pai gow trivia

Playing against a dealer-banker who is using the Foxwoods house way, and you are playing optimally:

1. Which is the best hand you can hold that does not play a pair? Name the 4 tiles and the set.

2. Which is the worst hand you can hold that does play a pair? name the 4 tiles and the set.


Obviously I was playing around with the WoO super long hand ranking page, but no cheating!

Before looking up the answers, here are my guesses:

1) I will assume that "does not play a pair" allows for situations where a pair gets split. If so, I will guess paired Teen, 9, and L8 to make Gong/Wong. If split pairs are not allowed, then I will guess Teen, Day, 9, and H8 to make Gong/Wong.

2) I will guess the pair of L4's with H6 and L6, since it reduces the chances of the dealer having a zero-point low hand.

Here is a trivia question in return:

3) What 9/9 hand has the lowest return?

Quote: JB

Before looking up the answers, here are my guesses:

1) I will assume that "does not play a pair" allows for situations where a pair gets split. If so, I will guess paired Teen, 9, and L8 to make Gong/Wong.

This is correct! I thought most people would guess wong/wong is the answer, but it's only sixth-best. Your answer of teen gong with low 8/teen wong is best, but also both day gong with low 8/teen wong and day gong with high 8/teen wong are better as well! I guess because it's harder for the dealer to have a pair. And then both teen-9 with low 7/ teen wong and teen 9 with high 7/ teen wong are better than wong/wong.

1. teen gong with low 8/teen wong -- 0.764344
2. day gong with low 8/teen wong -- 0.760117
2. day gong with high 8/teen wong -- 0.760117
4. teen 9 with low 7/teen wong -- 0.759768
4. teen 9 with high 7/teen wong -- 0.759768
6. wong/wong -- 0.759717

Quote: JB

2) I will guess the pair of L4's with H6 and L6, since it reduces the chances of the dealer having a zero-point low hand.

Incorrect! Your guess actually provides a positive return, even with commission! The worst hand that plays a pair is mixed 5s with 9 and 11. Return is a terrible -0.181245. My guess before looking it up was mixed 5s with l4 and l6, since l6 is a worse tile on its own than the 11 or 9 to use up so the dealer can't have it. But that hand is slightly better at -0.179438.

Quote: JB

Here is a trivia question in return:

3) What 9/9 hand has the lowest return?

Total guess in the dark here, but maybe low 4, 5, low 10, 9?

3) What 9/9 hand has the lowest return?

Looked up the answer... GJ, GJ, L6, H6, right?

My guess was way off... but I would have never guessed a double GJ hand was the lowest because that's such a powerful tile.

Another question I thought of, same parameters with the Foxwoods dealer-banker and playing optimally, is what is the worst hand you can have when you split a pair?

I can't even figure out how to look this up but the worst I have so far is either pair of 7s with low 10 and high 10 for -0.104889.

Paired Gee Joon with 6-6 is correct for the worst 9/9 play.

Paired 7s with 10-10 is the worst pair-split situation, and paired 5s with 9-11 is the worst unsplit pair situation.