Three Card Poker has become one of the most popular new table poker games. Three Card Poker uses a single deck of cards (52 cards) and is played primarily against the dealer similar to Black Jack.

There are two parts to playing Three Card Poker, basically two games in one. The first part of play consists of the Play/ante game. The object here is to beat the dealer for the highest hand. Hand ranking is a little different then games like Texas Holdem or Stud since you are playing with only 3 cards at a time. Hand rankings are:

Straight Flush. Three cards of the same suit in sequence. Example 6-7-8 of spades. Three of a Kind. Three cards of equal rank. Straight. Three cards in sequence of mixed suits. Flush. Three cards of the same suit. Pair. Two cards of equal rank. High Card. The highest card in your hand.

The second part of Three Card Poker is Pair Plus. Here you are betting whether or not a pair will be dealt to you. This part of Three Card Poker doesn’t involve the dealer, nor if you won or lost against him. The win lose here is only if your three cards contain a pair.

The Three Card Poker table is set up with three circles in front of each player position. First circle or top circle is for Pair Plus betting. This is where the player will place their bet on having a pair in their hand. The other two circles are labeled Ante and Play. This will involve placing the ante to play against the dealer. Some casinos require an ante bet to play the Pair Plus circle and will have a house minimum per wager and ante.

Once all bets and antes have been place each player receives three cards. At this point of Three Card Poker the player, starting left of dealer, decides to either play their hand or fold. Folding will forfeit the ante wager but not the Pair Plus bet. Players not folding will then place an additional bet in the Play circle.

In Three Card Poker the dealer must “qualify” his hand by having a Queen or higher. If the dealer fails to turn over Queen or higher each player still in game will receive even money for their ante. The Play circle bet is returned to player and not paid out.

Three Card Poker dealer’s qualified hands are compared to the player’s hands to determine the winner. If dealer hand wins play will lose both the Ante and Play bets. If the player wins they’re rewarded even money for both bets in both circles (Ante and Play).http://wizardofodds.com/threecardpoker

Winning bets of players making an opening bet in the Pair Plus circle will be decided at the conclusion of Ante / Play round of play. Even if you folded your hand for the Ante / Play round but still placed a Pair Plus bet you may still have won.

All players will turn over their cards and dealer awards payouts to any player having a pair or beater in their hand. The better the hand the better the payout. If you do not have at least a pair you lose and your bet is collected by the dealer. A pair or better is dealt about 25 percent of the time so you will want to bet cautiously for this round.

If in Three Card Poker you place to large of a bet in the Pair Plus circle and lose, yet win against the dealer with a high card, you may find yourself in the hole.

In Three Card Poker the best hand to raise on would be a queen/six/four. Based on percentages of win/lose the player will only lose about 9% of the ante yet win about 5% or better of the raise. Betting on hands with less then queen/six/four increases your chance of losing to the house.

When playing strategy in Three Card Poker remember that the dealer can only qualify his hand with a queen or better high card. If you have a queen or better you stand to at least tie the dealer’s high card. The second of the three cards will then be the deciding factor for the over all win. Having a six or better gives you a higher percentage against beating the dealer if both high cards are equal. The third card won’t count since the hand is decided within the first two cards.

Another strategic move is to raise on any queen. This is known as mimicking the dealer. Mimicking the dealer gives the house a greater edge of winning percent. While mimicking the dealer is not a bad move your best percentage chance of winning is sticking with bets on hands better then queen/six/four.http://wizardofodds.com/threecardpoker