Some noobish Pai Gow questions

Sorry if these are dumb questions but I just recently learned this game and have become fascinated with it

Are house ways able to be exploited with counterstrategies?

I'm mainly curious about Flamingo and Trump house ways as they are the rules used in the online casinos I play at

I don't understand the game well enough to rate how effective they are... Are they "stronger" or "weaker" relative to what's out there?

Do any online versions allow the player to bank? Obviously, this would be a huge advantage and I would guess no, but I think one of the places I play at does

Would a counterstrategy specifically designed against a house way coupled with the player being allowed to bank make the game beatable?

Also, using Wizard's Pai Gow calculator here, I'm frequently puzzled by the returns for some hands, mostly ones without any pairs/flushes/straights

For example, a hand like AQ98743, where I assume most people would use the Q9, the calculator gives Q4 as the best hand against dealer banker

I'm not doubting the math but what is going on here? Why Q4 over Q9 which is actually the 5th best hand. I understand these are absolutely minute difference but the order Q4, Q3, Q7, Q8, Q9 doesn't make much sense to me at all

Thanks

Assuming the dealer doesn't have a pair or better then the dealer has to use the 2nd and 3rd cards in their low hand.

Certain Qx hands are impossible, e.g. Q6 would have come from AQ6xxxx, but this means 65432 is a straight, so the dealer would play AQ. Q7 is possible with AQ76xx2 etc. so highly unlikely. I guess similarly for Q8 and Q9. So there isn't much difference between Q9 and Q4. There is a difference if the dealer has, say, a straight or flush, as all low hands are possible.

On the high hand, apart from A98xx the hands A9xyz and A8xyz are equally likely. So my feeling is this probably has a higher difference than the Q9 to Q4.

Quote: charliepatrick

Assuming the dealer doesn't have a pair or better then the dealer has to use the 2nd and 3rd cards in their low hand.

Certain Qx hands are impossible, e.g. Q6 would have come from AQ6xxxx, but this means 65432 is a straight, so the dealer would play AQ. Q7 is possible with AQ76xx2 etc. so highly unlikely. I guess similarly for Q8 and Q9. So there isn't much difference between Q9 and Q4. There is a difference if the dealer has, say, a straight or flush, as all low hands are possible.

On the high hand, apart from A98xx the hands A9xyz and A8xyz are equally likely. So my feeling is this probably has a higher difference than the Q9 to Q4.

Ah ok, that does make sense. I did not even consider this way of looking at it

Quote: MarcoPolo

Sorry if these are dumb questions but I just recently learned this game and have become fascinated with it

Are house ways able to be exploited with counterstrategies?

I'm mainly curious about Flamingo and Trump house ways as they are the rules used in the online casinos I play at

I don't understand the game well enough to rate how effective they are... Are they "stronger" or "weaker" relative to what's out there?

Do any online versions allow the player to bank? Obviously, this would be a huge advantage and I would guess no, but I think one of the places I play at does

Would a counterstrategy specifically designed against a house way coupled with the player being allowed to bank make the game beatable?

Also, using Wizard's Pai Gow calculator here, I'm frequently puzzled by the returns for some hands, mostly ones without any pairs/flushes/straights

For example, a hand like AQ98743, where I assume most people would use the Q9, the calculator gives Q4 as the best hand against dealer banker

I'm not doubting the math but what is going on here? Why Q4 over Q9 which is actually the 5th best hand. I understand these are absolutely minute difference but the order Q4, Q3, Q7, Q8, Q9 doesn't make much sense to me at all

Thanks

When playing an Ace-high pai gow, you should realize that there is a significant chance (I forget the exact number, maybe 6-10%) that the dealer will also have an Ace-High pai gow, and winning the bottom hand will come down to the the 2nd, 3rd and 4th highest cards in your bottom hand. On the other hand, you want to win the two-card top hand -but the difference between Q4 and Q9 is not great because there are very few reasons why the dealer would put a Q5 or Q6 on top (he usually must have a 2pr, straight, flush or boat in the bottom hand.)

I have studied these Pai Gow hi-card hands extensively. The 7 will convert your A98 high into a A9873 -which, given that the dealer follows the house rules, is a powerful hand when two A-high are against themselves. The dealer will need a better A987 or an AT-high (or higher) to beat it. How can a dealer play a better A987? Well dealer must have exactly AK(Q,J or T)987x or AQ(J or T)987x. And in all those hands, your Q-high on top will lose anyway, whether you play Q9 or Q4. And consider, a dealer hand of AJT987x will be arranged as JT987-Ax, so winning the bottom against a straight or the top against Ax is also impossible.

Dealer might also have a ATxxx on the bottom which will beat your A987x, but notice that in this case the lowest possible 2-card top hand is QJ -so you're going to lose both the top and bottom no matter how you arrange your cards when dealer plays ATxxx on the bottom..

So, the principle is that any dealer pai gow (hi-card) hand that can beat an A9873 bottom is also going to beat a Q9 (or lower) top. So it actually doesn't matter how you arrange your AQ98743 cards against those kinds of A-high hi-card hands. But arranging your hand as A9873-Q4 is better than arranging it as A8743-Q9 or A9843-Q7 against all sorts of AK-high or AQ-high dealer hands against with which you can win the bottom whilst losing the top - dealer hands such as A-KJ-985x or A-KT-986x or A-QJ-985x or A-QT-986x or A-KQ-985x or A-KQ-986x. ) There are just enough of those dealer hands such that it is optimal to set your bottom as A9873 and lose against the rare Q8, Q7, Q6, Q5 tops. And this logic is best when your bottom hand is the A9873 rather than the A9843 because you will have regrets about arranging your hand as the A9843 when dealer has Axx98(6 or 5)x. The string of 987 in your bottom hand means that you will beat (or tie) virtually any A9-high dealer hand in the bottom -and A9 high (or lower) occurs more frequently than you might expect in the dealers bottom because dealer must always play 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th best hands on the bottom with a Hi-card (No pair or better) 7 card hand -and there are only so many ways to have 7 ranks in a seven card hand without a straight and have your 4th highest card be a 10 or higher.

Keep in mind that these decisions on arranging 7-card hi-card hands are almost always worth less that 0.2% in EV and often less than 0.1% - and these razor -thin margins are on specific hands that don't occur very frequently.

Several years ago, I wrote a book on Pai Gow Poker theory/strategy, but I have never tried to publish it. I just don't think there'd be much of a market for it.