paigow poker online

The original Chinese Pai Gow is probably hundreds of years old. It was played with tiles that slightly resemble domino tiles. Pai Gow means "make nine", but the poker version has nothing to do with the number nine. You can still play the domino-style, original Pai Gow in China today. In the 1900's the casino manager of the Commerce Casino, Fred Wolf, and his friend Sam Torosian transformed the ancient Chinese Pai Gow into a modern poker variation using cards instead of domino type tiles. Fred Wolf featured the Pai Gow Poker in his California casino, and the game became an instant hit, spreading out to the Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos.
How to Play and Win Pai Gow PokerThis unique poker variation is played with a standard 52-card deck plus one Joker. And usually there are seven players of whom one is the dealer or the banker. Players do not play against each other, but against the dealer which is one reason this poker variation is called a house-banked even-payout game. Each player is dealt seven cards and the object of the game is for a player to create two poker hands from these seven cards: a five-card poker hand and a two-card poker hand. The five card hand must rank higher than the two-card hand. If not, the player's hand is considered a "foul" and he automatically loses his bet.
In Pai Gow Poker he player's two hands must outrank the dealer's hands in order for him to win. The five-card hand is ranked by standard poker rankings. The two-card hand can only be a pair or two "high" cards. If either of the player's hands match the dealer's hands in value, they are called "copies", and the dealer wins all copies. If one of the player's hands beats the dealer's, but the other doesn't, the result is a tie and no money is paid out. The highest possible hand is five aces: four aces plus the Joker. In the five-card hand, the Joker can be used to complete a straight or flush, otherwise it is considered an ace. In the two-card hand it is always an ace. However, some casinos in southern California allow a completely wild Joker. There are many strategies and tips to win Pai Gow Poker.
Pai Gow Poker at Online CasinosPai Gow Poker, a very unusual poker variation, is now also being offered by online casinos. Since the player does not play or bet against other players, but only against the dealer, the game is far more relaxing than any of the other standard poker games, and, therefore, it is becoming very popular with online gamblers. Many of the online casinos offer a free trial Pai Gow Poker game so that the potential player can actually see how it works. Although a written explanation of the rules, betting, and "how to play" sounds quite complicated, once one has tried the "free" game, it is easy to learn and quite exciting to play. French colonials imported the game to the New World when they arrived in Canada. Poque was the national card game of France at the time and from the beginning of the 18th century, when a group of French-Canadian settlers founded New Orleans, it spread from Louisiana up the Mississippi River and from there throughout the whole country. In 1834, a gambler by the name of Jonathan H. Green referred to poque as “the cheating game” that was widely played on riverboats of that era. At the time, 3-card Monte was the most popular gambling game, but the game Green called “the cheating game” was ironically considered more honest and more of a challenge and it surpassed any existing game in popularity. Green himself is credited with Americanizing the name of the game and christening it as poker. In the 1800s no saloon could be found without a poker table. The United States officially claimed the game as its own in 1875 when it introduced the joker as a wild card and the game of poker has never been the same since.
Poker is arguably the most malleable card game in history and variations (and variations of variations) abound. For a long time — almost 100 years — 5-card draw was the most popular poker game. Seven-card stud poker took the baton from its 5-card brother and ran with it for about 40 years in the mid-20th century. In the 1970s, when it was featured in the World Series of Poker, the poker variant of Texas Hold 'Em took over as the most popular form of poker and it has never looked back — it is still the reigning King of Poker. It is undoubtedly the most frequently played poker game in the world.
Online Poker is BornThe next stage in poker history came in the 1990s with the development of the online casino. Today, you can play poker online against other real live poker players. There are other online poker variations, such as Poker Pursuit and Bonus Pai Gow Poker, that are solitary games: just you against the computer. There are also progressive poker games, like Poker Ride and Progressive Cyberstud Poker, that offer huge jackpots of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Online poker has truly revolutionized poker history. It has brought the game of poker into everyone's home, with no need to travel to the game, and it provides so many different poker variations that, with just the click of a mouse, you can easily find the best poker game for you.Games like Keno and Pai Gow have their roots firmly in ancient China and, surprisingly, so does the game of poker. It is believed that poker has evolved over the course of a thousand years, at least, starting with games that used the same basic principle of card ranking. Since its birth, poker has reproduced, changed forms, and has spread across the planet like a mega-plague. It has been called the most popular card game in the world and deservingly so.
A popular belief is that poker got its start in China around 900 A.D. Even though cards, as we know them, had not emerged yet, the Chinese had dominoes, which are believed to be the first form of gambling and the predecessor to the modern deck of cards. It is said that Emperor Mu Tsung introduced the game of "domino cards" to his wife in 969 A.D, more than 1,000 years ago.
Egypt is also cited as a possible source of poker. Remnants of what is believed to be playing cards were found and dated back as far as the 12th or 13th century. India is also mentioned as the country of origin and some historians say that modern-day card games, including poker, are derived from an ancient Indian game called Ganjifa, which in turn may have led to a Persian game called "As Nas." The game of As Nas dates back to the 17th century and resembles poker in more ways than any of the games previously mentioned.
Europeans also played what is thought to be an early version of poker. A French game named “Poque” and a German game named “Pochen” became very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, and it is believed that they were both developed from an earlier Spanish game called “Primero,” which involved three cards being dealt to each player. Bluffing was an important part of that game, tying it securely to poker. Primero dates back to 1526 and is often referred to as “poker's mother” as it is the first confirmed game directly related to today's poker