Rules & Tips

Pai Gow Poker Basics, How To Play, Strategy, Plus History Of The Game - an article by Ankur Vyas

Pai Gow Poker

Sam Torosian and Fred Wolf, the inventers of Super Pan-9, invented the game Pai Gow Poker. The game is derived from Pai Gow (a Chinese game of dominoes), but is emphasized in the American format – it implements on poker hand value instead of Chinese Dominoes. Pai Gow Poker can be played with a set of six players and the dealer. The game is to be played with a 52-card deck and a joker. The joker is a type of wild card which can be used in flushes or straights or by default acts like an Ace. To win, one has to defeat the dealer. The game is best understood in sequential stages as described below. 

Objective 

For players of pai gow poker, he/she must create two poker hands out of the seven cards dealt by the dealer. Both these hands follow standard poker rules. However there are some exceptions which is described later. The value of the two cards must not exceed the hand value of the five cards. The cards are called as per their settings or placements given to the players. The two card hand can be called ‘minor’, ‘on top’, ‘small’, or ‘in front’. The five card hand is often called ‘big’, ‘bottom’, or ‘behind’. The reason why the two-card hand is called “front” is because it’s closer to the dealer while the five-card hand is called behind because it’s closer to you. 

Dealing 

After shuffling, the cards are served in seven piles with seven cards, each pile facing downwards. The remaining four cards are kept untouched regardless of the players involved. Each player is assigned a number from 1-7 as their betting position, starting from the dealer and going clockwise above the counter. A number is chosen from that 1-7 assigned before – practically by dice or electronically – and then begins the deal counter clockwise. If a spot is vacant it is still assigned but on the discard pile with the four untouched cards. 

Hand Ranking (Cards) 

Basically the two-card hand is one-pair and high cards. The hand rankings are quite different than the casinos using the hand A-2-3-4-5 as above a King high straight is, however, below A-K-Q-J-10 at Ace high. This rule does not apply in most of the casinos in California and Michigan, A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest straight possible. In Californian casinos the joker is completely a wild card, it can enhance all hands or straights. However, it’s different in the case of others. 

It is the player’s responsibility to ensure that the 5-card rank is higher than the 2-card rank. If it is not, then this is called a foul and the player loses. As for the two-card hand, the highest is a pair of Aces, and then going down from a pair of Kings to three and two. Two separate individual cards are also a possibility. The cards are generally ranked according to standard poker rules. The two card hand cannot have a flush, since this requires five cards. Also there are several house rules you should be aware of before you place a bet and start gambling. Various land-based casinos each have their own set of rules. 

Determining to Win 

If the hands two and five of seven cards beat the dealer’s corresponding hand then the player wins the bet. If the player wins any one, he continues or else loses to the banker. Ties are always an advantage for the dealer. For example, if a player’s two-card hands lose to the banker and the five hands is a tie, then the player loses. Casinos in California charge a flat fee to play, win, or lose. Other casinos charge a five per cent commission on the winnings which cannot be seen too often as this game takes more time as compared to other games. When all the cards have been dealt, the dealer’s cards are turned up by the banker, whose job is to re-arrange the cards into the highest possible combination. After the banker arranges the cards both hands (that is, the five-card hand and the two-card hand) are compared to that of every player and the payouts are given accordingly. In order for the player to win both their five-card hand and two-card hand must beat the dealer’s respectively. However, if only one hand beats the dealer’s hand while the other does not then it is a tie and no money is exchanged in the process. This is called a ‘push’. Nothing happens when the cards are pushed. Note that when comparing hands between the dealer and the player and if it is a tie then the banker wins (but the banker must have a tie on both hands or one-hand beating the player’s and the other a tie). Also if one hand is a tie and the other hand the player wins then this is also called a push. Usually the two-hand cards is placed in front of the five-hand cards. 

Basic Strategy 

A player should keep in mind to make the highest two-card hand leaving the five-card hand behind. A player can expect a medium to high in five-card hands and an Ace high on top. One should know the tables quite extensively and an approximate value can be calculated with a few rules of thumb. A player can always use House Way when confused as House strategies are always optimal – House Way is the arrangement of the dealer’s hand as it is pre-determined. 

The House makes its money by taking a 5% commission on all winnings. When comparing the hands there could be a tie, which is also known as a copy. Every copy the money goes to the banker. The House way is the fixed rules that govern how the dealer’s hand will be arranged.




The Author:

Ankur Vyas is a prolific author writing on diverse subjects such as online casino gambling and more. You can also vist www.casinostoplayat.com

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Strategies For Playing Pai Gow - an article by Adrian Carli

For playing the perfect game you have to learn the strategies for playing Pai Gow. Setting both two card and five card hand is the basic strategy. Knowing the game well is another part of the strategies. Playing pre-pay commission games, entering with dragon hands, and making high bids as banker are some of the time tested strategies for good gains.

If you wish to play the perfect game of Pai Gow with maximum success rate then you will have to take care of well planned strategies for playing Pai Gow. Especially the hand setting strategy is most important for your Pai Gow Games. If you have a good strategy, it will help you in 95% of the situations. There will of course be at least 5% unpredictable situations. Even in those cases your game will be near perfect. Setting the Front 2 and Back 5 referring to the two cards and five card settings in Pai Gow has optimum importance for achieving your desired goal.

Basically Pai Gow poker game is a variation of ancient Chinese domino game with the identical name. The common name for this version of poker is Pai Gow. A 53 card deck consisting of the 52 traditional cards and one joker is used for the game. The format is one on one. Every player or the players are pitted against the banker. The players compete to form the best possible hand. However, there are a lot of ties and the game progresses at slow pace. Therefore one of the best strategies for the game is to make a modest buy that could last you for quite a long duration.

In making your strategies you have to conversant with the rules of the game. A wager commences the game. Thereafter every baiter gets seven cards. Either a roll of the dice or computer generated numbers determines who will receive the first card set. The seven cards are split into sets of 2 cards and 5 cards separately called the low and high hand respectively. Ranking goes by poker. However, most of the online casinos treat the sequence of A-2-3-4-5 as the second highest straight captioned the “Wheel”. Two card rankings are that a pair will beat a couple of singleton cards. The pairs are ranked according to poker rules with the two Aces topping the list. Similarly the hand with 3-2 is the lowest hand.

Once the hands are fixed, the banker turns on the game with the “house way” rules. Remember if both your hands are inferior to the corresponding hands of the banker than you will lose the entire wager. However, if you win both hands then you earn the wager and 5% commission is taken out of it. But if you pre-pay the commission betting say $105 to win the wager of $100 you will be gainer. It will effectively lower the commission rate from 5% to 4.75%. Another strategic move is to see that your two card hand does not become higher than the five card hand. In such cases your hands will be considered foul and you lose on both counts.

Making your strategy also requires knowing exactly how to use the joker. It can used to complete a straight, flush or the straight flush. In all other cases it is treated as an Ace. In flush it is treated as the highest unused card. Sometimes the casinos have the dealer deal “dragon” hands when there are some empty seats. A player may opt to assume the dragon hand thus playing two positions instead of one.

However, the most important strategy for improving your chances in the game is your bet as a banker. Higher the bet you make, the greater is the chances of your win. Another important factor is your card arrangement. The house way is the safest of the strategies and requires little improvement.




The Author:
Dan Roberts enjoys playing the online Pai Gow Poker games. If you are interested you can get the latest bonuses, news, and promotions for online poker then check out this website.

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Introduction To Chinese Poker - by Imteaz Ahmed

This game is probably close to universally accepted as being the best game for a beginner to cut their teeth on, the advanced player will eventually want to branch out and learn other card games. Some obvious choices for branching out include Omaha, Seven Card Stud and their Hi/Lo and lowball counterparts, but a game that people do not talk about that much is Chinese Poker. It is rather unfortunate that not that many people know how to play Chinese Poker because as a game it is one of the most challenging card games on the face of the planet.

The Basic Premise

The basic premise of Chinese Poker is that you are dealt 13 cards and play against the person sitting across from you. You can play the game with two or four players, but the best Chinese Poker games are played with four so that the adversarial relationships can be switched around as the game goes on. With the 13 cards that you are dealt, you need to make one hand of three cards and two hands of five cards. These are known as the front, middle and back hands respectively.

There are not that many restrictions in making these hands, but you do need to make sure in the hand construction that the front hand is smaller than the middle hand and the middle hand is smaller than the back hand. If you are not familiar with Pai Gow Poker you will recognize this stipulation as a running theme through all versions of Oriental poker games.

Once you have set your hands, you compare them to your opponents and score a point for each hand of yours that is higher than your opponents. A clean sweep would score 3 points, a win on two of the hands and a loss on the other would score 1 point and of course you can also lose 1 and lose 3 points to your opponent if the opposite scenarios take place. Over the course of the game the point differential will switch based on each new hand and at the end of the game the loser is required to pay the winner an amount of money equivalent to the point differential multiplied by whatever monetary value had been attached to each point at the start of the game.

Advantages of Chinese Poker

The main advantage of the game is that there are not a lot of people that know how to play chinese poker. For this reason if you are able to get really good at the game you can easily beat other players and win money from them.

For the people that enjoy the challenge, chinese poker also allows for exercising your critical thinking skills on a large level that dwarfs Texas HoldEm or any of the other currently popular poker variants and that in turn means that you get a lot more out of the challenge if you are the type of person that enjoys it.



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