Are You Ready for Shanghai Poker?

Ever wonder where new game ideas come from? Well, the game of Pai Gow Express, which had its field trial at the Palace Station in Las Vegas and a successful nine-months on the floor of the Commerce Casino is changing its name. Why? I can hear you asking. Because the game is evolving - improving.

Roy Ritner, owner of New Horizon Gaming, came up with an idea for a faster, more enjoyable Pai Gow game. He called it Pai Gow Express, a five card game, kind of a cross between Pai Gow and Three Card Poker, and it has three things going for it: it's fast and easy, and there is no commission collected on any hands.

Ritner asked Stanley Ko, a fellow game designer and owner of Bet Wiser Games, to analyze the mathematics of Pai Gow Express, and Ko was so impressed with the game that he became a partner and added his own innovations. The new version, called Shanghai Poker, has some very interesting features.

Like regular Pai Gow, Shanghai Poker uses a standard deck of 52 cards, but now the joker is fully wild, not just used for straights and flushes. The player can make three bets: a mandatory Double Hand bet, an optional Five Card Bonus side bet and an optional Taxpayer's Fortune bet. That's where this game gets interesting.

Players set their hand into two parts, a two-card hand and a three-card hand, but bonuses are paid regardless of how the hands are set. The Five-Card Bonus bet pays from a pair of jacks (1-1) up to five of a kind (400-1), and the Taxpayer's Fortune bet has a twist. You place $1 on the Taxpayer's Fortune bet for payoffs from $3 to $30,000 (for five aces). The interesting part is that you never lose your bet (get taxed) unless you win money on the Five-Card Bonus bet.

When you do get a nice payoff on the bonus, you pay: $1 on two pair, $2 on three of a kind, or $5 on a straight or better. Payoffs on the Taxpayer's Fortune Pay Table are separate of the Bonus Bet payoffs, and include things like a pair and a 3-card straight all the way up to a natural royal flush for an extra $10,000 and $30,000 for five-aces.

This is the first game I ever saw where you got taxed (besides a commission game) for a winning hand, but you always wind up getting paid on a bonus or you pay no tax. Very interesting.