Easy way to remember unmatched pairs in PG tiles?

I enjoy playing pai gow tiles.. I have yet to play it for money- as im just getting practice in.. and i think id have it down except that I have a hard time remembering the unmatched/unnatural pairs outside of gee-joon.

Is there an easy way to remember the 4 little pairs outside gee-joon? .. I know its silly that just 8 tiles are tripping me up.. just looking for a short hand way for my memory to take it.

It's easier than you think...

There are four mixed pairs, 5s, 7s, 8s, and 9s. But the 5s and 9s are the only 5s and 9s in the game. So if you have two tiles that both have 5 or 9 pips, that's a pair.


So you only really need to memorize the mixed 7s and 8s. Mixed 7s are 5-2 and 3-4, whereas the high sevens are 1-6 and 1-6. So if you see sevens with more than 1 pip on either end of the tile, that's a pair.

With the 8s it's even easier. The only other 8 in the game is the red 4-4 which is a very distinctive and important tile. So if you have two 8s that have all white pips, that's a pair. Also, if you play craps, the mixed 8s are the "easy 8s" and the high 8 is the "hard 8."

Whenever you have two tiles worth 8, pair or not, immediately consider playing them together. Usually the best play is red 8 with mixed 8 to make a high 6.

One last tip. I found it helped me tremendously to memorize the name of each tile. That way you can know pairs instantly, and also it helps with remembering the ranks of the pairs and single tiles.

Quote: sodawater

One last tip. I found it helped me tremendously to memorize the name of each tile. That way you can know pairs instantly, and also it helps with remembering the ranks of the pairs and single tiles.

I am curious about this statement. I think I'm pretty good at the tiles, and I've never bothered to learn the names of the tiles. Can you provide an example of how knowing the names of the tiles provides any benefit whatsoever? Naming the tiles was the first lesson in the tutorial that I took, and I thought it was completely pointless.

To this day, I don't know which total is a Wong and which is a Gong. I just call then "10" and "11".

Quote: PapaChubby

I am curious about this statement. I think I'm pretty good at the tiles, and I've never bothered to learn the names of the tiles. Can you provide an example of how knowing the names of the tiles provides any benefit whatsoever? Naming the tiles was the first lesson in the tutorial that I took, and I thought it was completely pointless.

To this day, I don't know which total is a Wong and which is a Gong. I just call then "10" and "11".

Your experience might be different, but once I learned the name of each tile, the game just clicked for me. Each tile took on a "personality," for lack of a better word, and I found it much easier to remember the tile rankings.

For example, when I first started playing, I kept forgetting that 1-3 Gor was higher ranked that 2-2 Bon. It's counterintuitive, because the symmetric 6 is ranked higher than the asymmetric 6, and the symmetric 10 is ranked higher than the asymmetric 10, but the asymmetric 4 is ranked higher than the symmetric 4. But once I learned the names, it was easier for me to remember that Gor is higher than Bon, than to try to remember the tile patterns.

Also, If you know the names of the tiles, you will never make a pair mistake. You will know that 5-5 Mooy is not paired with 4-6 Ping, simply because they have different names. Same with 1-6 Tit, cannot be paired with 3-4 Chit, because they have different names.

Interesting. The patterns and the values of the tiles make a much greater impression on me than the names. Everyone has a different method of learning.

Its true that its not intuitive that the 1-3 is higher ranked than the 2-2. However, calling one Gor and one Bon doesn't make it any more intuitive to me. Now, if the tiles were arranged alphabetically according to their names...

The only issue I've ever had with not learning the names is communicating hand contents with others. When someone tells me what they have in their hand, or asks me what I have in my hand, I just have to nod and smile.

Yeah, I would say I am more verbally inclined than visually inclined, so naming the tiles helped me. If you already have the ranks of everything down cold, it probably will be of no use to you other than cultural edification.

Wizard has a really good page on the names of the tiles and their meanings at https://wizardofodds.com/games/pai-gow-tiles/story/ Bonus: there's a typo on that page that implies the Wizard is a time traveler!

It is important to realise which tiles are pairs, and also which ones rank fairly high. When I was learning some major points helped me deduce the order. One early mistake I made was not recognising doubles quickly: remember two 9s, two easy 8s or two 5s will be a pair and two 7s (not 6-1) are a pair. Sadly you just need to learn to spot both GJ tiles. All the others are real/identical pairs.

(i) The tiles can be considered as coming from a normal "double-six" dominoes set, albeit some are duplicated, and the double-3 has a strange way of showing it in a PG set. (So you can actually practice using two domino sets!)

(ii) Initially consider the sixteen tiles as two rows of eight.

(iii) The top row contains all the doubles as well as GJ and 1-3. You just have to remember the top five, and the other doubles are in order (5-5 3-3 2-2), (remember by now all the doubles have gone, so 4-4 must be 4th and 1-3 5th).

(iv) Consider the bottom row as two sets of four tiles. The first four are in numerical order (11 10 7 6) and real pairs (only 11, easy 10 6-4, 6-1, 5-1). The last four are also in numerical order (9 8 7 5) and are two different tiles; both 9s, both easy 8s, other 7s, and both 5s.

(v) btw the higher valued tiles are known as Hi 8 (i.e. 4-4) and lower ones Lo 8 (6-2 5-3). Six is an exception as one of them is a GJ, the Hi 6 is 3-3 and Lo 6 is 5-1. Note four has Hi 4 (1-3) higher than its double Lo 4 (2-2).

You do need to recognise ranks to detect best way to set the two hands: for instance 5-5 3-3 6-4 5-1 is going to be set as 6/6, so you need to know which ten to put with which six, i.e. use 5-5 with 5-1 and 3-3 with 6-4, so each hand has a high tile. I've found dealers are quite happy if you want to check which tiles are bigger.