How To Play 3 Card Poker At Casino
A hybrid table game popularized in 1994, Three Card Poker incorporates elements of poker and blackjack to form an exciting, fast paced contest between players and a house dealer.
To begin a round, the player must place an ante bet. The dealer then deals three cards to the player, which are face-up, and three cards to himself, which are face down. Based on the three cards, the player can either fold the hand or continue by placing a play bet.
The mechanics of Three Card Poker are simple and easy to pick up for anybody who has ever dabbled in either poker or blackjack. With two tiers of betting – the main ante and play bets along with the Pair Plus and other bonuses – Three Card Poker offers multiple forms of action on every hand. Even better, the big bonus payouts awarded for qualifying high hands like three of a kind or a straight flush can turn a casual game into an unforgettable score.
KEY TAKEAWAYS There are two basic ways to play Three Card Poker: ante-play and Pair Plus. Two win in ante-play if the dealer has a Queen or better, your hand must beat the dealer. To win in Pair Plus, you do not have to beat the dealer, but your hand must have a pair or better. Awesome session of 3 Card Poker at The El Cortez in Las Vegas! Enjoy!!!Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!Follow me on Twitch: me. Three Card Poker is among the most popular casino table games at both land-based and online casinos. Three Card Poker Review. Three Card Poker is a casino table game based on poker. A Three Card Poker table in a casino aboard the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship. The casino variant of Three Card Poker was first created by Derek Webb in 1994 and patented in 1997. Webb's goal was to create a version of poker that played with the speed of other table games.
Every experienced gambler has that friend who winds up winning big on their first trip to Las Vegas or the local casino. And more often than not, those stories usually take place at a Three Card Poker table, where a few small side bets on the bonus and three perfect cards can combine for huge payouts.
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Three Card Poker Basics
The first action in a Three Card Poker hand is a mandatory bet known as the Ante. This wager must be made for a player to take a hand. After making the ante bet (along with the Pair Plus and other side bets, which will be explained below) players receive three cards, as does the dealer. The player’s cards may be exposed at this point, but the dealer’s hand remains face down.
Three Card Poker relies on the traditional poker hand hierarchy to determine winners, but rather than five cards only three are needed. This means high-card (A-3-2) is the lowest qualifying hand, followed by one pair (9-9-2), flush (any three cards of the same suit), straight (6-7-8), three of a kind (9-9-9), straight flush (6-7-8 of the same suit), and in some casinos, the mini-Royal (A-K-Q of the same suit).
Remember, in traditional five card poker a flush beats a straight because the hand is slightly easier to make, and both hands beat three of a kind for the same reason. But things change in Three Card Poker, and the hand values are turned upside down.
With 52 combinations available to make three of a kind, this hand is actually nearly as difficult to make as a straight flush (48 combinations). The odds of making either hand stand at less than 1 percent, while a straight (3.2 percent) and flush (4.9 percent) are far easier to make.
Based on the strength of your hand, you can decide whether to match your Ante with an equal Play bet. If you have a weak hand and decline to play, you can fold and forfeit your ante and bonus bets. When you decide to post the Play bet the dealer will then expose their cards to determine a winner.
The dealer hand must be queen-high or better to qualify. When the dealer fails to produce a qualifying hand, your Ante bet is paid out at even money, while the Play bet is automatically returned as a push. When the dealer produces a qualifying hand it’s compared to each player hand and the highest hand is declared the winner. If your hand is better than the dealer’s, both your Ante and Play bets will be paid out at even money. Identical hands are deemed a push.
The game’s flair comes from the bonuses of course, and even if you don’t wager on the Pair Plus bonus, you can still enjoy a little extra juice on your money from time to time. Whenever a player hand makes a straight or better, it qualifies for an Ante Bonus, or an additional payout on top of the even money you get on the Ante and Play bets.
To top it off, even if the dealer somehow produces a superior hand, causing you to lose the Ante and Play bets, you recoup some of those losses because the Ante Bonus is awarded no matter what when you make a straight or better. There are a few Ante Bonus payout tables out there, but for the most part you’ll see 1 to 1 payouts on straights, 4 to 1 on flushes, and 5 to 1 on straight flushes. The house edge on this standard 5-4-1 pay table is 3.37 percent.
Bonus Side Bets in Three Card Poker
The other primary bet you can make in Three Card Poker is known as the Pair Plus bet. This can be anywhere from $1 on up, and making the bet entitles you to a sizable extra payout when you happen to make big hands.
The name Pair Plus comes from the fact that you need at least a pair to qualify, and while this pays out at even money, the real excitement comes from hitting a straight flush and its 40 to 1 payout. Three of a kind hands also pay out pretty nicely at 30 to 1, and many players enjoy grinding Three Card Poker with the express intent of spiking a big hand with a Pair Plus bet on the line.
The standard pay table used for Pair Plus bonus bets (40-30-6-4-1) offers a 2.32 percent house edge, but alternative Pair Plus pay tables like the 40-30-6-3-1 can be deceptive, while also increasing the house edge to 7.28 percent.
In some cases you’ll find Three Card Poker tables that include the mini-Royal (A-K-Q of the same suit) on the Pair Plus pay table, and these pay out at 80 to one. The standard Pair Plus pay table with mini-Royals included (80-40-25-6-3-1) offers a 7.73 percent house edge.
Additionally, many casinos offer tables featuring progressive bonuses that pay out escalating jackpots that can run into the six- and even seven-figures. In order to hit these jackpots, players must make the additional side wager and make specific high hand; usually a mini-Royal in spades.
Finally, you may notice Three Card Poker tables advertising a Six Card Bonus, and this simply refers to the practice of combining your three cards with the dealer’s three cards, while making the best five-card poker hand possible. Five-card Royal Flushes trigger the jackpot on this special bonus bet.
The Strategy of Three Card Poker
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker can be distilled into the simplest of formulas: when your hand strength equals queen-six-four or higher, you should always post the additional Play bet. When your hand strength equals anything lower than queen-six-four, you should fold and surrender your Ante and bonus bets. The reason for this is based on mathematical certainty, as queen-six-four represents the minimum hand you need to rate better than the dealer’s random three cards.
One thing about Three Card Poker to keep in mind is that your hand will beat the dealer’s hand 44.91 percent of the time, you’ll lose 55.03 percent of the time, and the rest of the hands will result in a chop. But by sticking to the queen-six-three threshold for matching the Ante bet, you’ll stand to lose 8.26 percent of your Ante bet, but your win rate on the Play bet will jump to 5.29 percent.
Some players advocate a strategy based on replicating the dealer’s action, or in other words, raising on any hand queen-high or better. Gambling experts have determined that this is a serviceable strategy overall, lowering the house edge to 3.45 percent as opposed to 7.65 percent when playing by instinct alone. Overall though, the queen-six-four strategy lowers the house edge more than any other, and using this as a minimum hand with which to raise will save you money over the long run.
To give all of our casino card game playing website visitors a range of playing tips we would like to present to you our guide to the top 10 3 Card Poker game playing hints and tips which you will find listed below.
Feel free to check out these playing tips and put them into play when you next sit down to play this game online.
Lowest House Edge Bet
You are going to find that it is the Ante bet that returns the lowest house edge on the game of 3 Card Poker and as such maybe you are best sticking to placing only those wagers and avoiding the Pairs Plus betting options to ensure the maximum winning opportunities when playing this game.
When to Raise Your Ante Bet
When playing the Ante bet option offered on the card game of 3 Card Poker then the best playing strategy calls for you to only raise your Ante bet when you have been dealt out a Queen, Six and a Four or any higher valued hand, and fold any hand combinations with a lower value.
The “Pairs Plus” Bet Payouts
You need to be aware that depending at just which online casino you are playing at you can often find a completely different set of payouts attached to the game of 3 card poker, more so in regards to the highest payout attached to the Pairs Plus bet option. Microgaming for example offer a payout of 40 to 1 on the Straight Flush hand combination on this wager but other sites can and do offer much lower payouts, and those other sites are therefore offering very poor value on that bet option and their version of this game should be avoided!
Watch Your Stakes!
Be aware then often when you first launch the game of 3 Card Poker it will automatically bet set to the highest possible stake option, and as such if you inadvertently place those wagers onto the table and set the game into live play then you may end up playing for much higher stakes than you intended, so whenever you launch the game of 3 Card Poker always set the stake levels and chips values to your own preferences and never be too eager to simply set the game into play!
Have Enough Cash in Reserve
Be aware that when you play the Ante bet option when playing 3 Card Poker you need to have enough cash in your online casino account should you then go on to play that hand, if you do not have enough cash in your account then you will have to fold that hand which will result in your losing your Ante wager on what may just be a winning hand combination!
Playing with a Bonus
If the casino at which you are playing at has awarded you with some bonus credits and you can play 3 Card Poker games with that bonus then you will often find it is the Ante game which gives you the best chance of meeting the play through requirements of that bonus, the Pairs Plus bet can be high variance some time and this can often result in you losing your bonus way too quickly and may never get near completing the play through requirements of that bonus!
Tied Hands
When playing the Ante Bet if you and the Dealer get the exact same valued hand combination then this is classed as a tie, but many casinos will look at this result in different ways, some will simply class this hand as a push, but if you do find a casino that looks at tied Ant Bet hands as a winning hand for the Player then those games are the best variants to play, as long as the payouts available on that bet are the highest ones available also!
Compare Comps!
Much like every other casino game you should always be getting comp points awarded to you when playing 3 Card Poker, and as the number of comp points you can earn will vary from site to site do a little shopping around and seek out and only play at the sits offering you the highest number of comps points but also with the most beneficial redemption rates for turning those comps into casino credits!
3 Card Poker Tournament Strategies
Be advised that the aim of a 3 Card Poker tournament entry is for you to win as much as you can in the shortest amount of time, and whilst many people tend to play in a very high risk strategy when playing in such a casino game tournament, the best strategy that you can play is for you to work out how many hands you can play in the allocated time based on your tournament credits and then stick to place Ante Bets only.
If you do not follow the correct strategy you will often find you blow all of your tournaments credits way too quickly and as such will never make it onto a prize paying position on the 3 Card Poker tournaments leader board!
How To Play 3 Card Poker At The Casino
Get Some Playing Experience at No Risk
Best Way To Play 3 Card Poker At Casino
One final 3 Card Poker playing tip if you have never played this casino card game before is that you should give it some play time for free and at no risk at any of our listed online casino sites for by doing to you can then get a good understand for how to play this game and can practise playing perfect strategy and then move over to the real money options when you have truly mastered playing it!