Pai Gow Poker

Pai Gow poker is a nice game and welcome variation for real poker fanatics and long-time poker players. In Pai Gow poker, much like in Blackjack, you're playing against the dealer. You are dealt seven cards, from which you make two hands - one five card hand and one two card hand. Your two card hand must have a lower poker value than your five card hand does. The pai gow poker dealer arranges his seven cards according to the typical rules of poker.

Pai Gow poker is played with a 53 card deck that includes one joker. The joker can be used to complete a straight, a flush, or a straight-flush. Other than those options, the joker is treated as an ace. The highest two-card hand is a pair of aces, and the highest five-card hand is five aces.

If you beat the dealer with both hands, you win the bet, minus a house commission. If you win one hand but not the other, the result is a push. If the dealer wins both hands, you lose your bet. Due to a rather slow pace and a lot of ties, pai gow poker is less intense than most casino games and a modest buy in can usually last a long time. Pai gow is legal in the card clubs of southern California but the rules are somewhat different, often in the direction of being to the player's advantage.

Pai Gow Poker Strategy

The most important factor in improving your odds in pai gow is the ratio of how much is bet when you are the banker to as a player. The greater the ratio the better your odds are. The second most important factor is how well you arrange your cards. The house way (explained below) is a very safe strategy that is difficult to improve upon. Theoretically you could use pai gow poker charts to play any hand, maximizing your odds of winning, but in real life nobody would have enough time to look up the numbers and add them up.