History of Pai Gow Poker

The History of Pai Gow poker dates back to Ancient China from the game Pai Gow. In the Chinese language Pai Gow translates to 'Make Nine' and would be played using tiles rather than a dice. The original Chinese game could be quite complicated to master with the tiles being used to create as many combinations close to nine or to actually make nine if possible, the tiles were similar to dominoes. The dealer would give each of the players a number of tiles, to determine which players received which tiles the dealer would throw a dice, the aim of the game for the other players would be to get more combinations of nine or close to nine than the dealer in order to win.

Around the 1800's the game of Pai Gow traveled to North America were it had soon evolved into Pai Gow Poker were the original tiles of Pai Gow were in integrated with the 52 deck of cards that we know today. It was around the year 1986 that Pai Gow Poker began to make an appearance in the card rooms of California and as the game began to grow in momentum it spread to the casino houses of Las Vegas before later showing up in the casinos of Atlantic City in 1988.

What separates Pai Gow Poker from the other poker games is that Pai Gow is played with 53 cards rather than the traditional 52 cards, why is this? This is simply because the 'Joker' has been added to the game as a wild card, this wild card can only be used when a player wishes to make a flush or a straight, the card can only be used as an Ace. Another difference between Pai Gow and other poker games is that any player at the table can make the request to be the banker instead of the dealer, so this means that during any game being played the other players can compare their cards to the banker rather than the dealer.

Pai Gow Poker is played in this way all of the players will play against either the banker or the dealer with each of the players being dealt seven cards, each of the player's hands are divided into two separate sets of cards with the highest ranking hand to contain five cards and the lowest ranking hand will be made from the last two cards. The aim of the game is to ensure that both of the hands made from the seven cards are ranked higher than either the house dealers or the bankers. When a player decides to be the banker the house will then take a 5% commission from any of the winning hands and will take over from the banker with every alternate game played. The table which Pai Gow Poker is played on is similar to that of a Blackjack table and allows up to six players to play at any one time, Pai Gow Poker is considered to be an un-complex game which offers its players the opportunity to make a number of strategic moves and also allows the player to play at a more relaxed pace with the game offering maximum playing time for very little money or the chance to go for a quick win.

Pai Gow Poker has caught on at a rapped pace due to one reason and that is that the game is based on pure memory and has little to do with having to follow number patterns it also has a simpler rule system to follow then many of the other poker games we know today.