In order for you to win the bet at pai gow poker you have to win both hands against your opponents, whether they be the house or the other players when you are acting as the banker.  For you to win both hands you need to set both hands for a chance to win.  This can frequently mean that you break an extremely good five card hand to be able to make a good two card hand.  This basic strategy is sometimes lost on many novice players, who consistently make the best five card hand possible and forgo any chance of winning the two card hand.

The basic idea is to find balance.  The best way to illustrate this is to use the tables of the five card and two card pai gow poker hand power rankings.

The tables below give the win probability (power ranking) of both the two-card (2nd high) and five-card (high) hands in pai gow poker.  When you are setting your hand you are attempting to achieve the highest combined power ranking for your high and 2nd high hands.  Consider the following pai gow poker hand:

You have been dealt a full house, a very powerful hand.  If you put the full house in your high hand you have a 99.7% chance of winning the high hand.  However, you have left yourself just a 9,4 in your 2nd high hand, with a scant 3.1% chance of winning.  Your combined power rank is 99.7 + 3.1 = 102.8

However, if we do not play the full house, but instead play the three of a kind tens in the high hand and the pair of eights in the low hand we dramatically improve our combined power ranking.  Three of a kind tens in the high hand has an 87.0% chance of winning.  A pair of eights in the 2nd high hand has an 89.9% chance of winning, for a combined power ranking of 87.0 + 89.9 = 176.9

By slightly reducing the power of the high hand we have significantly increased the power of the 2nd high hand, and we have given ourselves a better chance to win both hands and the bet. That is the basis of our hand setting strategy, and is explored in detail in the individual hand sections.

2nd High Hand			High Hands
Hand	Power (Win %)		Hand	Power (win %)
AA	98.9		Five of a kind	100.0
KK	97.9		Straight Flush	99.9
QQ	96.6		Four of a Kind	99.8
JJ	95.2		Full House	99.7
TT	93.6		Ace High Flush	98.0
99	91.8		King High Flush	97.5
88	89.9		Flush	96.6
77	87.8		Ace High Straight	95.9
66	86.0		Wheel (A2345)	95.3
55	84.2		King High Straight	94.6
44	82.2		Queen High Straight	94.0
33	80.1		Jack High Straight	93.3
22	77.9		Ten High Straight	92.6
AK	70.3		9 High Straight	91.9
AQ	64.6		8 High Straight	91.1
AJ	60.4		7 High Straight	90.4
AT	57.5		Six High Straight	89.5
A9	55.5		AAA	89.1
A8	54.2		KKK	88.5
A7	53.4		QQQ	88.0
A6	52.9		JJJ	87.5
A5	52.6		TTT	87.0
A4	52.3		999	86.4
A3	52.1		888	85.9
A2	51.9		777	85.4
KQ	45.3		666	84.8
KJ	40.5		555	84.3
KT	37.4		444	83.8
K9	35.4		333	83.2
K8	34.3		222	82.7
K7	33.7		Two Pair KKXX	82.2
K6	33.3		Two Pair QQXX	81.6
K5	33.1		Two Pair JJXX	81.0
K4	32.9		Two Pair TTXX	79.9
K3	32.8		Two Pair 99XX	78.8
K2	32.6		Two Pair 88XX	77.8
QJ	27.3		Two Pair 77XX	76.9
QT	23.7		Two Pair 66XX	76.1
Q9	21.6		Two Pair 55XX	75.5
Q8	20.5		Two Pair 44XX	75.1
Q7	20.0		Two Pair 3322	74.9
Q6	19.8		AA	65.3
Q5	19.6		KK	59.6
Q4	19.5		QQ	54.2
Q3	19.4		JJ	49.1
Q2	19.2		TT	44.8
JT	15.3		99	40.7
J9	12.9		88	36.8
J8	11.7		77	33.1
J7	11.1		66	29.5
J6	10.9		55	26.0
J5	10.8		44	22.6
J4	10.7		33	19.3
J3	10.6		22	16.1
J2	10.4		AJ	15.4
T9	8.0		AT	13.6
T8	6.6		A9	11.3
T7	6.0		A8	9.1
T6	5.8		A7	7.5
T5	5.7		A6	6.7
T4	5.6		KT	6.4
T3	5.5		K9	5.4
T2	5.4	K8	4.2
98	4.1	K7	3.3
97	3.5	K6	2.7
96	3.3	K5	2.6
95	3.1	Q9	2.4
94	3.1	Q8	1.8
93	3.0	Q7	1.3
92	2.9	Q6 and below	< 1%
87	2.3
86	2.1
85	2.0
84	1.9
83	1.8
82	1.7
76	1.6
75	1.4
74	1.3
73	1.2
72	1.1
65	1.0
64 and below	< 1%