Patent ID: 8500532

Claim:
A machine-implemented method of handling a plurality of hand tiles/cards of a virtual player during a tile/card game, the tile/card game to be played using a plurality of virtual playing tiles/cards from which the hand tiles/cards are drawn, said machine-implemented method to be performed by a gaming apparatus and comprising the steps of: a) configuring the gaming apparatus to store a preference parameter set associated with the virtual player, the preference parameter set including tile/card points of the respective virtual playing tiles/cards used in the tile/card game and combination points of various permissible combinations of the virtual playing tiles/cards; b) during a turn of the virtual player, configuring the gaming apparatus to compute priority points of the respective hand tiles/cards of the virtual player according to the preference parameter set associated with the virtual player; and c) configuring the gaming apparatus to make the virtual player discard one of the hand tiles/cards that is selected according to the priority points when a game winning condition is yet to be met.