Patent Application
20110180995
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the filed of casino gaming, games using playing cards as random symbol generators and especially to variants of Pai Gow poker. The game includes traditional Pai Gow poker and the option or requirement of two side bet wagers, one on a paytable vent and the other as Tie Breaker in the underlying Pai Gow poker game.
2. Background of the Art
Although the game of Pai Gow Poker, frequently referred to as Asian Poker, has been around for many years, it has not received wide spread play in gambling casinos throughout the United States. As is well known in the art, the game is played with either tiles or with a standard deck of 52 playing cards with one Joker added. In some versions of the game, a joker is utilized to represent only a limited number of cards such as an Ace or as part of a Straight or Flush. Rankings in Pai Gow Poker are substantially the same as rankings in other types of poker games.
Pai Gow Poker is typically played in a casino at a table much like that used for Blackjack, casino table poker variants, Baccarat or the like, except that there is typically one less player position. That is, there is a dealer position and six player positions equally spaced around the perimeter of the table. The game is limited to six player hands and a dealer hand, using 49 cards, and leaving four remaining cards. At each player position, there are normally markings or indicia for setting the dealer's and players' high and low hands (explained hereinafter) and a spot for each player to place his or her Ante or Bet.
The game is typically started by each player placing a bet. The dealer then deals seven cards to himself and seven cards to each of the six player positions, using 49 of the 53 cards in the playing card deck. Each player, including the dealer, then forms two hands from the holdings of seven cards. One hand, referred to as the low hand, consists of two of the dealt cards. The other hand, referred to as the high hand, consists of the remaining five cards that were dealt to that player. The high hand must be higher in poker rank than the low hand. If the hand is a Pai Gow (no ranked hands possible higher then an Ace high), then the highest ranked card must be present in the high hand.
he only requirement in forming or setting the high and low hands is that the low hand must be of a lower rank than the high hand. The ranking of the hands is similar to traditional poker with the exception as pointed out above that the joker can be used to represent an ace or to represent any one card of either a straight or a flush. Thus, the highest possible hand is five aces.
If the player's low hand and high hand are both higher in rank than the low and high hand of the dealer or banker, the player is a winner and the banker loses. However, if both of the dealer's or banker's hands are higher than the player's, the player is a loser and the banker wins. If only one of either of the player's hands tie or lose to the comparable dealer's hand, the round is considered a push. Under some house rules, the banker's hand is normally considered to be the winner in the event of a tie in both hands or even one hand, although this latter rule is rarely in play.
If the player's low hand is of a higher rank than the banker's low hand but the player's high hand is of a lower rank than the banker's high hand, neither wins and there is considered to be a push. Similarly, a push exists when a player's low hand is of a lower rank than the banker's low hand and the player's high hand is of a higher rank of the banker's high hand. There is, therefore, no winner when a push exists.
In some casinos, the banker and the dealer are one and the same and is employed by the casino. The dealer is employed by the casino and deals the cards but is also a player.
More frequently, however, the players are given an option, in turn, to be the banker and each of the other players would then play against the banker/player. (The banker is the dealer or player who is responsible for paying or collecting from each of the players.) When this is done, the house, that is, the establishment operating the game, takes a commission by way of a percentage on all winning wagers or is paid a flat commission per round or per hour.
The house also takes a commission or ante from each player when they win. The commission may be about 1% of the wager, such as taking $0.25 from a $25 wager, $0.50 from a $25-50 wager, and $0.75 for a wager between $51-75. There are numerous ways in which the house can collect on a player-banked game.
There are a few special bonuses that can be won at Pai Gow poker. In some locations, there may be bonuses for specially ranked hands, such as a Pair of Aces and four of a kind or higher, and a special bonus or jackpot for a pair of Aces as the low hand and a straight flush or royal flush for the high hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,491,302 describes a method of playing a Pai Gow poker game in which, in addition to the usual seven cards dealt to each player and the dealer, a single player tiebreaker card is dealt for all players and a single dealer tiebreaker card is dealt to the dealer. The ante bet of each player is then paid off for winning and losing hands in the usual manner of a Pai Gow game. However, with push hands (where only one of the two-card hand and five-card hand of the player has a higher poker rank than the respective two-card hand and five-card hand of the dealer), the winner is determined by the higher value of the player and dealer tiebreaker cards so that no push bets occur.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,931,472 describes an improved game of Pai Gow is set forth which includes offering the player an optional bonus wager. Should the tiles of the Player's hand match any predetermined bonus outcome tile combination, the Player receives a reward for their bonus wager regardless of whether or not the Player has won their hand according to the rules of Pai Gow.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,424 describes a method, device and system for playing a new game of Pai Gow Poker. The method includes dealing seven cards to the dealer and to each player, the players and dealer each from those seven cards assembling a five card high hand and a two card low hand. For the player to win their wager, both the player's high and low hands must outrank the dealer's hands according to the ranking of hands of Jacks or better. All other hands are losses. The method provides for greater payoffs if the player has one of a plurality of payoff qualifying holdings. The device includes a processor programmed to play the game according to the method. The system provides for linking devices to amass a progressive jackpot payout should the player obtain a qualifying holding.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,876 describes an improved game of Pai Gow that includes offering the player an optional bonus wager. Should the tiles of the Player's hand match any predetermined bonus outcome tile combination, the Player receives a reward for their bonus wager regardless of whether or not the Player has won their hand according to the rules of Pai Gow. The game also provides the option to make a tie wager.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,113,103 teaches a variation of Pai Gow Poker known as Dragon Poker. A player posts a wager and is dealt a first four of seven cards face down. A bank is dealt a first a first four of seven cards, three of which are dealt face up. The player is then given an option of surrendering and receiving a return of a portion of the wager. With the surrender, the player's participation in the game is at an end. The player who does not surrender is a surviving player who may be given an option of increasing the wager. The surviving player and the bank are each dealt three additional cards to enable formation of a player back hand and a player front hand and formation of a bank back hand and a bank front hand. After the hands are formed, the wager is resolved.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,863,041 (Boylan) describes a method of playing a Pai Gow poker wagering game in which an Ante bet is initially wagered and a Bonus bet is also wagered by at least one player. Seven cards are then dealt to each player and the dealer, and arranged into a two-card hand and a five-card hand. The ante bet of each player is then paid off to in the usual manner for Pai Gow poker. Thereafter, a best five card poker hand is arranged by the dealer for each player from the seven cards initially dealt to the player, and the bonus bet is paid off if the best poker hand has a poker rank equal to or better than a first predetermined rank (straight) but less than a second predetermined rank (royal flush). Next, the dealer determines whether the best poker hand of each player has a poker rank better than or equal to the second predetermined rank so that an auxiliary game of chance, such as rolling three dice, is then played to determine whether the bonus bet is paid off at a first payoff where the player is a loser or at a second payoff higher than the first payoff. In addition, the dealer then determines whether each player has made a bonus bet of a predetermined minimum, which is then paid off if any other player has a best poker hand equal to or better than a third predetermined rank (four of a kind).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,078 (Leone et al.) describes version of the game Pai Gow Poker that allows a player to bet against the house and/or to bet against the other players. In addition to the conventional betting spot for placing an optional bet against the banker, an additional betting spot is located in front of each of the players that allows the player to optionally bet against the house. This can be done whether or not the house is the banker. Thus, even if a fellow player has been designated as the banker, each other player can still choose to play against only the house. Each player can, of course, play against his or her fellow player/banker but is not required to do so. Each player can play against the house, against his or her fellow player/banker, against neither or against both. This game does not use the residual cards to resolve a side bet game.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,486 describes a method of playing a game of Pai Gow poker comprising: a player placing a first wager; a player placing a jackpot bet; and a dealer dealing seven cards to himself and said player. Each player arranges his/her cards into a low hand including two of said seven cards and a high hand including five of said seven cards Each player evaluates the cards and determining whether the cards comprise a predetermined jackpot card holding of a low hand pair and a high hand of one of (i) four aces and the joker, (ii) a royal flush, (iii) a straight flush, (iv) four of a kind, (v) full house, (vi) flush or (vii) straight. Players are paid a jackpot amount if the player has a jackpot holding. The winner of the first wager is determined by comparing a low hand of said dealer to said low hand of said player and a high hand of said dealer to said high hand of said player. This reference does not describe the use of residual cards to resolve a side bet in a game of Pai Gow poker.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,061 describes a method of eliminating a push in a game of Pai Gow Poker where a player and a banker are each dealt seven cards from a standard deck of 52 playing cards plus a Joker, the player and the banker each forming a High Hand and a Low hand from the dealt cards. The method describes the steps of: assigning a numerical value to each card; comparing a card in a player's hand to a corresponding card in a banker's hand; and designating a winner based upon whether or not the corresponding cards have total numerical values that are either both odd or both even.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,422,564 describes a poker game in which a hand used in play is created from discarded cards from player hands. The game is played with a lower numerical ranking portion of a deck comprising the card ranks of Two through Eight of a typical fifty-two card Poker deck. The game method includes the steps of each player placing an initial wager to participate in the game. Five cards are dealt to each player position by the dealer. Players inspect their cards and must discard the highest numerical ranking card in their hand and place that card into a designated high card area in front of that player position. If player positions are not occupied, the dealer retrieves the highest numerical ranking card from hands dealt to unoccupied positions and places those cards into the designated high card area in front of that unoccupied player position. Next, players decide which two cards of their remaining four cards they wish to hold and use to build their mandatory two card hand. Players must place the two cards into an appropriate depicted hold card area in front of that player position. Players must then discard the remaining two cards into an appropriate depicted discard area in front of that player position. Each player then has the benefit of a two card hand. The dealer chooses the house's two card hand from the pool of high cards discarded by the players and placed in the designated area. The dealer indicates the choices by placing an indicator apparatus onto each of the two cards chosen. The dealer informs the players of the houses two card hand. Finally all cards in each occupied player positions are shown, and the payouts to the winning hands and the collections of the losing hands wagers are resolved. The players are playing against the dealer and not against each other.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,481,719 and 6,012,719 describe a card game that combines the play of Blackjack (“21”) with a 3-card Poker wager or side bet (“21+3”). Each player places a basic Blackjack wager and an optional 3-card Poker wager before the cards are dealt. Each player is then dealt a card with the dealer receiving a face-up card. Each player is then dealt a second card. At this point, the outcome of each 3-card Poker hand is determined, where a 3-card Poker hand consists of the 2-card hand dealt to that player and the dealer's face-up card. After settling the Poker wagers, the game of Blackjack continues in a typical fashion. The invention advantageously retains all the features and advantages of Blackjack as well as provides an additional opportunity to wager on a hand of 3-card Poker, without interfering with the card dealing sequence, for enhanced player anticipation and enjoyment.
Although Pai Gow poker has achieved a level of success where it is present in most card rooms, it is desirable to provide additional features to the game that can make it even more attractive and successful.
A bonus event with a side bet is combined with the traditional game of Pai Gow poker. The bonus event does not in any way alter the strategy of play of the game. The Bonus event requires no additional cards, and adds interest to the game. Each player may make a side bet wager to enter the bonus game. The game may be played and resolved before play of the Pai Gow game or after play of the Pai Gow game. The wager is made against a pay table, rather then against other players and/or the house. The wager is made on whether the three discards or residual cards (with a 52 card deck without joker) or the first or last three cards of the four discards or residual cards will provide a basis for winning the first side bet. The wager on the first side bet by the wager is on a specific color combination (i.e., red or black) for at least two of the three (or three-of-four) residual cards. The player wins 1:1 on the side bet if at least two of the four residual cards is the color wagered on are present in the residual cards. Additional rules may be added to this underlying game play to adjust the house retention. One rule that tends to be compulsory in the game is that the presence of the joker in the four-card residual hand automatically loses the first side bet wager.
A second type of underlying wager includes a tie breaker. Ties occur between a dealer and a player over 25% of the times in normal play of Pai Gow. It is desirable to many players and the casino to have each game finally resolved, so that when there is a tie, some event can be used to resolve the tie and the underlying game wager. The game breaker is preferably either w wager in advance of the playing cards being dealt (again on a color, e.g., red or black) or by automatically selecting a single one of the four residual cards, selected in a standardized manner, such as the first card or the last card in the four-card discard set. The selection of the joker will again cause the player to lose the side bet, as by losing the underlying wager in either vent.
The underlying rules of player hand versus dealer hand (and even play of a dragon hand) in Pai Gow poker remain the same, except for when a tie breaker is played in the game. Additional side bets against a paytable, a pot, bad beat wagers and envy wagers may also be made.
A bonus event with a side bet is combined with the traditional game of Pai Gow poker. The bonus event does not in any way alter the strategy of play of the game. The Bonus event requires no additional cards, and adds interest to the game. Each player may make a side bet wager to enter the bonus game. The game may be played and resolved before play of the Pai Gow game is resolved or after play of the Pai Gow game is resolved. The wager is made against a pay table (with a 1:1 payout), rather then against other players and/or the house. The wager is made on whether the three discards at the end of dealing or three residual cards (with a 52 card deck without joker) or the first three cards or last three cards of the four discards or residual cards (with a 53-card deck having a joker) will provide a basis for winning the first side bet. The wager on the first side bet is on a specific color combination (i.e., red or black) for at least two of the three (or three-of-four) residual cards. There are a number of variations that may be played with this wager, but the rules must be clear before resolution of the wager. The following variations are among those available:
A second type of variation in the technology described herein is where the underlying Pai Gow wager is made on a table position that includes a tie breaker. The use of the tie breaker wager may be the only Pai Gow underlying game wager or may be an optional wager along with an non-tie-breaking wager. Ties occur between a dealer and a player over 25% of the times in normal play of Pai Gow. It is desirable to many players and the casino to have each game finally resolved, so that when there is a tie, some event can be used to resolve the tie and the underlying game wager. The game breaker is preferably is a wager in advance of the playing cards being dealt (again on a color, e.g., red or black) or by automatically selecting a single one of the three or four residual cards, selected in a standardized manner, such as the first card or the last card in the three-card or four-card discard set. The selection of the joker will again cause the player to lose the tie breaker, if the player choose to play using the tie breaker option.
Player may wager on only one of the two possible bets on the game of Pai Gow. Player has option to play standard Pai Gow or Pai Gow with a Breaker Card and any other available wagers (e.g., envy wagers and bad beat wagers, as known in the art).
The Breaker Card is one of the 4 remaining cards in the deck after all cards are dealt to all 7 position, 6 players and the dealer. The selected card is position in a designated area. The Breaker Card will determine a winner if the player wins one hand and the dealer wins one hand, which is known as a push, no winner of the game. The Breaker Card is played using the color of the card in the Breaker position, player or dealer with the most matches with their seven cards to the Breaker Card by color win the game. If player and dealer have the same total matches to the Breaker Card by color the game is still a push. If the Breaker Card is the Joker the game is still a push.
The Breaker Card may also be played using the suit of the cards or the ranking of the card instead of color. The Breaker Card may paid a player a bonus if the player's seven card hand has a high number of matches to the Breaker Card, but in return the player would lose if the joker was the Breaker Card.
The following table shows the probabilities of events in the Yin-Yang Side Bet™ wager.
The game technology described herein may be played with physical playing cards with live or electronic wagering, may be played with electronic gaming tables or video apparatus, and may be played on internet gaming systems, with the cards being provided as physical playing cards or as virtual cards generated through a random access generator.
There are numerous available computer languages that may be used to implement embodiments of the invention, among the more common being Ada; Algol; APL; awk; Basic; C; C++; Cobol; Delphi; Eiffel; Euphoria; Forth; Fortran; HTML; Icon; Java; Javascript; Lisp; Logo; Mathematica; MatLab; Miranda; Modula-2; Oberon; Pascal; Perl; PL/I; Prolog; Python; Rexx; SAS; Scheme; sed; Simula; Smalltalk; Snobol; SQL; Visual Basic; Visual C++; Linux and XML.
Any commercial processor may be used to implement the embodiments of the invention either as a single processor, serial or parallel set of processors in the system. Examples of commercial processors include, but are not limited to Merced™, Pentium™, Pentium II™, Xeon™, Celeron™, Pentium Pro™, Efficeon™, Athlon, AMD and the like.
Display screens may be segment display screen, analogue display screens, digital display screens, CRTs, LED screens, Plasma screens, liquid crystal diode screens, and the like.
A typical electronic format would contain functional elements of an EGM (electronic gaming machine) including a processor, which for illustrative purposes only may be connected via a bus to a plurality of functional elements. The EGM can include a display with associated video driver and touch screen interface, various storage devices such as RAM, ROM and hard drive, a user interface, credit interface, and communication interface. The EGM can be a stand-alone machine, or it can be connected to a network via the communication interface or be part of an electronic gaming table, to enable the machine to participate in multi-game jackpots. In addition, the EGM may be programmed via the communication network from a central control and management processor, so that, for example, new games can be programmed and downloaded into the EGM.
