How to play Pai Gow Poker

Pai Gow Poker is the slow, friendly cousin of the poker family. You get seven cards and split them into two hands, a five-card high hand and a two-card low hand, then compare both with the dealer.

Because you have to win both hands to win the bet, and lots of rounds end in a push, your coins last a long time. That makes it a good game to learn poker hand rankings without pressure.

How a round works

1. Place your bet. You and the dealer each get seven cards from a 53-card deck: a normal deck plus one joker.
2. Split your seven cards into a five-card high hand and a two-card low hand. The high hand must rank higher than the low hand.
3. The dealer sets their cards by a fixed set of rules called the house way.
4. Your high hand is compared with the dealer's high hand, and your low hand with their low hand.

Winning, losing and pushing

What the joker does

The joker is not fully wild. It counts as an Ace, unless it can complete a straight, a flush or a straight flush, in which case it becomes whatever card does that. In the two-card low hand it is always an Ace.

Hand rankings

The five-card high hand uses normal poker rankings: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair, high card. The two-card low hand can only be a pair or two high cards; a pair of Aces is the best possible low hand.

Setting your hands: the basics

• No pair: put your highest card in the high hand and your next two highest in the low hand.
• One pair: keep the pair in the high hand and put your two best other cards in the low hand.
• Two pair: usually split them, the higher pair in the high hand and the lower pair in the low hand. The exception is two very small pairs with an Ace: keep both pairs together and play Ace-high in front.
• Three pair: always put the highest pair in the low hand.
• Full house: split it, three of a kind behind and the pair in front.
• Straight or flush with a spare pair: usually keep the straight or flush and put the best remaining two cards in front, unless the pair makes a much better low hand.

Use the house way

Not sure how to split? The House way button sets your hand exactly the way the dealer would. It is a solid default and most experienced players only deviate from it in a handful of spots.

A common mistake

Setting the low hand higher than the high hand is a foul and loses the bet. The game will not let you do it on All In, but it is worth knowing why the rule exists: the two-card hand must always be the weaker one.

Practise free

Pai Gow Poker on All In is dealt on our server with virtual coins only, so you can try different ways of setting hands with nothing real at stake.