A Crash Course in Practical Pai Gow Poker Play

Published: December 25, 2014

Pai Gow Poker is a very popular game in Singapore and many other parts of the world. It incorporates degrees of both luck and strategy, and it's a fun play on the traditional game of poker. If you're a fan of this game but haven't put much time into learning strategy, you'll love this crash course that will cover how to play many of the most popular situations. These rules will help you to play perfectly or near-perfectly in many of the most common scenarios you'll encounter playing Pai Gow Poker.

If you don't have a pair, flush or straight in your hand, then you have a really easy decision. Put your second- and third-highest cards in your low with everything else in the high. It's that easy. With a single pair, you'll have a similar scenario unfold. Put the largest two non-paired cards in the low hand. That's all you have to do to play 100 percent perfectly for situations with one or zero pair when you don't have an opportunity for a larger flush or straight hand, and that covers a large percentage of total hands.

With three pair, always put the lowest pair in the low. If you have three of a kind, things can get a little tricky. With three aces and no other pair, put one of the aces and your highest other kicker in the low with a pair of aces in the high. For other three of a kind hands without an additional pair, then you're always going to keep the trips in the high hand and the best two other cards in the low. Some of this is intuitive, but some of it is not, especially the decision to split up the trip aces.

Two pair hands are some of the hardest to play. You have to consider the value of yur pairs and the best high card hand you can make without splitting them. If you add the value of your two pair cards together and get 17 or more, then you'll always split them. Split them if you can't make ace high if you have 12 to 16, and split them if you can't make at least king high with totals of 7 to 11. With 6 or less, keep them together if you can make queen high or above.