FACE UP PAI GOW POKER

In 'GAMBLING 102' there is a section on FACE UP PAI GOW POKER and it says 'no skill is required'. I think there is as eg. suppose the dealer has AAAJJ52 , he will play his hand with AAA52 as his high hand with JJ as his low hand. You may have KKK9942. If you play your full house as KKK42 with 99 as your low hand ; you will lose both hands. You will have to play your hand as KKK99 with 4 2 as your low hand.. Another example ; Dealer has 55A8742 which he will play as 55742 as his high hand and A8 as his low hand. You have 4556678. If you play your hand with 45678 as high and 65 as your low hand then you will push. You need to play 66784 as your high hand and 55 as your low hand in order to win both hands. I know these examples are not the best examples but I think you can get the gist of what I am saying. Also :: most people do the side bet where 3OAK upwards win and some people get confused by the fact that they still get paid for their side bet even if they have split their hand ( as per my second example )

Quote: superbri

In 'GAMBLING 102' there is a section on FACE UP PAI GOW POKER and it says 'no skill is required'. I think there is as eg. suppose the dealer has AAAJJ52 , he will play his hand with AAA52 as his high hand with JJ as his low hand. You may have KKK9942. If you play your full house as KKK42 with 99 as your low hand ; you will lose both hands. You will have to play your hand as KKK99 with 4 2 as your low hand.. Another example ; Dealer has 55A8742 which he will play as 55742 as his high hand and A8 as his low hand. You have 4556678. If you play your hand with 45678 as high and 65 as your low hand then you will push. You need to play 66784 as your high hand and 55 as your low hand in order to win both hands. I know these examples are not the best examples but I think you can get the gist of what I am saying. Also :: most people do the side bet where 3OAK upwards win and some people get confused by the fact that they still get paid for their side bet even if they have split their hand ( as per my second example )
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By ‘no skill is required’, the meaning is any player who knows the rules will be able to play perfect strategy every single hand. Do you think there is a single situation that you will ever not know how to set your cards?

Hi. I play this game often ; albeit at local casinos or on the Strip and almost every session ( over 2 hours ) in which I have played, there has been an instance of the player misplaying his hand and the dealer has had to call the Pit Boss over and ask if the players hand can be reset. Most times the faux pas is caused by either the player not utilizing the Joker correctly or trying to play his hand to get the bonus ( as per my 2nd example )

No skill required?

Is it really a skill? I think you need about the same ‘skill’ as when playing video poker to remember to hold the correct cards - when you’re dealt a royal. 🤪

But, as the saying goes, you can’t fix stupid! 😵‍💫

Question from a non player:

Does the dealer set their cards first?

Quote: AlanMendelson

Question from a non player:

Does the dealer set their cards first?
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Yes. That’s why there is no skill. If the dealer didn’t set his cards first then you’d have to know the house way.

EXAMPLE 1 ) Suppose you get QQQ77K9 and the dealer has 23456K8. The correct way to play this is QQQ77 top with K9 as bottom but you play it QQQK9 with 77 as the low hand. You end up with a push as the dealers straight beats your trips. (This may be caused as you know trips pays more than a straight on the bonus side bet ) EXAMPLE 2) You have AAK7532 and dealer has AK95432. You play it as AA532 with K7 as bottom, You end up with a push as dealer has A5432 as top and K9 as bottom. You should have played it as AK532and A7 as bottom

I just got back from Vegas and this face up was the version that I saw pretty much everywhere. It is obvious they are phasing out the normal PGP. Too bad I liked the old version better. I tried this weekend and couldn’t find it as it may already be phased out just like 3/2 BJ. The game has lost its charm to me.

Thanks for giving us Amazing info.

I saw the normal PGP today in Tropicana. 3/2 BJ is still prevalent in a lot of places, albeit sometimes ( not always ) with higher minimums

Not to say I won’t ever play it, but Face Up is equivalent to being dealt a card that either has a W, L, or P on it (win, lose, or push). If that works for you then play it. The fact that there is ANY discussion about strategy is sad, actually.

I played ‘real’ Pai Gow yesterday. The dealer has a screen which tells her which two cards to put up. Our dealer was new and pushed her two cards up before looking at the screen. She was wrong quite a few times but rearranged them before paying off. One hand she made a mistake and didn’t fix it until after she paid, but luckily it made no difference to either me or my friend. (Only two at the table).

Later she made an interesting mistake…. She dealt the hands to the wrong position, but wasn’t aware of it. I won, my friend lost, and we both lost $1 bonus. After she scooped up our cards she noticed that she didn’t have either of the two up cards in her hand. Pit boss came over and said it ‘really should be a misdeal’. I suggested that since all the action was done, she should just let my winning bet stand, return my $1 side bet, and return my friend’s $25 bet and his $1 side bet. She agreed implying though if we were betting big the outcome may have been different. She was super nice, too.

Also interesting…. they recognized me from previous visits, and started chatting…. They essentially begged me to contact administration to ask to keep the place non-smoking, which apparently the powers that be are not planning to do!

Regarding your first paragraph ; all I can say is that if you ever lowered yourself to play such an unworthy game, you will be surprised to see that at least one hand an hour is misplayed and the dealer either fixes it herself or calls over the Pit Boss to ask if it is okay to fix it .

I saw an article where a tourist hit the $1,000,000 progressive on Face Up Pai Gow at the Cosmopolitan this week.

Good thing he knows tourists shouldn't play craps!