High Five Poker

Please preview the analysis of High Five Poker. Comments and feedback are welcomed.

Nice review, thanks! I should mention that JB gets all the credit as he spotted the game at Foxwoods, did the analysis, and wrote the review. Bravo for doing a perfect analysis in a game involving 14 cards, which is not easy.

Quote: JB

Please preview the analysis of High Five Poker. Comments and feedback are welcomed.

Thanks JB! I will comment quickly that I really like the 'Hit Frequency' stats in the analysis. I think most viewers find these interesting and the table view is great to have instead of doing the calculations yourself.

Thanks!

Looks good, JB.

Interesting game, Roger & company just keeps cranking them out. It's a game where you play the five-card "high side" of a PGP hand against the dealer's five-card high-side using a standard ANTE + Play structure, and can fold if you have a low pair of high-card hand. I do like the fact that a player's strong hand of a straight or better forces the dealer to qualify, and therefore get paid on both ANTE and PLAY.

As a table game, it does not look like a knock-out "killer app" like UTH, but another arrow in the quiver. It also seems like a gateway game to Pai Gow Poker, so good for that. Who knows what it'll do....

Quote: Paigowdan

Looks good, JB.

Interesting game, Roger & company just keeps cranking them out. It's a game where you play the five-card "high side" of a PGP hand against the dealer's five-card high-side using a standard ANTE + Play structure, and can fold if you have a low pair of high-card hand. I do like the fact that a player's strong hand of a straight or better forces the dealer to qualify, and therefore get paid on both ANTE and PLAY.

As a table game, it does not look like a knock-out "killer app" like UTH, but another arrow in the quiver. It also seems like a gateway game to Pai Gow Poker, so good for that. Who knows what it'll do....

I actually think the game has been around for a long time. I'm pretty sure I played this game very briefly at Foxwoods 4 or 5 years ago, but I didn't stay long because the dealer was a prick. I was only playing the main bet, not the side bet, as were a couple of the other people at the table. The dealer insisted that you should only play the side bet and not the main bet. He then proceeded to qualify and win several hands in a row, and reiterated his position after each dealer win. I colored up and left after the "You can lead a horse to water..." comment.

I played it on my recent visit and the dealer was a very friendly girl in her mid 20s. She was fantastic, very friendly and talkative. We talked about pai gow tiles a bit, and she said she had just gone through its training classes and would start dealing it in the near future. I hope I get to play pai gow at her table on my next visit.

Yes, in a form that is almost the same.
Something remarkably similar to it has been out for ages, called 7-card thrill by Henry Lo. It went utterly nowhere. Same basic game, minus the ANTE & Play structure; dealers needs KQxxx to qualify, KJxxx or lower pays 50% . It was tried at my casino Fiesta Henderson, in May, 2001.

I'm familiar with (the story behind) 7-card thrill, but High Five Poker itself has been at Foxwoods for at least 4 or 5 years. They are very similar, in fact, the game I was first going to compare H5P to was 7-card thrill, but decided to say it was a mixture of 3CP and PGP instead.

Quote: JB

I'm familiar with (the story behind) 7-card thrill, but High Five Poker itself has been at Foxwoods for at least 4 or 5 years. They are very similar, in fact, the game I was first going to compare H5P to was 7-card thrill, but decided to say it was a mixture of 3CP and PGP instead.

Very apt description, it's 7-card thrill with the 3CP betting structure.
I don't see how SMI can really push H5P outside of niches very hard, if H5P takes off, operators can just install the cheapie. And 7-card thrill is cheaper for the player to play. In this case, operators can essentially say, "same game, cheaper verson."
I know that our "Weekend Night" overflow pit of 10 tables or so has all public domain side bets on BJ. The only proprietary games in this second table games pit are the Fire Bet on the second crap table, and the second EZ Pai Gow table [aka "the Excellent game..."]. All others are standard Roulette, and BJ + freebie side bets.

Nice write up JB, no prob. here. Interesting game.

Had always hoped that the "Deadwood" game would make a comeback or get a historical page. Played it in the early days of Foxwoods 91-94.
Bonus hand was two Black 8's, two Black Aces, and the 9-diamonds. As luck would have it, I got dealt the 9-hearts with the "Dead-man's Hand".
Serious bonus tho getting the 9.

Where at Foxwoods can this game be found?

For the record, High Five Poker was invented by Ken Perrie, who has created many games in his career. Ken is a former employee at Foxwoods who now works for the Seminoles in Florida. Cool guy. Cool game.

Quote: 24Bingo

Where at Foxwoods can this game be found?

In the Grand Pequot casino: if you stand right in front of the cashier cage with your back facing it, the game is on the left end of one of the rows of the table games that are in front of you (I think it is the second row). It is on the side where the dealer faces the cashier cage, not away from it.

Quote: Pacman

For the record, High Five Poker was invented by Ken Perrie, who has created many games in his career. Ken is a former employee at Foxwoods who now works for the Seminoles in Florida. Cool guy. Cool game.

Interesting, thank you.

Utterly perfect, where is the casino located with the first paytable for the side bet? It's odd to see a side bet with a lower HE than that on the ante.

Quote: Mission146

Utterly perfect, where is the casino located with the first paytable for the side bet? It's odd to see a side bet with a lower HE than that on the ante.

I don't know if there is one. I included that paytable because it is listed in the PDF on Washington state's web site.

Three Card Poker is the same way: the original 1-4-6-30-40 Pair Plus paytable had a lower house edge than the ante bet, but it was not lower than the ante bet's element of risk (which is the better figure to use for that comparison). Likewise, the 2.62% paytable has a lower house edge than the ante bet, but it is not lower than the ante bet's 2.13% element of risk.

Quote: JB

I don't know if there is one. I included that paytable because it is listed in the PDF on Washington state's web site.

Three Card Poker is the same way: the original 1-4-6-30-40 Pair Plus paytable had a lower house edge than the ante bet, but it was not lower than the ante bet's element of risk (which is the better figure to use for that comparison). Likewise, the 2.62% paytable has a lower house edge than the ante bet, but it is not lower than the ante bet's 2.13% element of risk.

That's an excellent point, but still a better HE than 00 Roulette. I just find that phenomenal for a Side Bet.

Last night I saw two tables of this off to the side in the Asian room at the Horseshoe in Hammond. Not open yet, but I'll post which side bet paytable they are using when they do.