Pi Gao Poker

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!

• Pi Gao Poker Rules
• Pi Gao Poker Table

The casino game Pai Gow Poker is a card game that pits the player or players with the dealer. Although is played with a deck of 53 cards plus a wild card, the game Pai Gow Poker is based on the ancient Chinese domino game called Pai Gow. Each player is dealt seven cards and must create two poker hands with these. Free Bonus Pai Gow Poker game is played with 1 standard deck of cards with an added joker. In Bonus Pai Gow online poker free game, you can split your 7 dealt cards into 2 separate hands. Also, on the bonus bet in free Bonus Pai Gow Poker, you can see all 7 cards. Bets range from $1.00 to $200.00 per hand. Pai gow is a Chinese betting game that uses tiles instead of cards, and it’s popular in casinos around the world. Pai gow can also be played at home using a set of specially-designed tiles. While the rules of pai gow can seem a little overwhelming at first, once you learn how the tiles work, you’ll be making hands and placing bets in no time. Pi Gao Poker Rules, card counting strategy, best casino resorts in wisconsin, jackpot bingo schedule.

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!

Welcome to our Pai Gow Poker site!

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.

Best Online Casino To Play Online Pai Gow Poker

We recommend that you visit Bovada Casino to play Pai Gow Poker. They offer fantastic gambling software, but also allow you to play the game directly within your browser. Their customer support is top-notch and available by email or phone 24 hours a day. You’ll also be impressed by their bonus structure. When you join Bodog Casino and make your first deposit, they’ll give you a 10% bonus match instantly up front. While that’s a lower match than many online casinos offer, you’ll receive your bonus within 30 minutes of making your deposit and you don’t have the huge slew of terms and conditions that can instantly void your bonus at many casinos. Plus, they let you meet the 15x wagering requirement with most of their games and they constantly offer the best odds of any online casino.

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: 牌九; pinyin: pái jiǔ; Jyutping: paai4 gau2) is a Chinesegamblinggame, played with a set of 32 Chinese dominoes. It is played in major casinos in China (including Macau); the United States (including Boston, Massachusetts; Las Vegas, Nevada; Reno, Nevada; Connecticut; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Mississippi; and cardrooms in California); Canada (including Edmonton, Alberta and Calgary, Alberta); Australia; and, New Zealand.

The name 'pai gow' is sometimes used to refer to a card game called pai gow poker (or “double-hand poker”), which is loosely based on pai gow.

Rules[edit]

Starting[edit]

Tiles are shuffled on the table and are arranged into eight face-down stacks of four tiles each in an assembly known as the woodpile. Individual stacks or tiles may then be moved in specific ways to rearrange the woodpile, after which the players place their bets.

Next, each player (including the dealer) is given one stack of tiles and must use them to form two hands of two tiles each. The hand with the lower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand. If a player's front 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 the other 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; comparisons are always front-front and rear-rear, never one of each.

There are 35,960 possible ways to select 4 of the 32 tiles when the 32 tiles are considered distinguishable. However, there are 3620 distinct sets of 4 tiles when the tiles of a pair are considered indistinguishable. There are 496 ways to select 2 of the 32 tiles when the 32 tiles are considered distinguishable. There are 136 distinct hands (pairs of tiles) when the tiles of a pair are considered indistinguishable.

Basic scoring[edit]

The name 'pai gow' is loosely translated as 'make nine' or 'card nine'. This reflects the fact that, with a few high-scoring exceptions, the maximum score for a hand is nine. If a hand consists of two tiles that do not form a pair, its value is determined by adding up the total number of pips on the tiles and dropping the tens digit (if any). Examples:

• 1–3 with 2-3: value 9 (nine pips altogether)
• 2–3 with 5-6: value 6 (16 pips; drop the 10)
• 5–5 with 4-6: value 0 (20 pips; ones digit is zero)

Gongs and Wongs[edit]

There are special ways in which a hand can score more than nine points. The double-one tiles and double-six tiles are known as the Day and Teen tiles, respectively. The combination of a Day or Teen with an eight results in a Gong, worth 10 points, while putting either of them with a nine creates a Wong, worth 11. However, when a Day or Teen is paired with any other tile, the standard scoring rules apply.

Gee Joon tiles[edit]

The 1-2 and the 2-4 tiles are called Gee Joon tiles and act as limited wild cards. When used as part of a hand, these tiles may be scored as either 3 or 6, whichever results in a higher hand value. For example, a hand of 1-2 and 5-6 scores as seven rather than four.

Pairs[edit]

The 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 look different. (The latter group includes the Gee Joon tiles, which can score the same, whether as three or six.) Any hand consisting of a pair outscores a non-pair, regardless of the pip counts. (Pairs are often thought of as being worth 12 points each.)

When the player and dealer both have a pair, the higher-ranked pair wins. Ranking is determined not by the sum of the tiles' pips, but rather by aesthetics; the order must be memorized. The highest pairs are the Gee Joon tiles, the Teens, the Days, and the red eights. The lowest pairs are the mismatched nines, eights, sevens, and fives.

Ties[edit]

Pi Gao Poker Rules

When the player and dealer display hands with the same score, the one with the highest-valued tile (based on the pair rankings described above) is the winner. For example, a player's hand of 3-4 and 2-2 and a dealer's hand of 5-6 and 5-5 would each score one point. However, since the dealer's 5-5 outranks the other three tiles, he would win the hand.

If the scores are tied, and if the player and dealer each have an identical highest-ranking tile, the hand is ruled a copy and the dealer wins. For example, if the player held 2-2 and 1–6, and the dealer held 2-2 and 3–4, the dealer would win since the scores (1 each) and the higher tiles (2-2) are the same. The lower-ranked tile in each hand is never used to break a tie.

There are two exceptions to the method described above. First, although the Gee Joon tiles form the highest-ranking pair, they are considered to have no value when evaluating ties. Second, any zero-zero tie is won by the dealer, regardless of the tiles in the two hands.

Strategy[edit]

The key element of pai gow strategy is to present the optimal front and rear hands based on the tiles dealt to the player. There are three ways to arrange four tiles into two hands when no two of them form a pair. However, if there is at least one pair among the tiles, there are only two distinct ways to form two hands.

Using the tiles shown at right, the following hands and scores are possible:

Pi Gao Poker Table

• A and B (0), C and D (0)
• A and C (5), B and D (5)
• A and D (3), B and C (7)

The player must decide which combination is most likely to give a set of front/rear hands that can beat the dealer, or at least break a tie in the player's favor. In some cases, a player with weaker tiles may deliberately attempt to attain a push so as to avoid losing the bet outright. Many players rely on superstition or tradition to choose tile pairings.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• Pai gow lore at Wizard of Odds website (Michael Shackleford)