Three-Card Poker Lessons
Poker, which boasts an estimated 50 million players in the United States alone, gets an additional boost with the emergence of three card poker, also known as tri-card poker, or simply, tri-poker.
How to Play Three-Card Poker
A game of three-card poker is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. The dealer and the player are both dealt three cards each, with cards being shuffled after each hand. Using the three cards you have been dealt, you now make a three-card hand.
Conventional poker hand rankings apply but are slightly modified. For example, a Straight has a higher ranking than a Flush for the obvious reason that it is far easier to form three cards of the same suit than it it is to form three cards of any suit but arranged consecutively. As in poker, the Ace can be either high or low. An Ace High Straight Flush is the highest hand you can get, noting that it merely makes a Straight Flush and not a Mini Royal Flush with extra bonus considerations.
3 Card Poker Hand Rankings
Straight Flush
A hand with all three cards in sequence and all of the same suit, with Ace-King-Queen being the highest
Three of a Kind
A hand with three cards of the same rank
Straight
A hand with all three cards in sequence but not all in one suit
Flush
A hand with all three cards in the same suit but not all in a sequence
Pair
A hand with two cards of the same rank
Once all three-card hands have been made, it is now time to place either one of two types of bet, which, in effect, means choosing your game: the Pair Plus and the Ante/Play. You are not required to make both bets, but you must make at least the Ante bet in order to play three-card poker as you know poker to be played. When both games are played at the same time, players may wager different amounts on each game.
Pair Plus. It is a bet that the player will get at least a pair or higher. The game is simply that—you get three cards and are paid according to their value. There are different bonus payouts for hands of one pair or better. The dealer's hand itself is immaterial in this case. Neither raising nor folding is needed to be done. In fact, no skill of any kind is involved in a Pair Plus bet; it is a game of chance.
Ante/Play. Firstly, it is a bet is that the player's hand can beat the dealer's; the Ante bet is kind of like a fee charged to you for playing your hand. You ante by placing your bet in the "Ante" spot on the game table. You and the dealer are then dealt three cards each, face down. Upon determining your hand, you decide next whether to raise or fold.
If you fold, you lose the ante; you also lose the Pair Plus bet, if ever one was made. The latter rule is almost an unnecessary one to point out because, ideally, if your Pair Plus bet paid off, you should not even be folding that hand. If you raise, you must place a bet equal to the Ante in the "Play" spot on the table. This time, you are competing against the dealer. Whoever has the higher three-card hand wins. If you win, you receive both the Ante and Pair Plus payouts.
3 Card Poker Betting Tips
To start with, the house has a 3.4% advantage in three-card poker. Either way, your three-card hand needs to be one pair or better—to be entitled to a payout, in the case of a Pair Plus, and to have a chance of beating the dealer's hand, in the case of an Ante/Play.
Optimal 3 Card Poker Strategy
Always play a Q-6-4 or higher. Never play anything lower. (See optimal Ante/Play strategy below.)
Also, If you have a Queen or better, place a bet in the "Play" spot. Otherwise, fold. (See optimal Ante/Play strategy below.)
A dealer will qualify with a Queen on approximately 2/3 of the hands.
Four out of every 10 "Ante" hands will win an Ante bonus.
Be aware that lower payouts, especially in Pair Plus, are used in many places that double and triple the house advantage against the player.
Avoid games with a Pair Plus payout of only 3-1 for a Flush instead of 4-1, etc.
Look for full payout 3 card poker games.
3 Card Poker Probabilities
| Hand | Combinations | Probability |
| Straight Flush | 48 | 0.0021719 |
| Three of a Kind | 52 | 0.0023529 |
| Straight | 720 | 0.0325792 |
| Flush | 1096 | 0.0495928 |
| Pair | 3744 | 0.1694118 |
| Queen to Ace High | 9720 | 0.4398190 |
| Jack High or Less | 6720 | 0.3040724 |
Pair Plus Non-Strategy & Unequal Bets
In a Pair Plus, your only deliberate concern is how much money to bet. Hence, the Pair Plus non-strategy. Equal bets are expected, and safe. Like, you wager two units on Ante/Play and one unit on Pair Plus. What you can do is post what are known as unequal bets. It is allowed in most casinos, and best for handling the volatile win/loss situation in Pair Plus. Say, if you bet more units on Pair Plus than on Ante/Play, you attempt to secure the edge more aggressively. A favored practice is to up your conservative ratio bets slowly while they are going well in order to get a headstart, and then get aggressive and start to fatten up the Pair Plus bets. At full payout, the house edge is a low of under 3 1/2% for Pair Plus, which is not worse than at any other poker table. Do not expect to live off your winnings on a $5 wager but the generous payouts should give you some kind of a pay hand maybe 25% of the time.
Optimal Ante/Play Strategy & Loss Limits
Optimal strategy in Ante/Play advises you to play within loss limits. That is, play hands that have negative expectations, namely, Q-6-4 through K-Q-10—as opposed to those with positive expectations, like Ace High or better . The logic goes that you stand to lose less by playing Q-6-4 or higher and lose more in forfeited ante bets by not playing it. The house advantage is an okay 3.4% for Ante/Play using optimal strategy on high-card-only hands, which is not a bad deal. You can lose 8.66% of your original bet yet win 5.29% on bonus payoffs. All in all, it can make a more beneficial hand in the long term, regardless of the bonus payout table.
You might wonder why optimal strategy begins with Q-6-4 and not, say, Q-7-3. Simply put, Q-7-3 is greater than Q-6-4. In poker, hands are always scored according to the highest card first, the second highest next, the third highest, and so forth, when more than three cards are involved. Between Q-6-4 and Q-7-3, the highest cards are both Queens and negate each other. The second highest cards are then scored to break the tie, in which case, a 7 beats a 6. The third highest cards do not matter in this case because the score is already resolved by the second ones. Q-6-4 is the borderline strategic hand because, if you raise on Q-6-3, you can expect to lose 1.00255 units, which is more than the 1 unit lost by folding. But if you raise on Q-6-4, the expected loss is .993378, which is less than the 1 unit lost by folding.
Raising on any Queen or better, also known as the mimic-the-dealer strategy, brings the house edge to 3.45%, which still is not bad although slightly higher than optimal strategy. Raising on everything, or playing blind, results in a house edge of 7.65%.
Related Pages: 3 Card Poker | 3 Card Poker Game Books | 3 Card Poker Game Sites | 3 Card Poker Game Strategy |
