Pai Gow Poker (also called double-hand poker) is the American version of pai gow that is played with playing cards, instead of traditional pai gow’s Chinese dominoes. Pai gow was introduced to the US market by Sam Torosian, who invented it based on the Asian model. Sadly for him, he didn’t patent it and ended up losing a potential fortune. The game quickly gained popularity and nowadays is considered a classic. It is played with a standard 52-card deck, plus a single joker. It is played on a table set for six players, plus the dealer. Each player attempts to defeat the banker who may be the casino dealer, one of the other players at the table, or a player acting in tandem with the dealer as co-bankers. The game is fun to play but at the beginning it may seem to be a bit complicated.
The aim of the game is to create a five-card poker hand and a two-card poker hand from seven cards that beat both of the bank’s hands. The five-card hand’s rank must exceed that of the two-card hand, and it is for this reason that the two-card hand is often called the hand “in front”, “on top”, “hair”, or the “small”, “minor”, or “low” hand. The five-card hand is called the hand “behind”, or the “bottom”, “high”, or “big”, as they are placed that way in front of the player, when the player is done setting them. Australian players have the chance to win a real boost with our best tips for playing Pai Gow Poker in Australian online casinos. Skip all your worries with our top tips for winning Pai Gow Poker.
1.Focus on both Pai Gow Poker hands. It is important to pay attention to your low hand, the two-card hand. You can easily fall into the trap of concentrating only on your high hand, but that is not a smart play to make. Use your strategy by taking the time to break it down and build two hands that have great chances of winning. For example, if you have a full house, break it up and put the pair in your low hand. In case you have a second pair too, then you should play the highest of the two pairs in the low hand.
- What to do with four of a kind. If you have four of a kind consisting seven through to tens, split them up unless your lower hand has an ace or better that you can play. If your four of a kind is sixes or lower, keep the cards together in your high hand. When your four of a kind consists of faces like aces, kings, queens or jacks, always split them up unless you have another pair to play in your low hand.
- Five aces. If you are lucky enough to have five aces, you will always split, unless you also have a pair of kings. In this case, you will play the kings in your low hand.
- What to do when your hands look bad. It can happen that you have no pair, straight, or flush, but there is nothing to worry about. Always play the highest card in your high hand, followed by the next two highest cards in your low hand.
- Pai Gow Poker splitting. Having two pairs and the top pair of cards are aces or kings, then split. Except if your other pair are twos, in this case you will play together and play the two highest remaining cards in your low hand. Otherwise, follow the rules of what to do when having four of a kind, that we mentioned above.
- How to play three pairs in Pai Gow. This is very simple. All you have to do is play the higher pair in you low hand.
- Banking. When you play for real money in Pai Gow Poker games, the best chance to win is receiving an option to bank regularly. With a decent bankroll available, take the bank and bet against other players at the table ultimately making a mistake in setting up their hand play. When you can bank you must pay commission on every win and your edge is coming from other players’s rookie errors. But never forget to bank only if you have a decent bankroll available.
- Remember to use the bonus bet option since big wins are through the bonus game bets.