so i been playing pai gow poker with the cards not the tiles on a simulator for fun when bored. Is it actually as easy to play in person as it is online.
Is it a beatable game with practice?

Also as a white person would it be odd sitting in the asian room playing this with all asians screaming monkey or whatever they do

I played roullete with an asian women once and that was odd lol

Link to simulator or gtfo

Pai Gow Poker is not an Asian game. Pai Gow was an Egyptian game -- adopted by the Orient -- migrated to the West -- and bastardized into the form of poker. You should have no trouble.

OP pai gow is one of the pit games with the lowest house edge so is definitely beatable. You just have to control your gamble in the sense that people like to chase the bonus and that is the number 1 leak in the game. Expect to push a lot though and learn to when to bank for your advantage.

No. It actually has a high "house edge" -- but it is a slow game. That's generally compensated for by the table minimum. Depends how you count ties, whether you can bank, and how often -- but decisions cost ~2.5% -- a craps table (which also has a lot of "no decision" trials, is a little more than half that -- but craps is a lot faster. None of this has anything to do with it being "beatable" in the sense that you're getting the best of it.

I'm not sure what "chasing" the bonus is -- but playing it is a bad idea. Unless -- of course -- you are actually dealt a combination of cards that pays the bonus. You should bet it those times, if you're sure.

One of the worst things that could have ever happened to me happened playing the Pai Gow poker. I NEVER played the bonus because I know how bad the odds are.

I was playing at the Rio in Vegas on a $25 table. I had bought in for $200 and gotten it up to about $500. There were 2 other guys at the table who were constantly harassing me that I wasn't playing the bonus. Finally one of them said "Look, you're up, why not throw $5 out there. You never know."

I finally said "Fine, If it will make you guys happy I'll play it." I put the $5 out there and with God as my witness I got a royal flush on the very first hand I played. Because I'd never played the bonus before I had to call the floor over to confirm that I'd still get the bonus if I broke it up. (I had 6 of the suit so I played a K high flush with the Ace in the low hand).

So far I'm sure this sounds like a great story, but in the 2 years since it happened I'm quite certain I am way behind on betting the bonus and I've now stopped playing it altogether.

I have one more Pai Gow story that just happened about 2 weeks ago. I'm betting $25 per hand and the guy next to me is betting $1000 a hand. As the cards are dealt he's getting a drink from the waitress. I set my hand as he's picking up his hand and he says "Holy S***!!" I look over and see that his hand is Joker-A-A-A-7-7-7. He then grabs 7-7 to put in his low hand. I scream "NO, WAIT!" He gives me a puzzled look and I explain to him that if he puts AA on top he'll still have a boat for his high hand and he'll be guaranteed to win the low. He thinks about it for half a second and says "You're right, I was blinded by the four aces."

The dealer turns over K-K-10-10-x-x-x and before the dealer is even done setting his hand the guy hands me 2 $100 chips.

It's also low variance since almost half the hands are ties. It's hard to totally lose your shirt playing low-stakes pai gow poker, making it an excellent end-of-night free-drinks game.

I just assumed it was because typically it is found in the ASIAN ROOMS from my research but it could differ by casino. Because on that note one of my friends from work was telling me how he wandered into the asian gaming room in a casino and tried sitting down at i think pai gow and was given strange looks and told that he should leave but who knows what really happened


I dont think i will play the bonus because for the 1 in a million shot its not worth the money every hand

and i feel like pai gow is beatable because you are given the same cards the dealer is given so it just depends where in the deck you are at like in blackjack.

They re-shuffle every hand.

You lose on ties and pay commission. You lose.

There are a handful of ways that Pai Gow Poker could be "beatable." I put it in quotes because the feasibility of some of these methods, and also the looseness of defining beatable. But here they are:

1. Banking plus utilizing optimal - There is a 2.5% house edge to the game. Apparently, learning optimal strategy takes 1% off that edge. Learning optimal is pretty difficult. I'd equate it to learning how to count. Now playing at a 1.5% disadvantage, if you can find a game where you can bank about 12x as much action as you play, you are breaking even, or possibly turning a ver slight profit. The edge would be razor thin, however, and considering the large amount you're wagering when banking, the swings would be humongous.

2. Colluding with other players - If you and other players at the table showed each other your hands, you would know which 11 cards were remaining and would be able to narrow down possible holdings that the dealer could have. However, to be able to show each other your cards, figure out the 11 missing, and then reset hands accordingly within the context of the speed of the game would be pretty damn tough without some serious team practice. Also, a lot of card rooms don't allow you to show each other your cards for this very reason.

There may be a simpler and still effective method of team play where you and your friends just try to account for the aces and joker amongst your hands. You also might not need a whole table full of teammates to do this. However, I don't know how much research has been done on this and I have no clue as to quantify how big of an edge you'd have and how big of a factor the difficulty in actually consistently pulling this off would be. This is more of a thing that, in theory, should create an edge in Pai Gow Poker.

3. Comps, free drinks, etc. - At $25/hand and, say, 40 hands per hour, that's $1000 wagered, so $25 is lost in ev per hour. Depending on what you drink or how you are being rated, you could definitely break even or come out ahead. These are also pretty inflated numbers that I gave for the sake of the discussion. 40 is pushing it, it's probably realistically closer to 30 hands/hr and there are $10 min tables in Vegas. So at $300/hr wagered, that's $7.50 lost in ev/hr, which is already made up in a drink or 2.

If you learned optimal, 40 hands at $25 or 30 hands at $10 would only lose you $15 or $4.50, respectively.

So as long as you stay away from the bonus, Pai Gow Poker is a game that will cost you either very very little or even to be a little up in the long run if you factor in things like drinks and comps, but if you are looking to have a significant, practical edge in it, will require some major work.

Definitely one of my favorite games in the casino. The pushing aspect can be pretty tilt inducing and not always help me get in my gambool fix, which is why I've been toying with Asia Poker my last few trips, which is a much more awesome version because there are so many more decisions to be made, but with much higher variance, as there is a definite winner each hand.

There was a pai gow game here that was no commission and allowed banking every other hand. Obviously this game is beatable even excluding comps because House Way is not perfect.

If there's no commission, other players at the table unwilling to bank, and you can bank every other hand, the odds are absolutely in your favor no matter what the house way is.

Yeah, certainly true. It's also beatable heads-up which is what I was mostly referring to.

I was playing in Vegas where they had the Dragon Hand.

Wizard of odds didn't have much of a discussion on it, but does the forum have any thoughts on a framework of whether to buy it based on cards that have been seen? The particular situation I was in, I could see at least two hands (including mine) and sometimes three or more before deciding whether to buy the Dragon hand.

Intuitively, this is a big card game (isn't it?) so my thought it, if I see a bunch of big cards + Joker in other hands, then don't buy it, but if I and others have lots of middle/low cards, then buy it if possible.

Is it odd being asian (or whatever minority) standing at a craps table full of white people screaming yowell eleven or whatever they do?