A method performed by a gaming apparatus is provided for handling hand tiles of a virtual player during a tile game. The tile game is played using plural virtual playing tiles from which the hand tiles are drawn. The gaming apparatus stores a preference parameter set associated with the virtual player and including tile points of the respective virtual playing tiles and combination points of various permissible combinations of the virtual playing tiles. During a turn of the virtual player, the gaming apparatus computes priority points of the respective hand tiles according to the preference parameter set, and then, makes the virtual player discard one of the hand tiles that is selected according to the priority points.