How to Play Pai Gow Tiles with Mike Shackleford Part 1

Heather: Hello! How is everyone today? How are you guys doing? How’s your week going? Happy Thursday.

Michael: Hi Heather’s audience!

Heather: They are my Aces. I call them my Aces.

Michael: Hey Aces.

Heather: So how are you today?

Michael: Fine and yourself?

Heather: I am doing good, thank you!

Michael: You are looking good, unlike me.

Heather: No, you are good. Totally.

Michael: No I’m always a slob.

Heather: You just got back from a trip. Okay. You are supposed to like, chill out, relax, unwind after a trip. And you are like, nope I’m going to get back to work. So you are totally cool.

Michael: Well I am glad to have an excuse. Thank you for giving me one.

Heather: You’re welcome. How was your trip?

Michael: Yeah so it was -- I went to East and Central Texas. In the middle of July, which is not the ideal vacation to be honest with you. It was HOT!! And I’m from Vegas. And I am so thankful to be back in this heat. Because, there it is so humid. And I was just drenched in sweat the whole trip.

Heather: Isn’t it hard to breathe when it is that humid?

Michael: Yes. I just did not feel myself that whole trip. I just -- like my head feel puffy, slow of thinking. I don’t know what it was but as soon as I got back I was sharp again.

Heather: How soon did it take, like how long did it take before you became sharp again?

Michael: It was -- let’s see, I would say as soon as we landed. I felt so much better.

Heather: Cool. Very Cool.

Michael: Yeah.

Heather: Glad it happened quickly.

Michael: Yeah thanks.

Heather: Your welcome. So hey how are you guys? Hey Jimmy on twitch. How are you? Welcome back to Vegas Aces livestream. I’m Heather Ferris and today we have a special guest Michael Shackleford with Wizard of Odds.

Michael: Hi everyone.

Heather: We are going to teach you how to play Pai Gow Tiles. I am really excited about this.

Michael: Me too. This is my favorite game.

Heather: And you know so much about it too.

Michael: I accept the compliment. I have studied this game a lot. Before I wrote about Pai Gow there was nothing easily available about it in English. I see that you have two Pai Gow books with you. But these were -- these were very obscure books that the average person would have no idea about. The only place you would find these books would be like in the gamblers book store here in Vegas.

Heather: And that is actually where I found these too.

Michael: There you go. So I’m proud to have, shall we say, integrated the game.

Heather: Awesome! Thank you! So let’s see here. I have lost my place. Oh that is pretty important. After this livestream we will be going over to your channel at 3 p.m. at the Odds must be Crazy. What are we going to be talking about on your livestream today?

Michael: Whatever comes up. Another Ask Me Anything.

Heather: Oh cool. That’s nice and easy. And we can always continue with the tiles. I know you could --

Michael: Sure.

Heather: That would be -- I don’t know.

Michael: But I invite our mutual fans with your fans to come on over and think of your questions now to ask over on my channel.

Heather: Ask him anything, about anything. I’ve got a question for you.

Michael: Sure.

Heather: Now before we continue, I forgot to say this. People can go to your website wizzardofodds.com and they can find all of this information on your site. Because you have a ton of games on there, right?

Michael: Yes and I am especially proud of my Pai Gow material.

Heather: Yeah.

Michael: I really have a lot of it.

Heather: And you even have a game you can play.

Michael: Absolutely. And that is a great game. It’s a great way to learn the game, because it’s really intimidating for beginners.

Heather: It is.

Michael: So, I’m really proud of it. I didn’t make it but I pay for my assistant at the time to make it. He did a great job.

Heather: Yeah he did a really great job.

Michael: Thanks.

Heather: No problem. So the question I have is from one of our viewers, Dan Oneal and he want’s to know, what is the difference between tournament play and normal play that you do in a casino?

Michael: Well one could talk about this all day long, but real briefly, in regular play in the casino, think of the dealer as being the enemy. You are trying to take her money. In a tournament, the other players are the enemy and you want yourself to win and them to lose.

Heather: Even if you are playing the same game like blackjack where it’s the player --

Michael: Absolutely!

Heather: --against the dealer?

Michael: Absolutely! You are hoping your competitors lose.

Heather: How do you do that then. I mean if it’s you against the dealer, how do you affect the other players?

Michael: You can’t affect their cards, but you can significantly improve your chances of winning the tournament through careful betting and taking chances at the right time. A major piece of advice that goes a long way is, I like to get out front with about five to ten minutes to go and fight to stay there. You may have to throw it out there, everything. You may have to go all in two or three times to get in first place. And if that is what you need to do, then you just need to do it.

Heather: So then it’s like an aggressive betting style.

Michael: You have to be very aggressive. The biggest mistake most tournament players make is they play like they’re are in a cash game.

Heather: Like they are playing their own money.

Michael: Right. They are just sitting there dinking around. No, you really have to be aggressive in these tournaments. Almost never will you win, say if the high player at the table advances, seldom will you win if you don’t at least go all in at least once. Now sometimes it will happen that everyone just bust out and you can win without doing anything. But normally, yeah, you will have to make some big moves. But a lot of times I play conservatively at the beginning just to kinda see who’s who and who’s smart. But when it gets toward the end I like to shove it all in at the right time to get in first. Maybe I will bust out, but --

Heather: So if you have like one more hand left would you go all in if you could?

Michael: It depends. Okay here is the strategy with the last hand and the last few hands. If you -- and in say blackjack tournaments you have to take turns putting out your bets. If you are in the lead, hopefully you will be last to act, and you bet the same way as say the second place person. If he bets big, you bet big. If he bets small, you bet small.

Heather: Okay.

Michael: Because you are all playing against the same dealer hand so there is a good chance the table will all win or the table will all lose. It’s very correlated, what happens between each player and the same hand. So you want to correlate with your competitors if you are ahead. And if you are not ahead then you want to be a contrarian, you want to go high when first place goes low and you want to go low when first place goes high. Hopefully -- position is so important. And hopefully you will be late to act in the last hand. But that’s the real quick advice. I could talk about it all day long.

Heather: Now what about like if you are in a blackjack tournament for example, would you play normal strategy? Or would you play a different strategy?

Michael: In the early part of the tournament it is fine to just play basic strategy. But if you need to throw a Hail Mary in the last hand, then you just need to throw it. For example, I was in one tournament and in the last hand I was fortunately in the lead and fortunately last to act, and the second place player went all in as he should have. And then I basically bet big too. So if we both won, I would win and if we both lost I would win. He got an 8 a total of 18 -- no wait, he didn’t go all in, he went half in, which is a common strategy with blackjack. He got total of 18 and he doubled down, which was the correct move because it was his only way to win because I had a 20 and he got a three.

Heather: Oh!!

Michael: Ohhh that was so painful!

Heather: That’s a bad beat right there.

Michael: That was a horrible beat? I ended up splitting up my tens. Which is terrible in basic strategy. It was the only way I could win, was splitting those tens and then winning both of them. But that didn’t happen. It goes to show the crazy moves you might have to make in the last hand. Which is all the more reason to be in a position in front. You don’t have to do crazy stuff like doubling on 18. You can be a little bit more comfortable and just play regular strategy. The only reason I had to split my 10’s was because that second place guy got super lucky by doubling on 18 and hitting that 3. But again. This is just scratching the service of a very big topic.

Heather: Okay, maybe we should do that one day. Like just have one video discussion just that. That would be fun.

Michael: That would be a good idea.

Heather: Okay let’s see what we have over here. What you guys are saying over here in the chat and seeing if I missed anything. Let’s see here. Awesome. Hey Travesty on twitch. Borris! Borris is the only one on YouTube today. That’s cool. Shall we get started? That makes it easy for us?

Michael: Yea.

Heather: Let’s get started. Now the very first thing people -- when they learn this game, the very first thing that I tell people is that it’s really good to know Pai Gow Poker before you learn this game. That’s because if you know Pai Gow Poker, if you know how to play it, if you know about the player/banker, and then you come into this game and you learn this game, all you have to do is learn these rankings. Also basically how to set your hand and the rest of the game you know. So it’s not as confusing as say if you just came to this game, and learned this game, and this was the very first Pai Gow game you ever learned.

Michael: I absolutely agree it’s good to learn Pai Gow Poker first. Because at least you’ll understand the betting structure about splitting your hand, and the high and the low and the 5% commission and all that jazz.

Heather: And all that jazz. Jazz hands!

Michael: Is this is how you do it?

Heather: I think it’s like -- I don’t know how to do it? I’m not sure. I might be doing it wrong.

Michael: Okay what’s this. Am I doing it wrong?

Heather: Fingers? Jazz hands.

Michael: No! These are spirit fingers. From the movie?? Bring it on.

Heather: Oh Okay.

Michael: Did you see that?

Heather: No. I need to see it.

Michael: Oh I like that movie.

Heather: Yeah? I need to see that.

Michael: Especially the spirit fingers routine.

Heather: Wait, wait, wait, do you know this one?

Michael: Well I know this is Spock.

Heather: Hey.

Michael: Is this like what Spock does when can tell a lie?

Heather: No. This is what I do when I can’t do the Spock hand. I can’t do the Spock hand.

Michael: You can’t do this?

Heather: I can’t do the Spock hand. No matter what I do. I can’t do the two fingers. My fingers don’t go together. It just doesn’t work.

Michael: Really?

Heather: So the only way I can do it is by crossing this and then I can do the spock hand.

Michael: This is harder to do.

Heather: No. It’s, it’s -- it won’t work.

Michael: Hmmm. I don’t know. Can’t everyone do this?

Heather: No. It’s hard for me. And then when I go to Star Trek Convention everybody is doing that and I am like oh shit. Okay. Let’s finish. Okay so let’s get back to this.

Michael: Yeah. What were we talking about?

Heather: Pai Gow Tiles. So back to Pai Gow Tiles. When we -- so basically if you are watching this game it’s really good to learn Pai Gow Poker before you start this one.

Michael: Agreed.

Heather: Now after you know Pai Gow Poker and you know how to play the hand, really the only thing you have to focus on is the tiles. What to do with the tiles since they are not poker hands, poker cards.

Michael: Easier said than done.

Heather: Right? So the very first thing we do is learn the rankings. And just like with poker you have poker rankings where the royal flush is the highest and it goes all the way down to the pair. Well just like that, Pai Gow Tile has rankings as well.

Michael: Well you can get lower than a pair in poker.

Heather: High card. But you know what I mean.

Michael: Yeah.

Heather: You know with the ranking. It’s -- okay anyway, but with tiles you have the same rankings but the really cool thing about the tile rankings is that there is a methodology behind it. There is a story behind it. And that’s really, really interesting as far as you know.

Michael: Do you want to take turns going over the story? Because I think we both know it.

Heather: Yeah I think we do, and we have these guides if we don’t we can look them up.

Michael: But I have to quickly say that you also have to know things like what’s a gong and what’s a wong.

Heather: That’s true.

Michael: Yeah.

Heather: But that’s more when you are setting your hand. So first you learn the rankings and then you learn setting the hand. And that is when you learn the gong and wong.

Michael: And then there is also the strategy. So -- it is not an easy game to learn.

Heather: No. It is not. And it would probably take quite a number of videos to learn it.

Michael: Okay well who should go over the story of --

Heather: Well you said that we were going to go back and forth.

Michael: Okay. Do you want to go first or second?

Heather: I don’t know, I didn’t look. First, second? First. I will go first.

Michael: Okay.

Heather: Okay, the very first one are these right here. Let’s see if you guys can see them. Yes you can. These tiles right here are geejoon. Am I saying that right?

Michael: I believe so.

Heather: It’s g-e-e-j-u-n-g right?

Michael: The june is spelled j-o-o-n

Heather: Oh ok I guess that just how I pronounce it. So it’s j-o-o-n and what geejoon is --

Michael: j-o-o-n

Heather: Whatever! What did I say?

Michael: j-o-n

Heather: Oh man! Okay, yes what he said. This is why I have you here because I am going to -- yeah so basically this is the highest one. Now it’s only the highest one if these two are together. If you have these separately, for example this is in one hand and this is in another hand, then they become the lowest tiles. But if they are together, like this. Then they become the highest tiles. The highest tiles, the very first on, this is basically God. This is the supreme being. So it’s the story of creation. Easy to remember because everyone knows the story of creation. So this right here is the God tile, or the supreme being tile. This is like the best one that you could possibly get. So that’s that. Now you want to do the next one?

Michael: Yeah. I also might say that the way you might remember this is these are all powers of two. Like here we have two to the zero, two to the one, two to the one, two to the 2nd. So they keep doubling.

Heather: And another thing I forgot to mention, is only with these tiles do you have two different numbers. So you could either have six or three. This could also be a three. This, even though it is a three, it could also be a six. Either of these tiles could be a six or three.

Michael: So they are semi wild. Much like the joker is semi wild in Pai Gow Poker. Pai Gow Poker is a variant of this game here, in case you were wondering where they got the silly rules in Pai Gow Poker. Okay so anyway, first there was God and then God created the heavens. These two with all the dots represent stars.

Heather: And that is called teen?

Michael: Yes. Okay, your turn.

Heather: So the next one is this one. And they called this one day. And this represents earth. So these two dots right here it’s like the whole of earth. So this is earth.

Michael: Yep. And then God created man, and this represents man here. Why I’m not really sure. You know men's bodies look kinda boxy.

Heather: That makes sense.

Michael: Yeah. So that’s man. So so far we are pretty much going by the genesis story.

Heather: Yeah we are. Well first he created man, like isn’t it God, then God created the heavens and then God created the earth, and then God created man?

Michael: Yep.

Heather: Just like the story. And then the man needed something to eat. So God created gor. Gor is like geese or goose. So the way that you look at it when you look at the tiles is this one red dot is the goose's body and then these white dots right here could be the goose's wings as they fly away.

Michael: I thought they were the feathers.

Heather: Or feathers. It could be wings or feathered.

Michael: Yeah that is true. Because the feathers are on the wings. Okay. And then God wanted to give the earth beauty so he created flowers. And each of these fives looks like the pedals of the flower.

Heather: Yeah. So you have like the middle of the flower and the pedals of the flower.

Michael: Yep.

Heather: And then after that man decided that he was a bit cold so he was like, dude, God give me some robes. So God created robes. And these are the robes.

Michael: Yep. And then man created -- man got tired so he wanted something to sit on so he created a bench and these represent the legs of a bench.

Heather: Yeah exactly. Like this would be the bench and these are the nails that holds the legs.

Michael: Yep.

Heather: Cool. And then God really tired of man's complaining so he created a hatchet or an axe so that way man could do his own work.

Michael: And yeah. And by the way I think this is a hatchet, like the six is the handle of the hatchet and the five like shows woodchips scattering around.

Heather: Oh I like that.

Michael: And then man started having kids and the oldest child was known as the red head.

Heather: Yes.

Michael: And yeah.

Heather: Because of the red.

Michael: And this is also the largest number of all of the three kids by the way. You are next.

Heather: And then the next one is this kid right here, which is my favorite kid out of all of them. This is long legs. So you have the head right here which is the red dot. And then these right here are the long legs. My favorite part about this is the Chinese word which is tit. I swear it is tit. So you have long legs, tit. Okay I get way too much adrenaline out of that. You could do that. I can’t do that. I think you too would band me if I did that. OMG I didn’t know your channel was like that. So that’s that child. And then there was this child and I know there is something about the five elements.

Heather: It’s big head.

Michael: Big head! Yes.

Heather: And then this one represents the five different elements and everything. So what is that? Metal, earth, water, fire, air.

Michael: Yeah. Perfect. I can remember the earth, wind and fire part easily.

Heather: Now all of the tiles we talked about right here, all of the tiles right here, these are known as the civilian tiles. These tiles right here, which is what we are going to talk about next, these are the military tiles. These are also the pairs, but they are -- how would you say that? They are pairs but they don’t look like pairs.

Michael: The mixed pairs.

Heather: The mixed pairs. That’s right. So each one of these is a pair but you couldn’t tell by looking at it because it doesn’t even look the same. So this one is the first pair out of them, and it’s paired nine. You can tell by basically counting the dots. Which by the way you are not supposed to count the dots, you are supposed to look at the dots and know. It’s one of those things where you practice, practice, practice. So this one is the mixed pair for nine. And you can tell because each one is a nine.

Michael: And then there is the mixed eight pair which is less than nine.

Heather: Then the mixed seven pair right here.

Michael: And finally the lowest pair is the mixed five.

Heather: Now why did they miss the six? Why does it go seven five, instead of seven six?

Michael: Well we already have this six, and this six and you can make six that way. But that is a wild one. But there is no other way to make six.

Heather: Oh. Okay.

Michael: But you could ask all kinds of questions like why is this here and why is that there.

Heather: Speaking of which.

Michael: You just need to memorize it.

Heather: One of the biggest questions we get about Pai Gow tiles is why are some of the dots white and some of the dots red? There is actually a really good theory behind it. Do you want to tell or do you want me?

Michael: It’s your show so you can decide.

Heather: Yes. It’s my favorite. Cool. I love this. In the Asian culture, if you take a look at the tile, if you can see the tile, in the Asian culture, certain numbers are considered bad luck. One of those is the number four. Because when you say four, it sounds similar to the word death in that culture. So if you notice here, all of the four ones they are all red. And then you also have these ones which are just one, like so, so all of the ones are red. And then this is the only one right here where you have something different. Where it’s not a four, it’s not a one. Instead you have a six, or a three, three. Now I know about the four. I don’t know why the one’s are red or the threes are red. My guess is to counteract the bad luck of the four but that is my guess.

Michael: Yeah that’s the prevalent theory. BTW it’s the same thing with the dice. You notice the four is red and the one is red, but everything else is black.

Heather: Yep.

Michael: I -- to correct you a little bit, this is a Chinese thing where the word for four is very similar to the word for death. So we just say it is a Chinese thing, not an Asian thing.

Heather: So with Asia, you have Chinese and Japanese, is there any other Asians?

Michael: Oh sure there’s Tai, and Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos --

Heather: Oh I wasn’t even thinking that. Okay so Chinese.

Michael: Yeah.

Heather: Okay so it’s a Chinese thing.

Michael: Yep. And as you said, I think that they made the one red too because it represents God and they wanted to counterbalance the negativity of the four.

Heather: Makes sense. Cool. So that’s pretty much it for all of the tiles. That is probably a quick rundown of the basics of the tiles.

Michael: Yep.

Heather: Is there anything else that you want to add that we didn’t cover?

Michael: I will just say that may have gone quick, but you just -- it just has to be memorized. If it were an easy game to play everyone would play it. So yeah. I can’t think of any other good short cuts. I will say that one thing we didn’t point out is, you see a whole bunch of whites here in a row? Plus the eleven? Those are all connected and then you see these ones that are --

Heather: All the same, yeah.

Michael: -- half white half red. And then all the mixed pairs. It simply must be memorized. Like what if you get this one and this one playing. You think, oh is that a mixed pair? It is not, because this is part of the long leg pair.

Heather: Right.

Michael: And this -- it just simply needs to be memorized, which ones -- which tiles are in the mixed pairs.

Heather: Now usually the best way to memorize these is to take tiles like these or if you say cut out pieces of square paper and then just make the markings yourself with a pen. Use those tiles and then turn them over so you can’t see anything, mix it all up, and then flip them over and put them in order from highest to lowest. If you do that while you are practicing at home, that’s a really, really great way of memorizing order and memorizing what each one looks like. And also being able to look at it and see, oh this is six instead of saying one, two, three, four, five, six. Now it is six. You get to see it. You get to familiarize yourself with it and it becomes a lot easier. Once you know the rankings it makes setting up the hand much easier.

Michael: Yeah. BTW you can buy used sets of Pai Gow pretty cheaply on eBay. And a lot of Chinese gift stores that you might see in San Francisco that sell Asian stuff. Often we will have them wherever they sell mahjong sets.

Heather: I know with Chinese and Japanese it’s like that too. Chinese have See, “4”, or See or “death”... Is that see or shee? I can’t pronounce it. I’m not good with that.

Michael: No it’s like shue. Ee, are, sun, soo. The distinctions are very subtle. Which makes Chinese such a difficult language if you weren't brought up in it.

Heather: Yeah. Same with English, because we use a lot of weird stuff. Like you, your, you’re like you know.

Michael: Yeah. Like I have heard people trying to learn english just said they find our spelling really difficult. And the difference between I, me and myself.

Heather: Yeah. And then we have words that are like one word but it has two or three different meanings and everything.

Michael: Yeah.

Heather: Let’s see.

Michael: What are these people complaining about?

Heather: Oh I guess we are having technical difficulties with YouTube. That’s why.

Michael: Oh no. Do you think that is our fault?

Heather: No. Because I have dealt with so many technical difficulties and I have talked to other people that have livestreams and they have technical difficulties. It’s just the fact that it is new technology and we are all getting used to it.

So anyway we are going to end that here. I am going to turn off the lifestream and then I am going to turn it back on and hopefully it works for YouTube. So you might be seeing two different videos of this. Join us on our part two video where we are going to talk about setting up the hand. Hopefully we will see you in less than a minute.

Michael: Be back soon.

Heather: Be back very soon.