3 Card Poker Casino Game Free Lessons
Three-Card Poker Strategy
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.
Related Pages: 3 Card Poker Game Books | 3 Card Poker Game Sites | 3 Card Poker Strategy | 3 Card Poker Game |