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How to Play Some Unusual Online Casino Games
One of the many things new payers here at Everygame Casino Red learn is that there is a broader range of games here than at almost any (probably any!) land-based casino. Land-based casinos have to make the most profit from every very expensive square inch of casino floor space. So, they may have several terminals of the more popular slots whereas Everygame Casino needs only one software package to serve as many gamers as wish to play a given slot at the same time from the four corners of the globe!
It’s the Same All Over the Land-based Casino Universe
The same dichotomy applies to every game we offer and a land-based casino can offer. As such, we can offer some unusual casino games that you probably won’t see at a land-based casino. In this article, we would like to go into a little depth about a few of these unusual but very exciting casino games with a focus on the best strategy for the games!
Pai Gow Poker
This poker variation is based on a Chinese dominoes variation called Gai Gow. Pai Gow poker really excites a lot of gamers! You get seven cards and you have to make a five-card hand and a two-card hand.
It sounds so simple but there are complexities that make it challenging. The five-card hand has to be better than the two-card hand. There are many cases where a player will break up a very good hand such as a full house in order to make two strong hands.
So, the first strategy act a Pai Gow Poker player has top employ is simple patience! You need to look at the seven cards as if they are two hands rather than find one really good five-card hand and then use the other two cards as the smaller hand.
Creating two good hands is a lot more difficult than you would think. First of all, you have to win both hands outright to win the hand which pays 1-1 with a small commission that the house takes. That means that ties go to the dealer.
If you win one hand and the house wins the other hand, the entire deal is a push. If you lose both ends of the deal, the house wins your bet.
Pai Gow Poker takes a lot longer to play than, say blackjack or video poker. Therefore it is a great game for gamers who start out the session with a relatively modest bankroll. Sometimes a player will have one pair which they instinctively see as their two-card hand but if there is no better hand among the remaining five cards, using the pair for the two-card hand is a violation of the rules!
It is also important to understand that in Pai Gow Poker, gamers play against the dealer who actually makes no decisions but follows very precise rules for how to arrange her cards. In video poker, gamers play against the pay table and in “regular” poker they play against other players.
Because you play against a dealer who makes no decisions, Pai Gow Poker is a great way for beginning poker payers to experience hundreds or thousands of hands at low risk as they learn to evaluate hands for the real poker games they often want to play!
Here are a few generally accepted strategies for arranging your hands in Pai Gow Poker:
- If you have only a pair, it has to be the anchor of your five-card hand but you don’t use another high card as your kicker. Instead, you use the next two highest cards to be your two-card hand.
- Similarly, if you don’t have a pair or any other powerful hand, you use the best card to anchor the five-card hand and the next two cards as the two-card hand.
- You might get two pairs. Usually, you would split them so that each hand has a pair. However, if both pairs are low, they can easily be beaten in either hand so you would use both as the high hand and the next highest cards for the two-card hand.
- If you get three pairs, you use two in the high hand and the third one in the smaller hand. It is often good to use the highest pair as the two-card hand.
- If you have a set, your action depends on how high the set is. For example, a set of aces should be split to create a pair of aces as one hand and an ace-high hand as the small hand.
Games that Require a Second Bet
All three of the Caribbean Poker games require a second bet as does Tri-card Poker. In these games, the dealer needs a minimum hand to qualify to win your bets. If the dealer doesn’t qualify, you win your ante bet but not the second bet.
Strategy in these games can be complex and there has not been enough computer study to determine precisely what the gamer’s best play is in all situations. We will talk here about Tri-card Poker since the discussion of the Caribbean games will take up more space. We will deal with the Caribbean games in a subsequent article.
Tri-card Poker
Gamers can win substantial sums of extra money in Tri-card Poker if they get excellent three-card dealt hands. These high-paying hands are not common in three-card games but they add a huge measure of excitement when the cards are dealt for a new hand.
The player gets three cards and has to decide if he or she wants to continue in the hand. If they don’t continue, they lose the ante bet. If they do continue, they make a second bet equal to the ante. Then the hands are compared.
The dealer needs at least a queen-high hand to win both the ante and the second bet. If the dealer qualifies and the player has the better hand she wins both bets. If the dealer qualifies and has the better hand, he wins both bets.
The key in Tri-card Poker is whether to stay in the hand with a borderline hand. After all, the dealer cannot win your very poor hand if she doesn’t qualify. It is this single question that makes Tri-card Poker so fascinating to players in addition to the big wins for good hands.
One school of thought says that a player should fold any hand that is not at least queen high, the same hand the dealer needs to qualify. This point of view is not universally agreed upon, however. Tri-card Poker is an excellent game to play as an adjunct to other online casino games you enjoy playing and provides the same kind of hand recognition experience as Pai Gow Poker does.
Everygame Casino Features Over 300 Games
Pai Gow Poker and Tri-card Poker are just two of the more than 300 games we carry in our library of great online casino games.
We urge all readers who are not yet members of the Everygame Casino family to JOIN EVERYGAME CASINO RED NOW!
