The Pai Gow Tiles house way

Which house way this is

House ways differ slightly between casinos. This site implements the published Generic House Way, which was written to state the smallest set of general rules that reproduce what essentially every casino house way does in practice. Its author notes that different house ways reach the same setting in more than 99% of hands.

We chose it for a specific reason. The well-known Foxwoods house way publishes its exception hands only as tile images, so its no-pair rules cannot be reproduced exactly from any text source. Implementing a partial version of it and publishing a house edge from it would produce a number that looks authoritative and is not. The Generic House Way is stated fully in words, ships its own worked examples, and our engine reproduces all fifteen of them.

With two pairs

Never split two pairs. Play each pair as its own hand.

With one pair

Keep the pair together in the high hand, except in these cases.

1. Split any pair if doing so makes two strong hands, where a strong hand is a High Nine, a Gong or a Wong.
2. Split Teens or Days if it improves the low hand to 3 or better.
3. Split any other pair only if it lifts the low hand from 3 or less up to 7 or more, while leaving the high hand at 9 or better.
4. Always split eights when the other two tiles are the High 10 and the Low 10.

A split only counts as an improvement if the resulting low hand is genuinely better than the low hand you would have played by keeping the pair. Splitting to a low hand of 8 is not an improvement if keeping the pair already gives you a 9.

With no pair

Four hands in five land here, so this is the part that actually decides your results.

1. Balance. Make the low hand as high as possible. But if any split can produce a strong hand, the final setting must contain one.
2. Boost. After balancing, reset the tiles to make the high hand as high as possible if the low hand came out below 3 and the high hand can be lifted to 7 or more, or if the low hand is a 3 whose top tile ranks below Chong and the high hand can be lifted to 9 or more.

The logic is simple once stated plainly. A low hand of 0, 1 or 2 is almost certainly going to lose anyway, so there is no point protecting it. Give up on it and make the high hand as strong as you can, so that at least you push instead of losing both.

Where to put equal-value tiles

When two tiles carry the same points but different ranks, put the higher-ranked tile in whichever hand you are trying to maximize. If you are building up the low hand, the higher tile goes low. If you are boosting the high hand, it goes high.

Three exceptions apply. With a Teen and a Day, the Teen goes in the high hand if the other two tiles are a six or Gee plus a five, or if the high hand is a strong hand. If the low hand is already 8 or better, the higher-ranked tile goes in the high hand. And if you hold two or more tiles ranked Chong or higher, split them between the two hands where possible, so that both hands can win a tie.

Named exceptions

The house way lists a small number of specific hands that override the general rules.

• Play 7/9 rather than 8/8 with a Teen or Day plus a six, a Gee and a five; with a Gee, a five, a High 4 and a Low 4; and with an 11, a 10, a High 8 and a seven.
• Play 6/9 rather than 7/8 with an 11, a High 10, a High 8 and a six or Gee.
• Play High 3 with 9 rather than 4/8 with a nine, a five, a High 4 and a Low 4.
• Play High 5 with 7 rather than 6/6 with a nine, a High 8, a Low 8 and a seven.
• With a Teen, a Day, a six or Gee, and a five, play High 7 with 8, putting the Teen in the low hand.
• Split sevens with the two 10s, or with an 11 and a 10.

Should you just copy the house way?

It is a reasonable starting point and a terrible finishing point. The numbers, from exact enumeration of all 736,281,000 matchups:

EXACT Dealer banking, five percent commission on winning hands.

The house way is designed to be simple enough for a dealer to apply in a few seconds without judgment. It is not designed to be the best play. The trainer grades you against it, because matching the house way is the first milestone. Beating it comes next.