100% Skill, 50% Luck

You can't buy happiness but you can buy it in a poker game. Well, if your vibe is matching with ours, then you are in luck at least here. We have a different yet exciting version of poker with us, the ancient Chinese game of Pai Gow and the American game of poker. We figured you might have gotten bored with the age-old poker, therefore bringing to you a variety if you want to stick to a card game. What makes this one an excellent choice is it isn’t hard to learn as traditional poker games like Texas hold’em or 7-card stud.

Before we dive in, many get confused between the Pai gow and Pai gow poker. While Pai gow uses 32 pai gow tiles or Chinese dominoes, Pai Gow poker uses a deck of playing cards with one joker. Pai Gow is an Asian casino game that is quite difficult to learn. On the other hand, Pai gow poker is a straightforward game that is easy to learn, especially if you understand poker hand rankings.

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Pai gow poker would best interest someone who prefers more leisurely games. Learning to play pai gow poker is a matter of minutes, while we discuss that this time we are also going to talk about some strategies and tips to win in this game. Let’s gamble again!

Before we dive in, many get confused between the Pai gow and Pai gow poker. Pai gow poker would best interest someone who prefers more leisurely games. Learning to play pai gow poker is a matter of minutes!

How to play Pai Gow

Just like the quintessential Poker, this game also includes a deck consisting of 53 cards and also includes a Joker. Now to begin, in each Pai Gow Poker hand, one person will be designated the banker either a player or dealer, and all other persons will compete against that person. Another thing to note, in Pai Gow Poker, the Banker's position is always 1, 8, or 15. Now dive in and understand how to play pai gow:

Now the dealer will place 7 cards to each spot on the table in front of each player. In the end, just four cards and left and discarded in the rack. Now that each player has received their cards. They will construct two separate poker hands of two cards and five cards.

Since the five cards are known as the high hand it must be ranked higher than your 2-card hand. Once you’re satisfied with the arrangements, place them face down on the table.

After everything is in place, the dealer turns his seven cards over. Moving forward, each player’s high hand card is compared to the dealer’s five hands and similarly for the 2-cards hand. And that’s how the winner is decided.

Winning is all on luck when it comes to these popular casino games. In Pai Gow, you will win if both the player's High hand and the Low hand are ranked higher than the dealer’s High and Low hand. Sounds fair, right? Now that we’ve given you an idea about how to play, let’s make a strategy for winning.

Strategy for winning in Pai Gow

Now every house would have a set of rules and it would vary from casino to casino. But one strategy that would be of help the most is using a pai gow poker strategy calculator. By inputting the cards input, the calculator will recommend the best strategy using the house way rules.

Playing three of a kind on your five-hand card until there are triple aces.

If you have received four of a kind that is a jack or better, it’s advised to split them into two players to increase the chances of winning.

For beginners, go with the “house way” until you get hold of the game in a better way after each round.

If you have no pair, straight, or flush, play the highest card with your five-hand and the next two highest cards in the 2-hand.

Don’t play bonus bets if you want to beat Pai Gow. Yes, they do create anticipation and provide big payoffs, but avoid them!

Basic rules in Pai Gow

Players usually compete in opposition to the dealer. However, there's a manner to compete in opposition to different gamers if you make a decision to financial institution or co-financial institution.

Each participant receives seven playing cards. The supplier receives a seven-card hand, too. That leaves 4 playing cards withinside the deck, which can be used as tie-breakers in a few pai gow poker variations.

The round officially begins after the players have placed their bets. There is one primary betting option, but some pai gow poker variants have side betting options.

From the September-October-November 2022 issue of FHM India.