If you need help forming your hands, ask the banker to set it the “house-way.” The “house-way” varies from venue to venue. With a little practice, setting hands becomes second nature. If a player is dealt J-J-9-9-4-3-7 with no flush, his high hand would be J-J-4-3-7, and his low hand would be 9-9. You can set your hands any way you wish as long as your five-card hand outranks your two-card hand and your two-card hand is placed in front of your five-card hand. This can’t be done without an understanding of traditional poker hand rankings. The players do the same, arranging their cards into a five-card hand, called a high hand, and a two-card, or low hand. The banker reveals his cards and sets them into two separate poker hands. Instead, each plays heads-up against the banker.
Unlike in traditional no-limit Texas Hold’em, players don’t compete against each other in Pai Gow Poker. To play Pai Gow Poker at one of the many casinos on the Strip, players place their ante bets and the banker deals seven cards to himself and to every seat at the table, including the empty ones. Players arrange their cards into two hands in a unique poker variant.
