2. (n phrase) A
set of
cardroom games, formerly called
Asian games, some of which resemble
poker, but are not strictly
poker, in which players place bets before receiving the hands on which they
wager; others resemble blackjack. In these games, to get around the legal restriction against banking games, the only interest the
house has is to
take a portion of every
bet;
one player acts as
banker, playing
one hand against each
player in turn. These games include pai gow (played with tiles, and not a
card game at all),
pai gow poker, super
nine (also called super
pan nine), California blackjack (also called X blackjack, where X is the name of the
club), California Aces (a variant of blackjack in which the object is to get closest to 22, with
two aces being the
best hand; similarly often called X aces), 13-
card (not played with a
banker).