Shanghai Poker – Rules of Playing

Shanghai Poker is basically a table game played in casinos where the standard deck comprising of 52 cards plus a joker are used. In this game, any card can be substituted with the joker and the gameplay is similar to games such as Three Card Poker and Pai Gow. A player in Shanghai Poker can place three bets. There is the compulsory Double Hand bet and a Taxpayer’s Fortune bet and Five Card Bonus bet which are both optional bets. Both the dealer and the player receives five cards each face down. The players will then arrange the five cards to form two hands which are the two card front and three card back hands. The most important thing is to ensure that your two card hand in Shanghai Poker isn’t outranking your three card hand.

When it comes to ranking of the 3 card hands, you should know about high card, one pair, flush, straight, three of a kind and straight flush. The two hands of the player are compared with corresponding hands of the one dealing the game. In case the two corresponding hands in comparison turn out to be equal, something referred to as a copy; the player loses while the dealer becomes the winner of the copy. Also, note that for two card hand, there are no flushes or straights. A pair is usually the highest ranking possible for two card hand.

For the player to win, he should win both the back and front hands. In case the two hands lose, the player will as well lose on his entire bet. Where the player loses one of the hands but wins the other, this is referred to as a push. After winning both hands, the player gets paid his winning as follows: where the three card hand of the dealer is over king – high, payment on the bet will be even money. On the other hand, where the three card hand of the dealer is not more king high, players get paid half of their bet. In Shanghai Poker, players can also make the five card bonus bets which is distinctive in the sense that it also pay even money on the pair of jacks, with a maximum of 400: 1 for the five aces.

Alternatively, players making five card bonus bets in Shanghai Poker can as well make the 1 dollar Taxpayer’s Fortune game bet as well and this will enable them to qualify for big payouts offered on Taxpayer’s Fortune. A tax is charged on the player every time the 5 card bonus hand payout is two pair where the payment is given at a ration of 3:1 and sometimes higher than this. Basically, you will notice that the gameplay involved in Shanghai Poker is more or less the same as in Texas Hold’em. After every deal, the player has a betting round and a community of five cards is provided for one to select from and this means even more excitement in the game.