• Please note the rules may differ from casino to casino always check the rules at the casino you are playing.

Pai Gow Poker, or double-hand poker, is an Americanized version of Pai Gow, in that Pai Gow Poker is played with playing cards while Pai Gow is played with chinese dominoes.

The game is played with a standard 52-card deck of cards, plus a single joker. It is played on a table marked with seven betting locations if one of the players serves as "bank"; in a casino where players play against the house, there are only six betting spots.

The cards are shuffled, and then dealt to table in seven face-down piles of seven cards, with four cards unused, regardless of the number of people playing. Each hand is assigned randomly to a betting spot. One common way of doing this is to roll three six-sided dice, then count betting spots clockwise from the first until the number on the dice is reached; then give that spot the first hand, the next spot the next hand, and so on until all seven hands have been allotted. If there is no bet placed on a particular spot, the hand is still assigned but then placed in the discards with the four unused cards.

Each player is playing against the banker, who may be the casino dealer or one of the other players.

The object of the game is to create two poker hands out of the seven cards in your hand: A five-card poker hand and a two-card poker hand. The five-card hand must rank higher than your two-card hand. The two-card hand is often called the hand "in front", and the five-card hand is called the hand "behind", as they are placed that way in front of the player when he is done setting them. The only two-card hands are one pair and high cards; no straights, flushes, etc. The joker plays as a bug: that is, in the five-card hand it can be used to complete a straight or flush, if possible; otherwise it is an ace. In the two-card hand, it always plays as an ace. Five-card hands use standard poker hand rankings, with one exception: in most Nevada casinos, the hand A-2-3-4-5 ranks above a king-high straight, but below the ace-high straight A-K-Q-J-10. In California, this rule doesn't apply.

If each of your now-separated hands beats the baker's corresponding hand, then you win your bet. If only one of your hands beats the banker, then you push. If both of your hands lose to the banker, then you lose. On each individual hand, ties go to the banker (for example, if your five-card hand loses to the banker and your two-card hand ties him, you lose).

In casino-banked games, the banker is generally required set their hand in a pre-specified manner called "house way", so the dealer does not have to implement any strategy in order to beat the players. When a player is banking, he is free to set the hand however he chooses.

Please note: rules may differ from casino to casino always check the rules at the casino you are playing.

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Source: Strategy of Pai Gow Poker Nupedia