Pai Gow Poker

Pai Gow poker is a seven-card, two-hand poker game. Like fellow casino table games based on poker, Caribbean stud poker and let it ride poker, pai gow poker quickly won the approval of casino gamblers and poker players of longer-running games like Texas hold'em, 7-card stud, and Omaha poker.

How to Play Pai Gow Poker

A game of Pai Gow poker begins when the dealer deals seven cards to each player and to himself, using a standard deck of 52 cards. You must use your seven cards to make two hands: one a five-card hand and the other a two-card hand. Typically, you hold the two hands in two rows in your hand: the five-card hand in the back row and the two-card hand in the front row.

Based on conventional poker hand rankings, your five-card hand must be stronger than your two-card hand. For example. you are dealt a 3, 5, 6, 10, Jack, King, King. Standard rankings dictate that you have a pair as your highest possible hand, and the rest are all singles. You must place your pair of Kings in the five-card hand. Out of the remaining cards, the highest are Jack and 10 so they form your best possible two-card hand. The others go back to your five-card hand. Ergo: (back) K-K-6-5-3 (front) J-10.

Once all participants have made their two hands, the showdown begins, in which all players expose their hands. A five-card hand competes only with all other five-card hands; a two-card hand competes only with all other two-card hands. If both your five-card hand and two-card hand are higher than the dealer's hands, respectively, you win. If both your five-card and two-card hands are lower than the dealer's respective hands, you lose. If one of your two hands beats the dealer's hand, either the two-card or the five-card hand, it is a tie. In a tie, no money is exchanged. You neither win nor lose.