If you’ve ever been to Vegas with me you know that i have a favorite game to play there – Pai Gow poker. It is a slow poker game that you only play against the house. You are dealt 7 cards which you split into a 5 card “high” hand and a 2 card “low” hand. The house has to split cards specific ways – and that will change slightly from casino to casino – but that makes it so that you can open your cards to the dealer to give you help. In fact, you can usually show your cards to the players to either side of you without bothering the casino also. This makes the game very social and non-confrontational. Your high hand competes against the dealers high hand and your low competes against their low. You have to win both hands to win the bet and you have to lose both hands to lose your bet. If you win one and lose the other to the dealer it is called a “push” and no money moves. That’s the basics. There is one joker in the deck which can complete a straight or a flush and otherwise serves as an ace. There are many variations thrown in like “fortune bonus” which you can bet from $1 up hoping that you get a really good hand – usually anything over 3 of a kind will win you a return on the bet placed there. Kevin and i saw a guy win $750 on his $10 fortune bonus bet because he had a straight flush which paid 75 to one. If he didn’t have any money there he would have only won the hand (or perhaps even pushed) against the dealer only doubling his bet (minus the house commission of 5%!). Some have a “envy” bonus that if you bet $5 or more in the fortune bonus then you get a flat payout when someone else (other than the dealer) gets a high hand. Kevin and i both were paid when he got that straight flush. It got me to thinking about making or buying card tables and having poker night every now and then. It just might be tough to find enough pai gow fans in this world of Texas Holdem players.