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Pai Gow | Strategy

The most important factor in improving your odds in pai gow is the ratio of how much is bet when you are the banker to as a player. The greater the ratio the better your odds are. The second most important factor is how well you arrange your cards. The house way (explained below) is a very safe strategy that is difficult to improve upon. Theoretically you could use these charts to play any hand, maximizing your odds of winning, but in real life nobody would have enough time to look up the numbers and add them up.

I present my own strategy for splitting a two pair that will shave 0.04% off the house edge compared to the house way rule for splitting a two pair.

House Edge

The house advantage in pai gow poker depends on partially on your skill setting hands but more on how much of the action you bank. An entire book could be written on this topic. For the sake of simplicity I shall only address the head to head game against the dealer. I shall assume that both the player and dealer are following the Trump Plaza house way.

Based on this table the following table shows the house edge for playing as the banker, player, and combined in a one on one game.

The probability that the front hands will copy is 2.55%. The probability that the back hands will copy is 0.32%.

If the player were to use the Optimal single house way against the Trump plaza house way then the house edge as the banker would be -0.19% and as the player would be 2.60%, for an average of 1.20%.

The next table shows the house edge as banker according to the number of other players (including the dealer), assuming everyone is using the same house way and betting the same amount. A negative house advantage denotes a player advantage.

Pai Gow Probabilities

The following table shows the probability of forming any specified poker hand. These probabilites consider all seven cards and without regard to how the player may play the hand.

Note: The number of ways for a royal flush is 26,132; 21620 wild and 4512 natural.