When in doubt, let the house set your
hand
November 7, 2008
Dear Mark: As someone new to Pai Gow Poker,
would you a) play the game, and b) advise
letting the dealer set my hand since I’m a
beginner? Pat T.
Pai Gow Poker is a variant
of American seven-card poker. It is played with
a standard 52-card deck and a joker, but differs
from the typical seven-card game in that you
play against a banker, not against the other
players at the table.
Each player is dealt seven
cards with which he must make two hands based on
poker rankings -- a front hand of two cards and
a back hand of five cards. The five-card hand
must outrank the two-card hand.
You win if you defeat the
banker on both your front and back hands. You
lose only if the banker beats you on both hands.
A "copy," or push, always goes to the banker.
I see no reason why
you, as a newbie, wouldn’t want the house to
set you hand correctly, mostly because the
casino advantage on the game will be lower if
they do, and, as someone new to Pai Gow Poker,
you are prone to make two typical novice-errors.
You risk failing to see a five-card flush,
and/or you risk incorrectly setting your hands
when dealt two pairs. Two-pair hands appear
fairly often, and setting them correctly is
incredibly important. (Note: Here’s the quick
rule of thumb for playing two pairs: If your
hand has either an unmatched Ace or King, keep
the two pairs in your five-card hand. If you
have neither, play the lower-ranking pair as the
two-card hand.)
So what’s the house edge by
having the house set your hand? Two and a
half percent, about the same as if you were to
use perfect basic strategy.
Now, Pat, let’s talk about
that 2.5% for just a moment. At first glance,
you’ll note it’s higher than my ageless
recommendation: “never give the casino higher
than a 2% edge.” But with this negative
expectation game, slow is good, very good.
Pai Gow Poker can be really
slow; sometimes no more than 40 hands in an hour
are actually played to completion. Compare that
to Mini-baccarat, which, although a lower
house-edge play, is an extremely fast game where
200 decisions can be made in an hour.
Here’s the arithmetic, Pat,
on why it’s not such a bad play. If you were to
play Pai Gow Poker at $5 a hand, 40 hands an
hour, giving the house 2.5%, you would lose,
over the long run, just $5 per hour. With
Mini-baccarat at $5 a whack, and even though the
house edge is only 1.17%, if you were to play
just the Banker hand, by seeing 200 decisions an
hour, you would have an hourly loss of $11.70.
Pai Gow Poker, even as a
beginner and allowing the house to set your
hand, is pretty cheap entertainment, Pat, for a
measly five bucks an hour.
Dear Mark: Often in your column you mention the
benefits of basic strategy in blackjack. Basic
strategy tells us to always hit a 16. Isn’t the
smart move to let the dealer bust instead, even
if he has a 7-10 showing? Ted R.
The Basic strategy I often
mention in this column is a set of
computer-derived rules for playing every hand
against every possible dealer up-card.
Let’s examine your hand
example, the one we all get, all of the time,
that god- awful 16. If you hit this crappy hand,
you will bust over 60 percent of the time. The
other option is to stand and let the dealer bust
out. The problem is that when you stand as well,
you will lose approximately 70 percent of the
time.
The dealer’s chances of
having a 17 or more when he shows a 7, 8, 9, 10
or ace are between 74% and 83%. For that reason,
correct basic strategy dictates that you always
hit your 16.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "Don't
fight a battle if you don't gain anything by
winning." --General George Patton
