which case your front hand would be worth 3 and your rear hand would be worth 7. Which is abetter choice?
If you think the dealer will have poor hands, such as a front of 1 and a rear of 6, you would want to pair tile A with tile Din order to maximize your chance of winning. If you are afraid the dealer may have a better hand, such as a front of 4 and a rearof 9, then you will want to pair tile A with tile C in order to maximize your chance of pushing. You might also consider thatpairing tile A with tile D will make it more likely that a tie would break in your favor.
Experience will help a player get a feel for which hand combinations will work well in which situations. Many players usevarious superstitions as well, believing that one should (for instance) never pair a 6-4 tile with a nine.
Article text based on the Wikipedia, licensed under the GFDL.
Other Sources of Pai Gow Chinese Domino Rules
Chinese Casino Games
Pai Gow Chinese Domino Games
Chinese Gambling Game Crossword Clue
- Pocket Pai Gow Championship for PocketPC - by Crosstec Limited
