How To Play Pai Gow Card Game

• How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Online
• How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Spades
• How To Play Pai Gow Card Game
• How To Play Pai Gow Card Games
• How To Play Pie Gow
• How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Play

• History of Pai Gow Poker. The game of Pai Gow originated in China more than a century ago and was played at that time with tiles, like Dominoes, and dice. The Chinese word origin meant “make nine.” The conversion to a poker game happened around 1985 in a California Card Room.
• This is a casino gambling game based on the Chinese Domino game Pai Gow but played with playing-cards and poker combinations instead of with dominoes. It can be played by up to seven players. A pack of 52 cards plus one joker is used. The joker is a wild card which can be used only as an ace, or to complete a straight, a flush or a straight flush.

The system of playing pai gow poker

What is Pai Gow Poker and How Does It Compare to Other Poker. Pai Gow puts the player against the dealer with a 52-card deck plus the Joker. After betting, both you and the dealer receive seven cards; your cards are face-up while the dealer's cards are face-down.

The strategy of forming combinations requires careful study. Let’s understand step by step how to play pai gow poker.

The optimal strategy for playing Pai Gow Poker

On specialized foreign sites devoted to Pai Gow Poker, and forums, where fans of the game, you can find a very detailed table of the basic strategy. They go into great detail on what to do with the cards. We’re going to give you simple rules that should be followed to reduce your casino advantage substantially. Let’s start with the fact that the entire strategy of playing Pai Gow Poker can be reduced to one rule: you must form the maximum combination of two cards, which is possible with a stronger hand of five cards.

Very often it will look like this: a fairly weighty pair in the high hand and one or two big cards in the low hand. Believe me, with such a seemingly unlucky hand, you’ll often win on two hands at once.

Also, you’ll have to get used to the idea that big combinations (a square, a royal flush, a straight flush) don’t bring extra payouts, so they often need to be separated.

Now let’s analyze various typical situations.

Pairs and combinations over no

You should pick the second and third strongest cards in the low hand and leave the strongest card in the high hand. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare and have almost no effect on your casino advantage.

There is one pair in the cards

Pair should be left in the high hand, and the two highest cards from the remaining cards selected in the junior combination. There are no exceptions. You will see the above two examples in over sixty percent of your pai gow poker games. So these rules should be memorized by heart.

There are two pairs in the cards

This is probably the most difficult case where you have to make different decisions, depending on the circumstances. After all, a player can leave two pairs in five cards, or he can divide one pair for each hand. As a rule, the older one of the pairs is, the more often they have to be taken out in a low hand.

Here are some basic guidelines for playing two pairs

• Always put a pair of aces in your low hand. Regardless of what cards make up the other pair.
• Send a pair of kings to the junior combination if the second pair is sevens or higher.
• If you have an ace with a weak card, split kings with a pair of threes or higher; queens with a pair of fives or higher; jacks and tens with a pair of nines and eights.
• Always leave two pairs in the high hand if you can take an ace in the low hand with any picture. But separate the two pairs from the pictures if there is no ace-king in the junior combination.
• Never split small pairs (sixes and below).

In all other cases, leave pairs together with an ace and any card. If there is no ace, split pairs into two hands.

The cards have three pairs.

Here it’s simple and without variations: you have to take the highest pair in the junior hand.

In cards with one or two tris

Tris are played in different ways:

• Tris of queens and less strong cards should always be left in the high hand.
• Three aces should always be split, leaving a pair in five cards and separating one ace with the high card.
• The three kings must be split in the same way if the high card is a jack or lower.

• If there are two threes, you must separate a pair from the high card into a low combination.
• In straight and/or flush cards (straight flush, royal flush)

Streets, flushes, and straight flushes should also be played according to the situation:

• If the cards only have a flush or straight, leave the combination and put the remaining cards into a low hand.
• If there are two such combinations (flush, straight, or flush and straight), you have to keep one of them, putting the maximum possible cards into the low hand. For example, if you have seven cards in order, you need to separate the two highest cards. Similarly, you should sacrifice a flush in favor of a straight if that strengthens your low hand.

With a straight or flush with one pair, a card from which is part of the combination, you have to act according to the situation. If you can keep a pair of cards and put an ace with a picture into your junior hand, just do so and forget about the straight or flush, which only allows you to keep a queen or a weaker card.

• If a straight or flush is caught with two pairs, act according to the recommendations for drawing two pairs, and ignore the straight and flush.

How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Online

• Play the straight and flush with three pairs following the three-pair guidelines, ignoring the five-card hand.

• You don’t need to split the straight and flush with three pairs. Separate a pair or even an ace from them.

• Straight flushes and royal flushes are played as straight and flush in all cases.

In full house cards.

Usually with a full house, you keep the three in the high hand and put the pair in the low hand. However, if you have a very small pair and the side cards are very strong (ace and picture), a full house can be left.

In the cards of the square.

The caret should almost always be split into two pairs if the other cards don’t have a pair or higher cards (such as an ace). We won’t focus our attention on the rare cases of the square.

As you can see, even the simplified strategy of playing Pai Gow Poker looks not so simple. You can meet the recommendations, which on some points differ from ours. Particularly frequent discrepancies are found in the advice on playing two pairs or straight flushes.

This indicates that many attempts have been made to simplify the complex optimal strategy for pai gow poker. Also, unusual nuances of the rules (side bets and so on) may be taken into account. Yes, and disputes over some nuances still persist. In any case, the differences in the effectiveness of different versions are insignificant. If even the basics are observed, the casino’s advantage drops to about 2.7%.

Pai gow poker (also called double-hand poker) is a version of pai gow that is played with playing cards, instead of traditional pai gow's Chinese dominoes. The game of pai gow poker was created in 1985 in the United States by Sam Torosian, owner of the Bell Card Club.^[1]

The game is played with a standard 52-card deck, plus a single joker. It is played on a table set for six players, plus the dealer. Each player attempts to defeat the banker (who may be the casino dealer, one of the other players at the table, or a player acting in tandem with the dealer as co-bankers).^[2]

Winning condition[edit]

The object of pai gow poker is to create a five-card poker hand and a two-card poker hand from seven cards that beat both of the bank's hands. The five-card hand's rank must exceed that of the two-card hand, and it is for this reason that the two-card hand is often called the hand 'in front', 'on top', 'hair', or the 'small', 'minor', or 'low' hand. The five-card hand is called the hand 'behind', or the 'bottom', 'high', or 'big', as they are placed that way in front of the player, when the player is done setting them.

Pai gow poker is closely related to hold 'em poker. This can be seen from the fact that the same hands are used to determine the winner as in hold 'em poker.^[3]

Deals[edit]

The cards are shuffled, and then dealt to the table in seven face-down piles of seven cards per pile. Four cards are unused regardless of the number of people playing.

Betting positions are assigned a number from 1 to 7, starting with whichever player is acting as banker that hand, and counting counter-clockwise around the table. A number from 1 to 7 is randomly chosen (either electronically or manually with dice), then the deal begins with the corresponding position and proceeds counter-clockwise. One common way of using dice to determine the dealer starting number is to roll three six-sided dice, and then count betting spots clockwise from the first position until the number on the dice is reached.

If a player is not sitting on a particular spot, the hand is still assigned, but then placed on the discard pile with the four unused cards. In some casinos, such as the Golden Nugget and Palms in Las Vegas, Nevada, an extra 'dragon hand' is dealt if a seat is vacant. After all players have set their original hand they are asked in turn if they would like to place another bet to play the dragon hand. Generally the bet on the dragon hand can be the table minimum up to the amount the player bet on their original hand. The first player to accept the dragon hand receives it; this player is effectively playing two separate hands. Rules vary from casino to casino, but generally the dealer turns over the dragon hand and sets it using the house way. This is because the player has already seen the seven cards of their original hand, which could affect the way they would set the dragon hand.

Hand rankings[edit]

The only two-card hands are one pair and high cards.

Five-card hands use standard poker hand rankings with one exception: in most casinos, the 'wheel' (the hand A-2-3-4-5) is the second-highest straight. At most casinos in California and Michigan this rule doesn't apply, and A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest possible straight.

The joker plays as a bug, that is, in the five-card hand it can be used to complete a straight or flush if possible; otherwise it is an ace. In the two-card hand it always plays as an ace, except in several southern Californian casinos where the joker is wild.

Win reckoning[edit]

If each of the player's hands beats each of the banker's corresponding hands, then he wins the bet. If only one of his hands beats the banker then he pushes (ties) in which case neither he nor the banker wins the bet. If both of his hands lose to the banker then he loses.

On each hand, ties go to the banker (for example, if a player's five-card hand loses to the banker and his two-card hand ties the banker then the player loses); this gives the banker a small advantage. If the player fouls his hand, meaning that his two-card hand outranks his five-card hand, or that there are an incorrect number of cards in each hand, there will usually be a penalty: either re-arrangement of the hand according to house rules or forfeiture of the hand.

In casino-banked games, the banker is generally required to set his hand in a pre-specified manner, called the 'house way', so that the dealer does not have to implement any strategy in order to beat the players. When a player is banking, he is free to set the hand however he chooses; however, players have the option of 'co-banking' with the house, and if this option is chosen then the player's hand must also be set in the house way.

California casinos typically charge a flat fee per hand (such as 5 cents or one dollar) to play, win or lose. Other casinos take a 5% commission out of the winnings, which is usually known as the rake.^[4]

Variants[edit]

How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Spades

There are a number of variations of Pai Gow poker that are popular in casinos today. These variations were mainly formulated in 2004 through 2009. Pai Gow Mania was the first variation to be created which allows for two side bets instead of the traditional one side bet per hand. Fortune Pai Gow is another variation which allows players to make a side bet on a poker hand ranking of three-of-a-kind or better, one of the most popular variations. Similar is Emperors Challenge, which also allows a side bet on a seven-card pai gow (no hand). Shuffle Master introduced a variation of the game in 2006, adding a progressive jackpot side bet, named Progressive Fortune Pai Gow. Part or all of the jackpot may be won by placing a side bet and landing one of the hands specified on the payout table; a combined seven-card straight flush wins the entire jackpot.^[5]

Advantage play[edit]

Advantage play refers to legal methods used to gain an advantage while gambling. In pai gow poker, a player may be able to gain an advantage in certain circumstances by banking as often as possible, taking advantage of unskilled players while banking, and dealer errors when not banking.^[4]

How To Play Pai Gow Card Game

History[edit]

Sam Torosian, owner of the Bell Card Club in Los Angeles, invented the game of Pai Gow Poker in 1985. The idea for the game came to Torosian after being told about the game Pusoy by an elderly Filipino customer. He figured that the 13-card game with players arranging three hands would be too slow, but a simplified two-hand version with only seven cards would be faster and easier for players to learn. The game quickly became popular and by the late 1980s was being played on the Las Vegas Strip, and eventually worldwide. Torosian famously failed to patent the game he invented after being given bad advice by an attorney he consulted, and noted poker author Mike Caro, both of whom told him that the game was not patentable.^[1]

See also[edit]

How To Play Pai Gow Card Games

References[edit]

How To Play Pie Gow

1. ^ ^abRichard Marosi (3 November 2002). 'Casino Boss Can't Cash In on Game He Developed'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
2. ^Michael Shackleford. 'Pai Gow Poker'. The Wizard of Odds. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
3. ^'How to Play Pai Gow Poker – Beginner's Guide'. Retrieved 2021-02-13.
4. ^ ^abWong, Stanford (1993). Optimal strategy for Pai Gow Poker. La Jolla, CA.: Pie Yee Press. ISBN978-0935926170.
5. ^'Pai Gow Poker Variants'. Play Pai Gow Now. Retrieved 21 December 2016.

How To Play Pai Gow Card Game Play

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