Pai Gow is a game played with tiles that is very famous in China. The games premise concerns the players scoring the most in a set of two tiles. The game begins by shuffling the tiles and every player receiving 8 face down tiles, commonly referred to as the woodpile.
Each hand can score a maximum of 9 after which the 10 in every score is dropped so that 16 becomes 6. There are ways in which players can score more than 9 using Day (double-one) and Teen (double-six) tiles. A combination of these two tiles has a score of 10. Matching either of these with a 9 gives you a score of 11. These are the only special scoring combinations. Any other combinations adhere to the typical rules of scoring.
Each player forms two hands of two tiles from the four they received including the dealer. The players then compare their hands with that of the dealer. If a player has a front hand and a back hand that are both stronger than the dealer’s, they then win the bet. If only one hand beats the dealer, the hand is considered a push and they get to keep their bet. The game is played by a total of seven players.