How to Play Pai Gow

A combination of ancient Chinese format of Pai Gow and the modern poker games, Pai Gow is exciting and interesting. To succeed you must know how to play Pai Gow. Your job is setting the 7 cards in 5-card high and 2-card low hand and the aim is to beat corresponding hands with the dealer. The sequences are unique as well in Pai Gow.

Pai Gow offers a very interesting form of the Poker games. However to experience the full excitement and pleasure of the game you should know how to play Pai Gow. The game starts with distribution of 7 cards for each betting area by the dealer irrespective of absence of the player. The seven cards distributed are divided into two parts, one with two cards making the low hand, and the other with five cards making the high hand. One of the players on option, or the dealer by default becomes the bank. If someone opts to become banks he or she must have enough chips to meet all the wagers made. Thereafter the game moves on around the banker’s hands that form the center point of the game.

Set principles of the game are that each player at the table is responsible for his or her hand settings. Only the dealer can touch the cards of any of the players and none else. Each of the players is also required to keep all the seven cards in full view of the dealer all the time. After setting their respective high and low hands the players will put them face down on their respective allotted areas in the table. After than he or she will not touch the cards again. The rule is different for the dealer. He or she will set the hands using a set of well defined rules captioned “the house way”. You can have a copy of these rules whenever you play Pai Gow teaching you how to play Pai Gow.

Location of dealing the first card is decided on randomized numbers generated by the computer. When the shaker and dice is used in Pai Gow, it is the dealer cum banker or any other player who is the banker will be counted as 1, 8 or 15. The counting goes counter clockwise starting from the dealer or the banker completing the round up of the whole dice. This marks the beginning of the dealing process. Remember that all the bets have to be made before the dealer announces “no more bets” in the game.

You require quite a good deal of skills to achieve success in the Pai Gow poker. It could be considered as a combination of the old time Chinese Pai Gow and the modern game of Poker. Incidentally, Chinese Pai Gow meant “makes mine”. However there is a major difference from the traditional game of poker here. In Pai Gow the player is pitted directly against the dealer. You have to set the seven cards in a specific manner. Your five card hand must show a higher value than your two card hand. At the same time both your high and low hands should have greater values in comparison to the corresponding hands of the dealer.

53 cards constitute the deck in the game of Pai Gow. This includes the standard 52 cards and a joker. The Joker has multiple uses and can replicate any card excepting as the fourth Ace when you already have three. Advantage of playing in online casino is that you can ask for advices on arranging your hands or you can arrange them all by yourself. While you have the standard poker values for the cards in your hand, the sole aim is to beat both hands held by the dealer. In that case you will get even money minus 5% commission to be taken by the dealer.

The sequences are a bit unique in the game. A-2-3-4-5 will beat K-Q-J-10-9 but lose to A-K-Q-J-10.