Pai Gow?

[mike4bmp]

I only play blackjack and various forms of poker becaused these are the only games that I believe can be beat. However, I have been noticing lately that there is more and more books being written on Pai Gow. Can someone explain how this game is played?....and can you really get the best of it playing it?
Thanks!

[beset7]

It really depends on the structure. Stanford Wong has a book on pai gow that can help you get a small edge as it is played in California. In Vegas/AC and just about everywhere else there is a commission on straight bets that eliminates just about any edge, even when acting as banker. If you just want to mess around just don't make the fortune bet and play a basic strategy. Check out this.

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
I only play blackjack and various forms of poker becaused these are the only games that I believe can be beat. However, I have been noticing lately that there is more and more books being written on Pai Gow. Can someone explain how this game is played?....and can you really get the best of it playing it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pai Gow is a Chinese game played with dominoes. Each player gets 4 dominos, and divides them into a high pair and a low pair. If you set them up wrong so that your low pair beats your high pair, your hand is "fouled" and loses automatically. Note that there are three legal ways to divide any set of four dominos into high and low pairs where the high beats the low - choosing between those three provides the skill in the game. The dealer divides his dominos using a fixed strategy called the "house way" which can differ between casinos, and then your two pairs are compared to the dealer's two pairs. If your high beats the dealer's high, and your low beats the dealer's low, you win even money less a 5% commission. If you lose on both, you lose. If you win one and lose one, it's a push and no money changes hands. If your high hand or low hand is exactly the same as the dealer's, it's called a "copy" and the dealer wins (this is rare, but along with the 5% on winning hands provides the house advantage of around 1.5%).

Pai Gow Poker is a Westernized version of Pai Gow, where each player gets seven cards face down, and divides them into a high hand of five cards and a low hand of two cards. High hands are ranked like poker hands, and low hands are ranked only by pairs and high cards (2-card straights and flushes are ignored). Your high hand must beat your low hand. Then the dealer sets his hand according to the house way, and your two hands are compared to the dealer's two hands in the same manner as in Pai Gow. The house advantage is also around 1.5%.

Both games usually allow players to take turns being dealer. When you are the dealer, you still have to pay the 5% commission on winning bets, but you win copy hands, and you benefit from other players' bad play. In Pai Gow Poker, the correct strategy is obvious 80% of the time, and most of the rest of the time the decision is so close that it really doesn't matter much what you choose. I think it would be difficult for any rational person to play this game badly enough to give you an advantage over them that would overcome the 5% commission. (For example, if you have nothing you put your highest card in the 5-card hand and your next two highest cards in the 2-card hand. If you have one pair other than aces, you put it in the 5-card hand and put your highest remaining card in the 2-card hand...) However, Pai Gow with dominos is a much more difficult game to play well, and if you understand it then I think that you can have a large advantage over bad players.