Sunday, July 15, 2007

Pai Gow correction

I made a mistake a couple of weeks ago when I said that no-commission pai gow was a game with no house edge. No, the edge doesn't come, as a clueless Happy Days dealer said last week, that the players don't see the dealer's hand when they set their hands (W.T.F.)

No, the edge comes from the fact that ties aren't pushes (as I said earlier), but they are treated as wins for the dealer.

Once I get back to a real net connection, I'll find out what the edge really is. Playing as dealer makes a lot more sense if there's an edge.

(Edit March 15, 2008: Mooski, a local poker room manager, tells me that the house edge is 1.5%, and implied that playing as dealer at no-commission is a 1.5% edge for the player. That sounds about right.)

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