I did ask someone who used to deal it and he said, (CAUTION --- there are no short answers to gaming questions !!)

"Yes. Its played with seven or eight decks depending on the card room that you are in. You can play with as little as two players at the table but its normally played with 7 people. The decks will lay face down in the middle of the table or in a shoe. A shoe is a plastic holding container. They sale them on eBay. There is a dealer at the table seating in the 8th seat of a round or 8 sided table. The dealers job is to shuffle the decks and deal the cards to each player. The dealer does not play. Because there is up to eight decks he is shuffling often.To start each game he will deal 5 cards at a time to each player twice dealing clockwise. When he has completed the deal each player has 10 cards. The player that won the last game will be first to act on the new deal. If he chooses not to play because the cards he is dealt are not good enough he will toss all ten to the dealer and it will be the person next to him to make the decision to play or toss t he cards to the dealer. Once all players that payed to play have acted by saying yes I will play or no and toss there cards to the dealer the game begins. To win the hand and some chips you try to have all your 10 cards in front of you face up in groups of 3 cards or larger groups of 4 cards and occasion+ly you may have a group of 10. Examples would be ( 777 is group of 3 cards) or ( 777 7777 777 in any combination of 3 or more 7s would several groups of 7s.) you may have runs also. Runs need to be at least 3 or more cards just like the example of 7s to lay them down in front of you. At no time should you have over ten cards till the end. You may have a group in front of you for all to see face up like I said of ( kkk ) and that would leave 7 cards in your hand, ten total. Cards in your hand should be hidden from other players and card you lay down are face up for players to see. How you win the hand is having all ten cards down or ready to go down plus 1 card. The last card you play on your groups or on your runs would be the eleventh card. A run can be any 3 cards in numerical order. Like 4, 5, 6, or 1, 2, 3. The ace or the 1 as thats what I call the ace in this email can be used on each end of the runs. Ace King Queen is a run or ace 2, 3 is a run. Because you get dealt ten cards and there is probably not a lot of groups or runs in your hand you build them. Each player draws one card off the 8 deck in the middle of the table. It is the top card or the first card. You cant reach into the deck and grab any card but only the next card of the top or front of the decks in the middle. When you grab a card all players wait for you to make a decision to use the card or discard the card. You may not put any cards into your hand. When you grab a card and it gives you a group of 3 or a run of any 3 how you would keep the card out of your hand is, lay the 2 cards in your hand down face up and place th e card you grab into the spread of the 2 to make a group of 3. This could mean you started with 10 cards and your hand looked like this. kkk jj q 55 44 and you are first to act or grab a card and its a king. You good lay two of your kk down or all 3 of your kkk to make a group of 4 down in front of you. You have a choice to lay 3 kings down or all 4 kings down because there is many combinations of groups that you may not want to expose to other players early in the game. If the king in you hand that you choose to hold up is a good card that would be a reason to hold it up. A good card would be your fourth king is a club and so is one of the jack a club and queen you have is a club. That gives you a run of king queen Jack that you have hidden. Remember you cant put cards in your hand you draw but you did not draw this run. You drew a king and laid two down with it and held one king up. I did have rule books and they do play this game in San Ramona at the Oaks Club Card room. They al so play pan in all the card rooms in Los Angles. We play in Stockton in a small card room on Market Street. They have a pan tournament every year in Los Vegas at the Star Dust Casino on the old Strip. I am not sure if they have that tourny in Vegas anymore but I believe they do. It never did get any tv or media time but the winner would get 10,000 back in 1980s. My dads partner went and played in the Vegas Tourney every year. The chips changed hands depending on your suits you have down and the amount of pay cards you have down and if you won the game by getting 11 cards down first. Someone would get 11 cards first because everyone had to wait for the person that grabs a card turns it face up and makes a decision to use it or toss it. Once he has made his choice and only then may the next player grab a card. Thats why there was many arguments. Some players could only play for a hour or so and they are in a hurry because they are going to work in a hour or so, and others are retired and grabbing a card and looking at it trying to figure out if it fits anyplace in there hand. Earlier I said the grabber or person drawing a card had to make a decision, it was not just a decision to see if he can use it but he also has the decision to force the player on his right to take the card. How that would happen is I am on your right and I have 8 cards down in front of me. 777 an 2, 3, 4, 5 ,6 is my hand showing and I have 2 cards in my hand. You are my opponent and you have not hit anything yet. If you draw a 7 or an ace you may force me to take it making me discard one of my last 2 cards. Know you put yourself in a better position because when I had 2 cards I could win with just one more card maybe. If I had JJ in my hand a third jack would end the game. When you force me I know need to discard one of my jacks then get another card to discard my last jack and then another to get the eleven needed to win. This means I need to hit 3 cards instead of when I was holding my last two jj it was possible for me to catch a third jack and end the game before you get a run down. Why that is important is some of the groups and some of the runs are pay cards. Even though you don't win the game you may win the most money. If my eleven cards are not pay cards, I would only win 2 chips from each player that stayed in the hand. If you lost but are able to lay down 7777 of spades and 333 spades and ace two three of hearts you would have one eleven chips from each player. Therefore losing the war but winning the battles. Or losing the hand but winning the most money. The pay cards in a nut shell are 777. 333, 555 or 1,2,3,or 1.k.q in the same suit. or and of the number cards that have all 3 cards the same suit 666 all clubs. many combination and many rules. If a player is caught with a card in his hand that came of the deck, his hand was foul and he is out of the hand but must pay the players like if he was in the game. Any player caught with more than t en cards total in his hand had the same penalty. If you could keep a card from the deck you could better your hand but thats why the rule is grab the card turn it up and make the decision to use it face up or force it on the next player to your right or toss it to the dealer. All chips have the same value and there is no need to have a number on the chips. You could play at a table that is .25 cent condition meaning all chips are a quarter or drive to Oakland and play in the ten dollars chip game and all chips are worth ten dollars. When you win the hand and you collected 7 chips on your pay cards during the hand from each player in the game drawing, you not only win 70 dollars from each man but if you win the hand all player pay you again 7 chips plus two chips for winning. It is possible to win 3 or 4 hundred in any given hand. or 50 or sixty chips in a hand. If the chips are ten dollars not bad. If you are in Los Angles you can very well be playing at tables that have 2 men and 5 women in the game. Each chip is 100 dollars. This is common in Los Angles. The ante to get dealt the ten cards in the first place is one chip. The house take 2 chips and leaves the remaining 5 for the winner of the hand. The dealers at the table normally deal around a average of 16 hands and hour. Hands take 2 to 4 minutes to play before there is a winner. When the game is loose and 5 or 6 players stay in the game, it takes four minutes or longer sometimes to end. If the game is tight and players want good cards before they risk more than the ante, many times the game is with 2 or 3 people and ends quickly. As they draw cards they don't wait long because it is there turn in the next draw or two. That will allow them to find there cards quick as there is eight decks. That means 32 kings in the deck. I may get dealt 8 kings and draw 3 more and the games over. How I would get paid depends on how many of the kings are the same suit. The first 3 are worth one chip. Additional kings of the same suit are worth one more chip for every card thats the same suit. It the suit is spades it doubles all pays. If it is spades and happens to be 3 threes or fives or sevens it is worth 4 times the normal amount. Pay cards are 3s 5s 7s all the same suit worth 2 chips all spades 4 chips all different suits would be one spade one club and one heart would be worth one chip. If you have a 5 club and 5 club and you draw a 5 heart you cant even use it. They need to be all the same or all different suits to lay down the first 3. After that it does not matter for that group. There are more rules and more pay off I will not get into as you are probably sleeping already but thats pan. Takes a couple months to learn the game and a life time to master."

I think I will just stick to hold-em !!!! Does a straight beat a flush ??