Asia Poker is ironically an American invention based on a Chinese game known as “13 cards” and derives from Poker and Pai Gow Poker. Though growing in popularity, the game hasn’t yet reached critical mass so you may need to hunt for it – though Las Vegas is prime hunting grounds for Asia Poker.

You can play Asia Poker at the Rio, for example.

Asia Poker Rules

The game is played with a 53-card deck – all the usual suspects plus a joker.

Players place their bets and then both players and the dealer get 7 cards dealt face down.

Once the dealing done, you’ll need to sort your cards into three hands

  • A high hand consisting of four cards
  • A middle hand consisting of two cards
  • A low hand consisting of just one card.

You then place each hand in the designated areas on the table.

Asia Poker Hands should seem pretty familiar; the main rule is that the four-card hand must rank higher than the 2-card hand, which in turn must rank higher than the 1-card hand.

Some 4-card hands might include a royal flush, four of a kind, straight flush, straight, flush, three of a kind, two pairs, one pair, and high card (pretty much the same as poker, but no full house).

The 2-card hand can either be a pair or not… a high card.

The 1-card hand is a purely high-card contest.

Because the 4-card hand must rank higher than the 2-card hand, you can’t pack the 2-card hand with a pair and leave the 4-card hand with junk. Same goes for the 1-card. If your 2-card hand has a King and a 9 for example, and you set your 1-card hand as an Ace you’ll fall afoul of the rules and lose the hand.

The Joker can be used as an Ace of to finish a straight flush only.

The dealer sets his / her cards “the house way” which means a prescribed way they must set their cards according to the rules.

The player’s hands are then compared to the dealer’s and each individual hand with a higher poker value will win with ties going to the dealer.

If the player wins two out of three of the set hands, he /she will win even money on their bet.

There is also a bonus bet available based on the entire 7-card hand with prescribed payouts.

One of the great things about Asia Poker is that players play against the dealer not other players. And because the dealer must always set his / her cards the “house way” you can let others see your cards without giving away anything. In fact, other players, the dealer, or even passers-by can help you set your card if you don’t know what to do – great fun for beginners and also a great education for learning basic poker hands.

There are a variety of ways a dealer can set a hand and the dealer is in competition with multiple players, so he / she may not always set their hand in the “strongest” manner against your hand.

The house edge in Asia Poker is 4.82% an based on the advantage that ties go to the house.