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Recent Hands
Played hands show up here with your seven cards, whether you set them the house way, and the result.
Pai Gow Poker has one skill: setting your seven cards into the strongest pair of hands. The high hand (five cards) must outrank the low hand (two cards). The guiding idea is to make the low hand as strong as you can without giving up the high hand. The trainer grades your split against the house way, the fixed rule set the dealer uses, which the Wizard of Odds rates within about 0.2 percent of theoretical optimal.
The basics
- No pairHighest card stays in the high hand; the next two highest go in the low hand.
- One pairKeep the pair in the high hand; play your two highest singles in the low hand.
- TripsKeep three of a kind in the high hand. Exception: with three aces, play a pair of aces back and one ace in front.
- Straight/flushPlay it in the high hand, and pick the way that leaves the two highest cards for the low hand.
Two pair
Groups: 2–6 low, 7–10 medium, J–K high. "Split" means higher pair in the high hand, lower pair in the low hand.
- SplitLow + low, or low + medium: split unless you hold a king or better to play up front.
- SplitLow + high, or medium + medium: split unless you hold an ace to play up front.
- SplitMedium + high, high + high, or any pair with a pair of aces: always split.
- KeepWhen the rule says do not split, keep both pairs in the high hand and play your high card up front.
Full house and bigger
- Full houseSplit it: three of a kind in the high hand, the pair up front. Rare exception: a pair of deuces with an ace and king available, keep the full house and play ace-king up front.
- Three pairPlay your highest pair up front; the other two pairs make the high hand.
- Quads 7–KBreak four of a kind into two pairs unless you can already play a king or better (sevens to tens) or an ace (jacks to kings) up front. Quads 2–6 stay together; quad aces always split.
- Five acesPlay two aces up front and three back, unless you hold a pair of kings, then keep all five aces back and play the kings up front.
The joker and the wheel
The deck has 53 cards. The joker is semi-wild: it works as an ace, or it completes a straight, flush, straight flush, or royal flush. It can never be a wild card to pair or trip another rank.
A-2-3-4-5, the wheel, is the second-highest straight, ranking just below A-K-Q-J-10 and above K-high. The trainer uses this standard ranking when it scores straights.
Strategy and house edge from the Wizard of Odds: Pai Gow Poker and the Trump Plaza house way.
Why it works
To win the bet you must win both hands, so a split that wins one and loses the other only pushes. The house way is built to win both as often as possible. That usually means strengthening the low hand, because the high hand is naturally strong and the low hand is where most hands are decided.
Splitting a strong made hand, like two pair or a full house, looks like giving something up. It is not. A pair in the low hand wins far more low-hand battles than a high card does, and the high hand stays strong enough to hold its own.
Common mistakes
- Stacking the high hand. Keeping two pair or a full house together to make a monster back hand throws away easy low-hand wins. Split when the rule says to.
- A weak low hand. Leaving two low singles up front when you had a pair or a high card to play costs you the more important hand.
- Mis-playing the joker. Use it for the highest-value hand, but not at the cost of a far better low hand. King-high up front beats a slightly higher straight you did not need.
- Fouling. Setting a low hand that outranks your high hand is an automatic loss. Always keep the five-card hand on top.