Pai Gow - The Aim of the Game
In Pai Gow Poker, your aim is to outsmart the dealer or the banker. The players all take turns being the dealer so you will likewise have your chance at being beaten by the players; or beating the players if you have better hands than them.
Players must come up with the best hands using the four tiles in their stack. There should be two hands each for all the players and these will be compared against that of the dealer’s to determine whose hands are better.
To decide which hands to play with all four tiles, there are several ways to pair these up and more information on this can be found on the internet. Briefly however, what you want to come up with are combinations regarded as the highest in ranking in Pai Gow.
More Than Luck
Pai Gow is a game of luck and strategy, as you will soon find out. This means that you can actually come up with your own strategies to help you win each time you play. In order to maximize your strategies; you should again, learn all the combinations that you can use. This may take some time since there are literally numerous combinations that you can use in Pai Gow.
However, rest assured that your efforts will have been worth it.
Tiles that are similar are good starting hands. These pairs usually give better odds at winning than other combinations in the game. On the other hand, if you have a pair that sums up to nine, you should play this first since Pai Gow translates to making nine.
If all else fails, try summing up the pips on your two-tile combination and use this to play against the dealer. Remember though that a single number is always the playing number in totals which means that you take out the tens values of your tiles to leave you with a single number.
Practicing Online
If you are a little bit confused about the combinations, pairings and rankings; there are websites that offer free tutorials on how to play Pai Gow. On the internet, you can learn all the terms used for each hand; how to determine the significance of your tile hands based on your chances of winning; and how to assess the rankings of each of the tiles used in Pai Gow.
There are likewise printer-friendly versions of these tips so you can readily print them out and study them even when not online.
You can even find a Pai Gow calculator that can help you see probabilities of winning against the dealer. These may likewise be used for practice so you can understand better how each tile’s value is interpreted in the game.
Finally, free Pai Gow games are there to practice on so feel free to use these while still learning how to play. By exhausting all means when learning all about Pai Gow, we can start playing with real money bets with all the right tools and information; and perhaps strategies of our own.
