All about Three Card Poker with Michael - Wizard of odds - Shackleford

hi and welcome to our instructional video that is designed to make you smarter gambler my name is Steve Bourie on the author of the American casino guide which is the number one bestselling book in the US on the subject of casino gambling and travel and the only book that comes with more than one thousand dollars in casino coupons if you want to know more about the book be sure to visit our website at americancasinoguide.com and if you have an iPhone or iPad be sure to download our free app just go to the app store and search for American casino guide in this video Michael Shackleford who is also known as The Wizard of odds and the author of gambling 102 explains all about three card poker He tells you how to play, what that you can make and the best strategy for playing now here's michael Shackleford. We're gonna talk today about three card poker. Three card poker is without a doubt one of the most successful new table games in recent years the thrust three card poker is it's a three card poker game the player against the dealer to higher card wins the way it begins is the player makes an ante wager and and an optional pair plus wager . I'll talk about the ante wager first after the player makes his ante wager, the dealer will give the player three cards and himself three cards face down the player may look at his own three cards and then he must make a decision he either has to raise his bet or fold. If the player chooses to raise the raise bet must be equal to the ante wager after the decision has been made the dealer will turn over his cards The dealer needs a queen high or better to open, otherwise it will be as if the dealer folded and the player will win the ante wager only If the dealer does open then it will be a showdown, player's hand against the dealer's hand the higher hand wins. If the player has the higher hand then both the ante and the raise will pay even money if the dealer has the higher hand they both lose and in the unlikely event that they're both exactly the same it will be a push. Next let's talk about the pair plus wager this as a side bet that pays based only on the poker value of the player's hand, it doesn't make any difference what the dealer has. The pair plus, that pays anywhere from even money for a pair up to 40-1 for a straight flush. The common pay table for the pair plus goes 1, 3, 6, 30, 40. Some casinos have a more liberal pay table that goes 1, 4, 6, 30,40 but unfortunately you don't see that very often anymore. Next let's talk about the house advantage on three-card poker The house advantage on the ante bet is 3.37 percent that means that for every dollar the player bets on the ante he can expect to lose 3.37 cents The house advantage on the pair plus bet assuming the usual 1, 3, 6, 30, 40 pay table is 7.28%. If you're fortunate enough to be in a casino that has the liberal 1, 4, 6, 30, 40 pay table that lowers the house advantage on the pair plus to 2.32 percent Finally there's something called the ante bonus the ante bonus pays if the player has at least a straight and he doesn't need to beat the dealer to get paid for this it pays anywhere from an equal amount to the ante wager up to five times the ante wager depending upon the player's hand. Next let's talk about strategy. The strategy for three card poker is to raise with a queen, 6, 4 or better it's that simple if the player has a king high or better he always raises, a jack high or less the player should fold but with exactly a queen high then you look at the second card if it's a 7 or higher the player should raise, five for lower fold and if it's exactly a six then you need to look at the third card then if that's a five or higher raise, three or less fold and if it's exactly a four you should also raise. So Queen, 6, 4 is the worst hand that the player should raise on. Finally a word of advice dealers on all of the shall we say carnival games or new poker based games often don't understand the rules correctly or make careless errors in scoring the hands. A very frequent error made is the dealer not paying the ante bonus if the player loses. It's absolutely a rule in the game that the ante bonus pays no matter what the dealer has so if you get a straight and the dealer has a higher straight and doesn't pay that ante bonus stop the game before the dealer takes the cards away and demand to be paid. I've seen that mistake so many times so with any new poker based game know the rules of the game cold before you sit down at it, because I see dealer errors all the time and they usually go in the dealers favor so don't be afraid to speak up if you think than error has worked against you. If you want to know more about me or hundreds of different casino games it's all on my website wizardofodds.com and my book Gambling 102 has strategies for the most popular casino games. Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our YouTube channel just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide