Category: Gambling and Casinos

We’re moving right along with our Pai Gow series. You’re almost a professional Pai Gow player now. Since you know most of the game play, it’s now time to talk about the hand rankings Pai Gow. After all, it doesn’t make much sense to play if you don’t understand what makes a winning hand.

Five Aces

Unlike traditional poker-based games where the Royal Flush is king, in Pai Gow, the five aces hand is trump. Getting five aces is tough and there’s only one way to do it. You need to get all four aces in the deck and the joker.

Royal Flush

To get a royal flush, you must have the 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of one suit-like Clubs. The Joker can be used in place of the Ace.

Straight Flush

The straight flush consists of five cards in sequential order that are all of the same suit. Here’s an important note. In Pai Gow, the A-5 straight flush is the highest ranking straight and the King-high straight flush is the second highest.

Four of a Kind

To get a four of a kind, you need four cards of the same rank, such as four Jacks. Remember, the Joker can be used as an Ace.

Full House

When you have three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank-like three Jacks and two Queens-you have a full house. Should both you and the Banker have a full house, the player with the highest-ranking three set of cards wins. The pair won’t matter.

Flush

Five cards that are all of the same suit and not in sequential order is a flush hand. The Joker can be used as an Ace of any suit, so if you have the Joker, you just need four cards of the same suit.

Straight

When you have five cards in sequential order and they are of more than one suit, you have a straight. If they were all the same suit, you’d have a straight flush. The Ace can be used at the front, such as A 2 3 4 5, or the end, such as 10 J Q K A.

Three of a Kind

Simply put, three cards of the same rank is a three of a kind hand-like AAA.

Two Pair

You have this hand when you have two cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, such as: JJ KK.

One Pair

Having two cards of the same rank is having one pair-like 44.

High Card

Finally, if you have absolutely nothing above, you have a high card hand. This is the worst hand in Pai Gow.

When you’re setting your 2nd highest hand, which consists of just two cards, you’ll have either a high card hand or one pair. Needless to say, when you have one pair as your 2nd highest hand, you have a great shot at winning that hand.

And there you have it. You’re now ready to take on the Pai Gow playing world. In our final article on playing Pai Gow, we’ll go over a couple of quick strategy tips.

Today’s lesson will deal with setting your hand. We’ve already got the game flow down. In another article, we’ll go over strategy a bit more. Setting your hand is the main function in Pai Gow. Don’t worry if you don’t know how Pai Gow hands rank, because that’s the next part of this series.

In Pai Gow, the Ace can be used at the front or end of the deck. For instance, it could be used as Ace, two, three or Queen, King, Ace. The Joker can be used as an Ace or to complete a straight, flush or straight flush.

Once you have your seven cards, I find it’s best for beginners to sort their cards from highest to lowest or lowest to highest. If you’re playing Pai Gow online, this might already be done for you. Remember, we’re going to be creating two hands from these seven cards-the highest hand, which is five cards and the 2nd highest hand, which are the remaining two cards.

When you make your hands, the highest hand must actually be the highest hand. For instance, let’s say your hand is: J J 3 4 5 Q Q.

You couldn’t make your 2nd highest hand be QQ, because the highest hand would be JJ 3 4 5 and it wouldn’t actually be the highest hand.

Let’s keep that example going. Part of the strategy in Pai Gow is figuring out how best to set your hands. In our example, we could do something like JJ QQ 3 and 4 5 or something like JJ 3 4 5 and QQ. So, we’d either have two pair and nothing or one pair in each hand. Remember, if you can win at least one of the hands, you keep your cash.

Once you have decided how to set your hand, you place each of the two hands on their appropriate space on the table. Online Pai Gow players will have this done for them.

I can’t reiterate this enough: don’t take setting your hand too lightly. It’s a strategic game. Ideally, you want your second highest hand to be as high as possible, so you can at least force a push.

If your second highest hand won’t have a pair, put the two highest ranking cards in there-out of what’s left. Let’s say your hand is: J J A Q 4 8 3.

For the above hand, we’d want to keep the pair of Jacks in the highest hand. That leaves us with the Ace, Queen, 4, 8 and 3. It would be best to take the Ace and Queen and put those two cards in the second highest hand.

Now that we have a basic understanding with setting hands, it’s time to go over hand rankings. We’ll do that in the next article.

When we last left off, I had just started talking about the Banker in Pai Gow, which you can opt to play if you desire. Today, I’ll go more in detail about this fascinating part of the game.

All players in Pai Gow are betting against the bank. This isn’t to be confused with the dealer, because in Pai Gow, the bank could be a player. When it’s a player’s turn to be the bank, that player can accept or decline. Should the player decline, the house will always accept in place of the player.

To beat the Banker, both of your hands must beat the Banker’s hands. Any “copies,” which is a fancy name for hand ties, goes to the Banker. Some players work to just win one of the two hands, because that’s a push and no money exchanges hands.

An example of a “copy” would be your 2nd highest hand and the bank’s 2nd highest hand consisting of a Jack-Queen. The bank wins all copies.

Depending on the casino, the option to be the banker could rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise. If the table is full, you’ll get the opportunity to be the banker once per seven hands, because the dealer is included in that rotation. The casino earns a 5% commission from all winning hands.

The option to be the banker goes position to position. If the current offering position is vacant, the house gets to be the bank.

In order for you to be the bank, you’ll need enough money to cover all the bets on the table. If you really want to bank, but can’t afford it, the casino may offer to co-bank with you. Ask your dealer if this is an option. However, be advised that when you co-bank, you must set your hand in accordance with house rules.

Also, when you bank, the dealer will bet too. Don’t worry; the dealer isn’t going to dump all the chips of the casino on the table. The dealer’s bet will be equal to your last wager. If the amount is more than you’d like to bank against, see if the house will reduce it to the table minimum. It is possible.

Keep in mind that depending on the software, these little nuances can be lost when playing Pai Gow online. Also, banking may have less significance, because you don’t have any other players at the table.

Once the hand-when you are the banker-is over, the losers are taken and the winners paid. The house takes a 5% vig out of your net winnings. For instance, let’s say you paid out $200, but took in $500; your net winnings would be $300. The 5% vig that you’ll pay would be $15.

Being the banker is something you want to do as often as possible. In the long run, it’s the moneymaker. Again, another reason why you want other people at the table if you’re going to play Pai Gow online.

In the next part of our series, we’ll talk about setting your hand in Pai Gow.

In a recent article, I talked about how I love to play Pai Gow and I gave you a little intro into the game. Today, I’m starting a beginner’s series on how to play Pai Gow. It’s an easy game to learn and we’ll take our time-going over everything in detail.

Quick Recap

Pai Gow is played with your typical 52-card deck and one joker card. You’ll receive seven cards and you’ll divide them into two hands. Your job is to beat the bank’s hand and as a player, you’ll have the chance to be the bank-unless the casino doesn’t offer that option.

Getting Started

The invention and growth of online casinos has really helped the low-limit Pai Gow players. It used to be that you’d have a tough time finding a Pai Gow game lower than $10 and even $10 Pai Gow games were hard.

Today, you can just jump online and find $5 Pai Gow games all over the Internet.

After you make your wager-and other player’s do the same-the dealer shuffles up the deck and deals out seven cards per hand spot. It’s important to note that the entire deck is used for each hand-unlike Blackjack where you just keep playing through the deck until it’s gone.

After this is complete, the hands at the spots where there are no players are taken. Yes, the dealer deals to empty spots. This is part of the game play. So, unlike Blackjack where players coming and going can affect hands, it doesn’t matter in Pai Gow.

We’ll talk about the bank later, but now that the hands are dealt and the bank is decided, it’s time to examine your hand. You’re going to break up your seven cards into two hands. The first hand will consist of one five-card hand, which is your best hand. Then the remaining two cards will make up your “2nd Highest” hand.

Now, before you rush out and player, there’s one important item you need to know. Your five-card hand MUST be the highest-ranking hand or you forfeit your money. For instance, you couldn’t put two Aces are your two-card hand and then have a pair of 2s as your five-card hand.

The strategy comes in decided how far to go. For instance, do you go with two pair as your highest hand and nothing as your 2nd highest hand or do you break them up? We’ll go over Pai Gow strategy in other articles.

Time To Win

Once all the hands are set, meaning they’ve all been split into the highest and 2nd highest hands, it’s time for the dealer to play. The dealer (not always the bank) will turn over the hand and set it according to casino rules.

To win, both of your hands need to beat both of the Banker’s hands. If you win one and lose one, it’s a push. Should one of your hands be exactly like one of the Banker’s hands, it’s called a “copy” and the Banker wins the hand.

In part two, we’ll continue with more on the Banker.