Pai Gow Hand Rankings

There are 992 possible hands per player if you do the math, but because of the duplicate tiles, and the fact that order does not matter, there are actually few possible hands. Numeric order has little to do with the ranking of hands; more important is Chinese symbolism. The hand rankings in a game of Pai Gow are as follows:

GEE JOON: This is the supreme pair or highest possible pair and it consists of the following two dominoes: 4-2 and 2-1

BO: - Under the Gee Joon come the pairs (Bo) of matched or unmatched dominoes. The pairs ranking order is as follows:

6-6 & 6-6 Heaven
1-1 & 1-1 Earth
4-4 & 4-4 Man
3-1 & 3-1 Goose
5-5 & 5-5 Flower
3-3 & 3-3 Long
2-2 & 2-2 Board
6-5 & 6-5 Hatchet
6-4 & 6-4 Partition
6-1 & 6-1 Long Leg Seven
5-1 & 5-1 Big Head Six
6-3 & 5-4 Jaap Gow - mixed nine
6-2 & 5-3 Jaap Bart - mixed eight
5-2 & 4-3 Jaap Chut - mixed seven
4-1 & 3-2 Jaap Ng - mixed five

WONGS: This level represents the next value in hand rankings. They are a nine paired with a double 6 or a double 1. Here are the hand rankings in order:

6-6 & 6-3 Teen Wong
6-6 & 5-4 Teen Wong
1-1 & 6-3 Day Wong
1-1 & 5-4 Day Wong

GONGS: Similar to the WONGS, only these are an eight paired with a double 6 or double 1. Here are the hand rankings:

6-6 & 5-3 Teen Gong
6-6 & 4-4 Teen Gong
1-1 & 5-3 Day Gong
1-1 & 4-4 Day Gong

NUMERIC HANDS: The next highest ranking hands do not contain any of the above pairs. They are numeric value hands, the highest of which is 9. To find the numeric value, add the spots on each tile. The total will never be higher than nine because only the last digit in the total number of spots is used. In other words, 6-5 would actually be a 1.
When two hands have the same numeric value, the ranking will determine the winner. To determine which hand is higher, find the highest ranked tile in each hand and compare them.

When two hands have the same numeric value and identical high tiles, it is called a "Copy" hand. The bank wins all "Copy" hands.

When two hands have the numeric value of zero, they are considered equally bad, regardless of the high tile and the bank will win all zero ties.

The [4-2] and [2-1] are the two "wild cards" in the woodpile, and can be used as either a 3 or a 6 when making pairs (i.e. they substitute for each other). This is not the same rule that Western card games use, where a wild card substitutes for any card.

Individual rankings: As mentioned above, if two hands have the same numeric value, the ranking will determine the winner. From high to low the tiles are ranked and named:

[Tile] Tile name

[6-6] Teen
[1-1] Day
[4-4] Yun
[3-1] Gor
[5-5] Mooy
[3-3] Chong
[2-2] Bon
[6-5] Foo
[6-4] Ping
[6-1] Tit
[5-1] Look
[6-3] and [5-4] Gow
[6-2] and [5-3] Bot
[6-1] and [5-2] Chut
[4-2] Luk (part of Gee Joon)
[4-1] Ng
[3-2] Ng
[2-1] Saam (part of Gee Joon)

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