Pai Gow Poker

Pai Gow Poker is a game invented in the US in the 20th century by Fred Wolf and Sam Torosian and is very loosely based on the traditional Chinese dominos game called Pai Gow. Pai Gow Poker uses cards that carry Poker cards rankings instead of domino tiles.

The player gets seven cards from which they need to arrange one 5-card hand, known as the 'High Hand' and one 2-card hand known as 'Low Hand' or 'Front Hand'. The 'Low Hand' can never be a higher ranking hand than the 'High Hand' or 'Back Hand'.

The 5-card hand needs to be the highest ranking poker hand the player is able to achieve with the cards they were dealt. The only exception is that in most casinos a Straight made of A-2-3-4-5 is not the lowest Straight, but rather is the second highest Straight after 10-J-Q-K-A.

The 'low hand' ideally should be comprised of pairs or high cards with the best 'low hand' being a pair of aces and the lowest being 2, 3.

In land casinos the game is played on a table for six players and a dealer. Each player plays separately against the Banker's hand. The Banker in some casinos is the Dealer and in others one of the six players, with the Dealer only being used for dealing the cards.

When playing in land casinos there are several rules that make the game tougher on players such as the 'Dead Hand' rule that sees the player lose their wager if they wrongly arrange their hand, while in online casinos the player will merely be warned their hand is wrongly arranged and be asked to rearrange it.

Also as in online casinos players play against the dealer without the presence of other players the player can never act as dealer and the player can never play the 'Dragon'.

The 'Dragon' hand is dealt to an empty seat where one of the players is able to take over thus playing two hands and increasing their chance of winning as they see more of the cards that are in play.

The rules of the game are simple; you play Pai Gow Poker with a single 52-card deck and a single joker that is used as a Wild Card that can substitute any card in order to complete straights, flushes and straight flushes. For the purpose of completing Pairs, Trips, Quads or Five of a Kind the joker can only substitute an Ace.

To win the hand a player needs to win both the High and Low hands. If the player wins the high hand and the dealer the low hand or vice versa, the hand is tied and the bet is Pushed. A fee of 5% is taken from every winning hand so if you wager $1 per hand and win, you will get your original $1 back plus $0.95 in winnings.