Pai Gow Poker is a gambling game offered at some land casinos in America. It was adapted from a Chinese gambling game that was played using tiles. In land casinos six players can be seated at a Pai Gow Poker table. Each player competes independently with the dealer as in the game of blackjack. Most online casinos offer Pai Gow Poker under the Table Games category. In online Pai Gow Poker each player plays alone with the dealer. Though the complete table is displayed on the screen, online Pai Gow Poker is usually offered as a single hand game. The Pai Gow Poker deck consists of 53 cards, with a joker being added to the standard deck of 52 cards.
The game play is almost identical at the different online casinos. However, the minimum and maximum table limits are usually different and the player should choose the online casino that offers table limits suited to him. The Pai Gow Poker game begins with the player making the ante wager. The player then clicks on the Deal button and is dealt seven cards all of which are face up. The dealer is dealt seven cards that are face down. The player has to split his seven cards into two hands. One hand has to be made with five cards and the other hand has to be made with two cards. The five card hand follows the usual poker hand rankings. The hand rankings for the two card hand are as follows. The highest hand is a pair and is followed by the ranks of the cards. There are no hand rankings of straights or flushes.
The two hands cannot be formed arbitrarily, but have to be made in accordance with a given set of rules. The two card hand has to be lower ranked than the five card hand. The joker can be used as a wild card only to make a straight or a flush. Otherwise it is used as an ace. Usually the player clicks on the cards that he wants in the two card hand. Once he confirms the selection the two hands are automatically displayed. Here it is important to understand that skill in involved in splitting the hands. If the player makes wrong choices then he will lose in the long run. Therefore most online casinos also provide a “house way”, which automatically splits the cards using optimum Pai Gow Poker strategy. The ideal way to play is to first make the selection manually, but instead of confirming it click the House Way button. This allows players to exercise their skill but make amends in case they have made a mistake.
Once the player has made his move, the dealer’s cards are exposed and split using the house way. The player’s five card hand is compared with the dealer’s five card hand and the player’s two-card hand is compared with the dealer’s two card hand. The dealer wins the ties. If the player wins both hands then he is paid at 1 to 1 after deducting a 5% commission. If the player wins one hand and loses the other then the bet pushes. If the player loses both the hands then he loses his wager.
