Today’s lesson will deal with setting your hand. We’ve already got the game flow down. In another article, we’ll go over strategy a bit more. Setting your hand is the main function in Pai Gow. Don’t worry if you don’t know how Pai Gow hands rank, because that’s the next part of this series.
In Pai Gow, the Ace can be used at the front or end of the deck. For instance, it could be used as Ace, two, three or Queen, King, Ace. The Joker can be used as an Ace or to complete a straight, flush or straight flush.
Once you have your seven cards, I find it’s best for beginners to sort their cards from highest to lowest or lowest to highest. If you’re playing Pai Gow online, this might already be done for you. Remember, we’re going to be creating two hands from these seven cards-the highest hand, which is five cards and the 2nd highest hand, which are the remaining two cards.
When you make your hands, the highest hand must actually be the highest hand. For instance, let’s say your hand is: J J 3 4 5 Q Q.
You couldn’t make your 2nd highest hand be QQ, because the highest hand would be JJ 3 4 5...