Pai gow

Pai gow (/paɪ ˈɡaʊ/ py GOW; Chinese: 牌九; pinyin: páijiǔ; Jyutping: paai⁴ gau² [pʰaj˩.kɐw˧˥]) is a Chinese gambling game, played with a set of 32 Chinese dominoes. It is played in major casinos in China (including Macau); the United States (including Boston, Massachusetts; Las Vegas, Nevada; Reno, Nevada; Connecticut; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Mississippi; and cardrooms in California); Canada (including Edmonton, Alberta and Calgary, Alberta); Australia; and New Zealand.

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. The act of playing pai gow is also colloquially known as "eating dog meat".

Although some claim that Pai Gow is the first documented form of dominoes, originating in China before or during the Song dynasty, which can only apply to gu pai 骨牌, that is, Chinese dominoes, the game of pai gow (Mandarin paijiu) is not recorded until the late 19th century. Its earliest description is to be found in a collection of Cantonese games published in Hong Kong in 1886.

The name literally means "card nine", after the normal maximum hand. It is assumed that the original game was modeled after both a Chinese creation myth, and military organization in China at that time (ranks one through nine), but no document supports this theory.

Tiles are shuffled on the table and are arranged into eight face-down stacks of four tiles each in an assembly known as the woodpile. Individual stacks or tiles may then be moved in specific ways to rearrange the woodpile, after which the players place their bets.

Next, each player (including the dealer) is given one stack of tiles and must use them to form 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 and is paid off at 1:1 odds (even money). 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 they bet. Generally seven players will play, and each player's hands are compared only against the dealer's hands; comparisons are always front-front and rear-rear, never one of each.

There are 35,960 possible ways to select 4 of the 32 tiles when the 32 tiles are considered distinguishable. However, there are 3,620 distinct sets of 4 tiles when the tiles of a pair are considered indistinguishable. There are 496 ways to select 2 of the 32 tiles when the 32 tiles are considered distinguishable. There are 136 distinct hands (pairs of tiles) when the tiles of a pair are considered indistinguishable.

Each player groups their four tiles into two hands of two tiles each. The two hands are referred to as the "high" and "low" hands, based on their score.