- The strategy in pai gow poker stems from how you’re able to set your hands. The House Edge in Pai Gow Poker. The house edge is the long-term expected win for the casino expressed as a percentage. It’s a forecast and an estimate, but it only applies in the long run—over the course of thousands of hands. Still, it’s good information to.
- The Pai Gow Poker at The Pogg has rules, analysis and a strategy calculator. The Casino-info.com site has a page of Pai Gow Poker rules and strategy. Pai Gow Poker Free has information on Pai Gow Poker rules, strategy and odds and a selection of places where you carn play online for fun.
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.
Pai Gow Poker Introduction. Pai Gow Poker was invented in 1985 by a man named Sam Torosian, owner of the Bell Card Club in southern California. Like so many foreign concepts that the US has adopted and messed with, Pai Gow Poker is an Americanized version of the Chinese dominoes game known as pai gow, with each card given a numerical value and arranged into classic poker hands. One of my favorite casino games is Pai Gow Poker. Pai Gow is a form of poker amongst many different variations of the game you can find in actual casinos and online. It is a surprisingly enjoyable combination of the Chinese game Pai Gow, and poker.
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.
On each deal the dealer plays against the other players. Before the deal, each of the other players puts up a stake.
Seven cards are dealt to each player. All players other than the dealer look at their cards and divide them to form two hands - a two card hand and a five card hand. The relative values of the five card hands are the same as in poker, with one exception: A-2-3-4-5 is the second highest type of straight or straight flush, ranking between A-K-Q-J-10 and K-Q-J-10-9. Five aces is the highest hand, beating a straight flush. For the two card hand, any pair beats any two unmatched cards, but no other combinations are possible.
The player must arrange the cards so that the five card hand is higher than the two card hand (so if the two cards were a pair of aces, the five card hand would have to contain two pairs or better). Players are not allowed to discuss their hands at any stage.
The players place their two hands face down, and when all are ready, the dealer's seven cards are exposed. The other players may not touch their cards from this point on. The dealer forms the seven exposed cards into a five and a two in the same way as the players.
Then all the players' cards are exposed. The result between the dealer and each player is determined by comparing the player's 5 card hand with the dealer's 5 card hand and the player's 2 card hand with the dealer's 2 card hand:
- If the player wins both hands the dealer pays out the amount staked by the player.
- If the dealer wins one hand and the player wins the other no money changes hands. This is called a 'push'.
- If the dealer wins both hands the dealer wins the player's stake.
If either hand is tied, the dealer wins that particular hand. So if the dealer wins one hand while the other is tied, or if both hands are tied, the dealer wins. If one hand is tied and the player wins the other it is a push (no money changes hands).
- Note on the deal
- When this game is played formally, a rather elaborate method of dealing is used. Seven hands of seven cards are dealt, one card at a time, and the remaining four cards are discarded unseen. The dealer then throws three dice and counts around the players at the table counter-clockwise, starting with himself, up to the dice total to determine who gets the first hand which was dealt. The following hands go to the other players, in counter-clockwise rotation.
- Dealer's advantage
- The dealer obviously has an advantage (winning tied hands), so if you want the game to be fair everyone has to deal an equal number of times during the session.
Pai Gow How To Play
For another description, see the Pai Gow Poker FAQ of the newsgroup rec.gambling.misc
The Pai Gow Poker at The Pogg has rules, analysis and a strategy calculator.
The Casino-info.com site has a page of Pai Gow Poker rules and strategy.
Pai Gow Poker Free has information on Pai Gow Poker rules, strategy and odds and a selection of places where you carn play online for fun.
The Pai Gow Poker section of the Casino Advisor web site has Pai Gow Poker rules and advice.
This page is an introduction to how to play Pai Gow Poker, and it’s also a beginner’s tutorial for Pai Gow Poker strategy. I’ll write additional articles about Pai Gow Poker in the future which will go into more detail about the game and its strategies.
Pai Gow Poker is a poker-based game based on an ancient Chinese domino game called pai gow. The two games have some superficial similarities, but make no mistake, they ARE different games.
Casino
Rating
Play Now
- 100% up to £1000
- 100% up to $300
How to Play Pai Gow Poker
Pai Gow Poker is not a true poker game. Like most casino games, in pai gow poker, you’re playing against the dealer, not against the other players. In a true poker game, you’re not playing against the dealer at all, you’re playing against the other players.
Pai Gow Poker is always played with a 53 card deck–a standard deck of cards with the inclusion of a joker as a wild card. The goal is to beat the dealer by putting together a better hand.
Pai Gow Poker Rules
In a game of Pai Gow Poker, everyone is dealt seven cards. Each player then makes two poker hands out these seven cards–a five card hand and a two card hand.
The poker hand rankings that are used in Pai Gow Poker are the standard poker hand rankings explained on this site’s poker strategy page, with one exception–a straight of ace to five is considered the 2nd highest straight possible. (That straight is called a “wheel.”)
The dealer also arranges her hand into a five card hand and a two card hand, but she doesn’t use her judgment when arranging her hands. She uses a set of prescribed rules called “the house way.” (See the similarities to blackjack?)
The player’s goal is to win BOTH hands, in which case she wins even money less a 5% commission.
If the player wins one hand but loses the other, the hand is considered a push, and her bet is returned.
One rule that all Pai Gow Poker players must follow is that when they arrange their hands, they’re forbidden from arranging their two card hand in a way that would make it a better hand than their five card hand. A player who arranges her hands in this way automatically loses; this is considered a “foul.” It’s not cheating, even though it breaks a rule–it’s just a dumb way to lose your money playing Pai Gow Poker.
Another quirk of Pai Gow Poker is that the player has the option of being the banker. If the player opts to be the banker, she needs enough of a bankroll to cover the bets at the table, and she also has to arrange her hands according to the “house way.” But a player can’t opt to bank every hand; the option rotates around the table. Most players don’t choose to be the banker at all anymore.
Pai Gow Poker House Edge
According to the Wizard of Odds, the house edge for a player who knows how to arrange her cards correctly in a game of Pai Gow Poker is 2.73%. The house edge for the banker is only 0.20%, so it’s a good idea to be the banker when you have the option. If you play the game long enough, and you choose to be the banker every time you get the chance, the overall house edge for the game is only 1.46%, making Pai Gow Poker a pretty good casino game, percentage-wise.
How to Arrange Your Hands in Pai Gow Poker
If you want to get the detailed specifics for the correct Pai Gow Poker strategy, find a copy of Stanford Wong’s book Optimal Strategy for Pai Gow Poker. He goes into a lot of detail about the math of each situation and how to make the right decisions.
Another option is to visit Michael Shackleford’s site and just copy the “house way” even when you’re the player. You can find that link, labeled “Wizard of Odds”, in the paragraph before last.
But my preferred approach to Pai Gow Poker strategy is to apply a little bit of thought to each hand. This isn’t the mathematically correct approach every time, but I figure that even if I use perfect strategy, I’m still playing a negative expectation game, so why not?
According to Andrew Brisman, author of American Mensa Guide to Casino Gambling: Winning Ways, the best you can hope to achieve by playing perfectly at Pai Gow Poker is to shave 0.3% off the house edge. I’m not willing to study hard to gain 0.3% on a game that’s still a negative expectation game, so I’ll just relate the simple strategy for how to arrange your hands in Pai Gow Poker that Brisman shares in his book, and it boils down to a single sentence.
Arrange your hand so that you have the highest possible two card hand possible while still not having a two card hand that’s better than your five card hand.
This makes a lot of sense if you think about it. It doesn’t do you any good to have a full house for your five card hand if your two card hand is going to lose, because you won’t win any money. You’re better off with a three of a kind in your five card hand and a pair in your two card hand, because then you’ve at least got a chance of winning some money.
You shouldn’t arrange your cards in such a way as to almost guarantee a push, in other words.
Pai Gow Poker Optimal Strategy
Like most casino games, there are more nuances and details I could share about Pai Gow Poker, but this is meant to be an introduction to the game and its strategies, so I’ll leave the other details for future articles on the subject.