Pai Gow

Pai Gow, also known as double hand poker, is a popular Poker variant, which has its roots in China where it’s known as Pai Gow. It’s, actually, played there using dominos styled tiles bearing some dots; these dots decide the worth of each Pai Gow tile. However, American version is played with a standard deck of 52 cards, including a joker, which can be used as a wild card to complete a straight, flush, or a straight flush hand ranking. Joker can also be used as an Ace. Hand rankings are taken similar to any Poker game with a slight difference in the objective to win a Pai Gow poker game. Nowadays, Pai Gow has become a popular poker variant played by numerous poker fans around the world. Having an interesting poker like gameplay, it gained a prompt popularity worldwide, which even grows further with its many online variants.

Pai Gow Gameplay

Pai Gow poker is played, online or offline, on a blackjack styled table, between a dealer and many players simultaneously. Dealer often represents the casino, however, a player can also act as a dealer, if he has sufficient bankroll to pay off each participating player’s bet. The objective of the game is to have two best hand rankings than the dealer, i.e., every player is dealt with seven cards, and each player has to segregate them in two hands containing five and two cards. Players need to ensure that their five-card hand ranking is stronger than their two-card hand ranking else they will be disqualified immediately – which is called a foul. Player’s both hands have to be placed on specific places on the table so banker can easily identify them.

Once, all bets are placed and cards have been dealt to each player. Banker compares his two hand rankings with that of each other player, and whoever holds the better two hand rankings, wins the game. However, if any player has only one better hand ranking than the dealer, game ends in a push and money is returned to the player. Every player has to beat the dealer by having both hand rankings better than him. If a player has identical two hand rankings with the dealer, dealer wins the game.

So, Pai Gow gameplay is interesting and exciting, which has the curiosity of a poker game alongwith a continuous check on both hand rankings, and their worth. Banker is the sole competitor to beat, coz all players are playing only against him, not against each other. This makes Pai Gow even more interesting, coz every player can target a single competitor rather opposing every participating player.