How to set Gor, Mooy, Chong and Tit in Pai Gow Tiles
One of the hands where the house way is measurably beatable. Every figure below is exact, from full enumeration against all 20,475 dealer hands.
Short answer
Set this hand as 7 points in the high hand and 0 points in the low hand. The house way plays 4 points with 3 points instead, and that costs you 6.06% of your bet every time this hand comes up. Copying the dealer is not the same as playing well.
Every way to set Gor + Mooy + Chong + Tit
Four tiles can be split three ways. Here is the exact expected value of each, computed against a dealer setting by the house way, enumerated over every one of the 20,475 hands the dealer can hold.
| How you set it | Expected value |
|---|---|
| 4 points: Gor + Mooy 3 points: Chong + Tit | -79.56% (house way) |
| 7 points: Mooy + Tit 0 points: Gor + Chong | -73.49% (best) |
| 6 points: Mooy + Chong 1 point: Gor + Tit | -76.43% |
EXACT Expected value per unit bet, five percent commission on winning hands, dealer banking.
Why the house way gets this one wrong
With no pair, the house way balances the hands by making the low hand as high as it can go, then boosts the high hand only under narrow conditions. Those conditions do not fire on this hand, so the dealer balances. The exact numbers above show that balancing is not the best available line here.
The house way is not built to be optimal. It is built so a dealer can apply it in a few seconds, from memory, with no judgment calls, on every hand of a shift. That simplicity has a price, and on this hand the price is 6.06%. Across every hand in the game the house way gives up 0.79% of every bet, which is the entire difference between a 2.3939% game and a 1.6035% game.
How often you will see it
This exact hand comes up roughly once in every 2,248 hands dealt. That sounds rare, and on its own it is. But there are 524 hands like it where the house way is beatable, and together they are why learning to set hands properly is worth more in Pai Gow Tiles than in almost any other game on the floor.
Practice it
The Pai Gow Tiles trainer deals hands and grades your split instantly. It grades against the house way, because matching the house way is the first milestone and most players cannot do it. Hands like this one are the second milestone.