The History of Pai Gow Poker

pai gow poker is an interesting variant of poker. Its origins take us all the way back to a hundred years ago in China. The interesting turn from an originally domino-like tile game to a card game adds a different flavor to this game that you won't find in other poker games.

This poker variant takes its roots from the Chinese game called Pai Gow. Translated literally, Pai Gow actually means to make nine. This was quite a complicated game that uses tiles (like dominoes) and dice. It was actually has a military nature to it where the tiles represented army and civilian units. Pai Gow more likely represented the reality in the territory in those times. Today, we can still find the game being played by local Chinese folks.

Moving off to the 20th century, a major change occurred to this traditional Chinese tile game. When it was taken to US shores, cards were used instead of the traditional dominos thus the game evolved into a card game. The innovation applied the basic hands used in poker with the added twist of a Joker being used in the deck during play. In Pai Gow Poker, players go against the dealer (similar to blackjack) with a maximum of six players at a table.

All players are dealt seven cards each, which players use to create two hands to pit against the dealer. One hand will have two cards and the other will have five cards, thus splitting the seven-card hand. The hand that has five cards is called a high hand while the other that has only two cards is called a low hand.

Players in this poker variant play their own individual game against the dealer. If a player's high hand and low hand wins against the dealer's hands then that player wins. But if ever only one of the player's hand beats a dealer's hand, it is then declared a tie.

Late in the 1900's, Fred Wolf and Sam Torosian are credited with the creation of this variation of poker. Fred Wolf was an inventor of games and back in the 1980's, was the Commerce Casino's manager. He continued to introduce game innovations to attract more customers and get ahead of the competition. Pai Gow Poker was one of the games introduced that made a huge hit.

From then on, the game caught the hearts of the crowd and became a well-played game in different casinos. Today, we can find it online on different Internet casinos. The game remains as an interesting and refreshing change from our regular poker game.