Special hands

Wongs, Gongs and High Nines

Three special hands sit between the pairs and the point hands. Each needs Teen or Day plus one tile of the right value, and the tile designs matter more than the arithmetic.

Updated 2026-10-27

Quick answer

A Wong is Teen or Day with a nine-point tile. A Gong is Teen or Day with an eight-point tile. A High Nine is Teen or Day with a seven-point tile. The Teen version of each beats the Day version, and all three beat any ordinary point hand.

The table

Every combination

Wongs, Gongs and High Nines from strongest to weakest. “Ways in a set” counts the two-tile combinations a 32-tile set can make (8 Wongs, 16 Gongs and 16 High Nines in all).
Order	Hand	Made with	Partner tiles	Ways in a set
1	Teen Wong	Teen + a nine-point tile	Chop Gow 3–6, Chop Gow 4–5	4
2	Day Wong	Day + a nine-point tile	Chop Gow 3–6, Chop Gow 4–5	4
3	Teen Gong	Teen + an eight-point tile	Yun 4–4, Chop Bot 2–6, Chop Bot 3–5	8
4	Day Gong	Day + an eight-point tile	Yun 4–4, Chop Bot 2–6, Chop Bot 3–5	8
5	Teen High Nine	Teen + a seven-point tile	Tit 1–6, Chop Chit 2–5, Chop Chit 3–4	8
6	Day High Nine	Day + a seven-point tile	Tit 1–6, Chop Chit 2–5, Chop Chit 3–4	8

Order

Where they rank

PairsthenWongsthenGongsthenHigh Ninesthen9 to 0

Two Teen Wongs are a copy whichever nine-point tile each one uses, and copies go to the banker. The full order is on the hand rankings page.

Odds

How often they appear

Of the 496 possible two-tile hands, 8 are Wongs, 16 are Gongs and 16 are High Nines. Over all 35,960 four-tile deals, a Wong is your best possible high hand in 7.52% of deals, a Gong in 11.79% and a High Nine in 8.05%.

See the odds page for the method and a CSV.

Watch out

Three mistakes to avoid

Counting a Wong as one point

Teen Wong

Teen plus Chop Gow is 21 pips. As arithmetic that is one point, but the hand is a Wong.

Calling Day + Gee Joon a Gong

8 points

Day with the 2–4 can total eight, but Gee Joon is not an eight-point tile, so this is an ordinary eight.

Expecting Teen + Day to be special

4 points

Teen and Day together are 14 pips, a four-point hand. They are the two top single tiles, but they do not make a named hand together.

Setting

Special hands and the four-tile split

A Wong or Gong in the high hand can still leave a weak low hand. With Teen, Day, a nine and an eight, you can play Day Gong low with Teen Wong high, or Teen Gong low with Day Wong high. Neither wins on both hands, which is exactly when the table’s house way decides. Try it in the hand calculator.

Parkwest’s 2025 house-way chart scores a Wong as 11 and a Gong as 10 when it compares no-pair settings. See the house-way comparison.