Dear Mark,
Hell broke out at our kitchen table poker game last
Friday night. Quite an argument ignited over the
following hand in Pai Gow Poker. Does the five card
straight of 9, 10, J, Q, K beat a Ace, 2, 3, 4,
5 straight? Scooter T.
BASIC
QUESTION: IS THIS THE HAND YOU'LL DIE FOR?
BASIC ANSWER: 'TAIN'T WORTH IT, FRIEND.
Pai Gow poker is a banking poker game played today in
most casinos and California card rooms. The object of
Pai Gow poker is to make two poker hands that beat the
banker's (in your case "Kitchen opponents'")
hands. Each player is dealt seven cards that he makes
into a five-card hand (the "high hand") and
a
two-card hand (the
"low hand"). The hands are played and
ranked like traditional poker hands, but with a
couple of exceptions. Your question, Scooter, highlights
one of them. An Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5 is the second highest
straight possible. Only a 10, J, Q, K, Ace beats
it, but not a 9, 10, J, Q, K straight.
Another deviation from traditional poker is that
the hand-four Aces and a Joker -- always beats a
royal flush. Now that we have settled last Friday
night's Brouhaha, the most High Queen Goddess of
Pai Gow, the honorable Hung Lo, ordains that the
losing Bob-a-looie will buy all the beer and munchies
at your next game, but is forbidden to sing in Mandarin.
