Pia Gao Poker
Learn how to deal pai gow poker with this in-depth analysis. The seventh page is an Introduction to dealing and it covers what the dealer should do if they don't have a shuffle machine or a randome numer generator available to them.
Welcome to Pai Gow Poker Online! We focus on the popular casino game Pai Gow. We are one of the most comprehensive websites covering the subject Pai Gow and it’s popular searches like Pai Gow Poker and today, Pai Gow Poker online. We are enthusiasts of the game and this site is devoted show you how to play Pai Gow Poker like a pro!
We cover all sorts of Pai Gow topics including strategy, tips, advice, history, etiquitte and more including a detailed explanation on how to split two pair, about being the banker, a list of common pai gow mistakes to watch out for and details about playing pai gow poker online. You can also play a Pai Gow Poker game without downloading any software or installing any programs to your computer. We also mention the top online casinos to play pai gow for free or for real money, the choice is yours! Welcome to the site and enjoy the content!
- Pai gow poker (pai is pronounced like pie, gow rhymes with now) is a cross between the ancient game of Chinese dominoes and the American game of poker. The game is played on a blackjack-size table with up to 6 players and a casino dealer. A single deck of playing cards is used plus one joker.
- Pai-Gow Poker is naturally a slow game, but it’s the dealer’s responsibility to keep it moving at a good pace without rushing the players. The only exception to this rule is if you’re a break-in dealer and you’ve just learned how to deal the game.
- Pai Gow is actually an ancient Chinese game of dominos – 32 to be exact – which later got appropriated for poker. It’s no cake walk either, but that doesn’t mean the poker version is difficult. Actually, it’s pretty easy. You just have to learn the fundamentals.
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Pia Gao Poker
Pai Gow Poker is based on an older Asian game called Pai Gow. The original game was invented centuries ago and used tiles (they looked like dominos). In order to make the rules easier to understand for a Western audience, the tiles were abandoned for playing cards.
Today, Pai Gow Poker is played with one standard deck of playing cards combined with a single joker, and the game is one of the most popular at the online casinos. Hands are ranked according to conventional poker hands, which makes determining the winner intuitive for most U.S. gamblers.
On this site, we’ll provide a detailed overview of the rules, Pai Gow Poker strategy that will maximize your chances of winning while reducing the house edge as much as possible, and a whole lot more. Most novices who observe the game without knowing the rules become confused. However, you’ll discover that Pai Gow Poker is not only relatively simple, but fun to play.
How To Play Pai Gow Poker
In land-based casinos, Pai Gow Poker is played between the dealer and up to six players. When you play the game at online casinos, you are the only player. Each hand begins after you choose the amount of your bet (according to the table limits). Seven cards are dealt to you face up and seven cards are dealt to the dealer face down. We have a more comprehensive guide on how to play Pai Gow if you want to go through the finer details.
To play, you must choose two of your seven cards and place them in a separate 2 card hand. The dealer does the same with his 7 cards. At this point, your hands are turned face up and compared against the dealers. You compare your five cards to the dealer’s 5-card hand and the the two cards you isolated will be compared to the dealer’s 2-card hand. Your bet is riding on the outcome of both hands. The goal in Pai Gow is to win both hands. You can learn your chances of getting different hands by looking through the odds of Pai Gow and of course reading our tips and strategy articles.
If the dealer’s 5-card hand and 2-card hand beat your hands (respectively), you’ll lose your bet. If both of your hands individually outrank the dealer’s hands, your bet is paid out even money (i.e. 1:1), less a 5% commission.
If one of your hands outranks the dealer’s corresponding hand (for example, your 5-card hand beats the dealer’s 5-card hand), but your other hand loses, your bet is pushed back to you. If one of your hands wins, but the other hand ties the dealer’s hand, you’ll lose your bet. If it sounds confusing, it isn’t really. Read our pai gow tips for advice on how to play your hands to maximize your odds of winning and how to split up your hands.
There are two more important rules of Pai Gow Poker…
First, your 2-card hand cannot outrank your 5-card hand. If you’re playing the game at an online casino, the software will prevent you from proceeding until you fix the problem. If you’re at a land-based casino, you’ll typically lose your bet based on your committing a “foul.” Be wary.
Second, you’ll recall that the game is played with a single joker. The joker can be used to make straights or flushes (and of course, straight flushes). Otherwise, it represents an Ace.
Pai Gow Poker Strategy
Optimal strategy for playing Pai Gow Poker is complex for two reasons. First, some land-based casinos allow you to assume the role of “banker.” However, not only is this becoming less popular in the largest casinos, but few top-tier online casinos allow it. So, we’ll ignore the “banker” component when discussing playing Pai Gow poker online.
Second, the largest influence on reducing the house edge is the manner in which you split your cards. And therein, lies the complexity. Because there are so many possible hand combinations, you would need an enormous pai gow hand chart to play the “house way.” Even if you had the chart in front of you while playing, the game would proceed at a snail’s pace.
To keep things relatively simple, we’ll provide a few rules of thumb. If you adhere to them, you’ll come very close to achieving the minimal 2.66% house edge on Pai Gow Poker.
Here they are:
- If you’re holding one pair, keep it within your 5-card hand and isolate your two next highest cards.
- If you’re holding two pairs, keep the highest ranking pair in your 5-card hand and isolate the other one.
- If you’re holding three pairs, isolate the highest ranking one.
- Don’t split a three of a kind.
- If you’re holding a full house, isolate the pair.
- Don’t split straights and flushes unless you’re holding two pairs.
- With a four of a kind, look at the card ranking. If you’re holding twos through fives, don’t split them. If you’re holding sixes through nines, split them unless you have a King or an Ace. If you have a King or Ace, keep the four of a kind intact. If your four of a kind is made up from tens or face cards, split them unless you have an Ace.
If you can remember the above rules, you’ll shave the house edge on Pai Gow Poker as closely to 2.66% as possible. You can also take a look through the odds playing pai gow or even test them out yourself playing a pai gow poker game.
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Pai Gow Poker Rules
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Take a moment to visit Bovada Casino and play Pai Gow Poker. You’ll understand why they are one of the most popular gambling sites online.
Pai Gow Chinese Domino Rules
How To Play Pai Gow Dominoes
Pai Gow is a Chinese Gambling game played with the Chinese dominoes tile set.The game is played in underground casinos in most Chinese communities. It is playedopenly in major casinos in Macau, China, Las Vegas, Nevada, Atlantic City, New Jersey, in many California cardrooms, and in some Australian casinos. It is an ancient game, thousands of years old, and steeped in tradition.
The name 'Pai Gow' is sometimes used to refer to a card game called Pai Gow Poker (or Double Hand Poker ), also popular in Nevada and California, and which is loosely based on the Chinese game.
The Set-Up
Tiles are randomized on the table, and are stacked into eight stacks of four tiles each. This assembly is known as thewoodpile. Various ritualistic 'shuffles' are made, rearranging the tiles in the woodpile in standard ways that result in anew woodpile. Bets are then made.
Next, each player (including the dealer) is given four tiles with which to make two hands of two tiles each. The hand with thelower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand. If a player'sfront hand beats the dealer's front hand, and the player's rear hand beats the dealer's rear hand, then that player wins the bet.If a player's front and rear hands both lose to the dealer's respective hands, the player loses the bet. If one hand wins and theother loses, the player is said to push, and gets back only the money he or she bet. Generally seven players will play,and each player's hands are compared only against the dealer's hands.
Basic ScoringThe name 'Pai Gow' is loosely translated as 'Make Nine' or 'Card Nine'. This reflects the fact that, with a few high-scoringexceptions, the best a hand can score is nine. To find the value of a hand, simply add the total number of pips on the two tiles,and drop the tens place. So for instance, a 1-3 tile (a tilewith one pip on one end and three pips on the other, for a total of four pips) used with a 2-3 tile (with five total pips) willscore nine, since four plus five is nine. A 2-3 tile with a 5-6 tile will score six, and not sixteen, because you drop the 1. Anda 5-5 tile with a 4-6 tile will score zero, since ten plus ten is twenty, and twenty reduces to zero when you drop the tensplace.
Gongs and WongsThere are special ways in which a hand can score more than nine points. The double-one tiles and double-six tiles are known asthe Day and Teen tiles, respectively. If a Day or Teen tile is used with an eight, the pair is worth ten instead ofthe usual zero. (This is called a Gong.) If a Day or Teen tile is used with a nine, the hand is worth eleven instead ofone. (This is called a Wong.) But a Day or Teen tile used with a ten is only worth two, not twelve; this is because onlyeights and nines can be combined with Days or Teens for higher values. (In other words, when Day or Teen tiles are combined withtiles other than an eight or nine, follow the normal scoring rules.)
The Gee June tilesThe 1-2 and the 2-4 tiles are called Gee June tiles (or sometimes called wildcards). Either tile can count as 3 or 6, whichever scores more. So a 1-2 tile can be used with a 5-6 tile to make a hand worth seven points, rather than four.
PairsThe 32 tiles in a Chinese Dominoes set can be arranged into 16 pairs, as shown in the picture at the top of this article.Eleven of these pairs have identical tiles, and five of these pairs are made up of two tiles that score the same, but lookdifferent. (The latter group includes the Gee June tiles, which can score the same, whether as three or six.) If a hand is madeup of a pair, it always scores higher than a non-pair, no matter what the value of the pips are. (Pairs are often thought of asbeing worth 14 points each.)
When two pairs are compared, the higher-valued pair wins. This is not determined by the sum of their pips, but by aesthetics.It must be memorized which pairs score more than other pairs. The highest pairs are the Gee June tiles, the Teens, the Days, andthe red eights. The lowest scoring pairs are the mismatched nines, eights, sevens, and fives. But even the lowest-scoring pairwill beat any non-pair.
TiesPai Gow Poker Online
When one of a player's hands is compared to one of the dealer's hands, it sometimes happens that both will have the samescore. For instance, a player may have a front hand worth one point, consisting of a 3-4 tile and a 2-2 tile, and the dealer mayhave a front hand also worth one point, made up of a 5-6 tile and a 5-5 tile. In these cases, determine which tile in each handhas a higher value, as determined by the pair rankings mentioned above. In this case, the 2-2 tile is in a higher-ranking pairthan the 3-4 tile, and the 5-5 tile is in a higher-ranking pair than the 5-6 tile. (Again, the rankings of the pairs follows noobvious pattern and must be memorized.) Since the 5-5 pair outranks the 2-2 pair, the dealer would win this front hand. In theunusual case of a true tie, where the dealer's high tile would be in the same pair as the player's high tile, the dealer wins thetie.
There are two exceptions to the method described above. First, although the Gee June tiles form the highest-ranking pair, theyare considered to have no value when evaluating ties. Second, any zero-zero tie is won by the dealer, regardless of the tiles inthe hand.
StrategyThe basic decision to be made in Pai Gow is how to arrange one's hands. Given any four tiles, there are always three ways toarrange them into two hands (although some arrangements may be functionally identical to others). Sometimes one way will beclearly superior to another, but at other times it is difficult to determine the best strategy.
For instance, consider the four tiles at right. It would clearly be unwise to combine tile A with tile B, since each handwould be worth zero. It would make more sense to combine tile A with tile C, in which case both hands would be worth 5. Or youcould pair tile A with tile D, in which case your front hand would be worth 3 and your rear hand would be worth 7. Which is abetter choice?
If you think the dealer will have poor hands, such as a front of 1 and a rear of 6, you would want to pair tile A with tile Din order to maximize your chance of winning. If you are afraid the dealer may have a better hand, such as a front of 4 and a rearof 9, then you will want to pair tile A with tile C in order to maximize your chance of pushing. You might also consider thatpairing tile A with tile D will make it more likely that a tie would break in your favor.
Experience will help a player get a feel for which hand combinations will work well in which situations. Many players usevarious superstitions as well, believing that one should (for instance) never pair a 6-4 tile with a nine.
Article text based on the Wikipedia, licensed under the GFDL.
Other Sources of Pai Gow Chinese Domino Rules
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Pai Gow Poker Odds
- Pocket Pai Gow Championship for PocketPC - by Crosstec Limited