3 card poker

Can anybody explain the workings of 3 card poker, and should I play ?

https://wizardofodds.com/threecardpoker

This is the other site of the Wizard. Have fun. I'd also recommend that you play one of the free games before playing it for real.

Three-card poker is a "baby's" game. It's mindless fun, if you're a beginner. Soon, you will get sick of losing your money and move on to the "real man's" games of Blackjack and Craps :)

Basically you are dealt three cards and must make a poker hand out of those three cards only. You can choose to bet your hand or fold (you have already put up an ante). Straight is higher than a flush in this game. If you beat the dealer, you get paid on your bet. If you beat the dealer and she has a queen or higher, you get paid on the ante as well.

Almost everybody plays the "pair plus" which is a generally horrible bonus bet that (short) pays you for getting various hands like three of a kind and straight flush.

Should you play? I would say no. But lots of people find it fun, and I can't say you shouldn't gamble at all, since the point is to have fun.

It's not the worst table game out there, but it is mindless: simply raise on a Q-6-4 or better. Look for the best table on the pairs plus (1-4-6-30-40), bonus (1-4-5), HA 2.32%. Stay away from 1-3-6 games as they will have a HA at about 7% and will really kill your bankroll.

Because you only get a pair or higher 25.6% of the time, expect to go down alot in this game. You will only get a flush or better on about 8.5% of hands.

The HA on the regular game is 3.37% with an element of risk of 2.01%.

So on a $10 table with pairs plus and the ante, at 30 hands per hour, expect to lose: .0232 x 300 + .337 x 300 = $17.07/hr.

If I need some mindless fun I will play this game but only for a limited time.

I've never seen this game but I'm sure others on the forum have. Victor Luck (as he calls himself, because he has nothing but bad luck) says he has the best luck of any table game on this table game just playing the Pair Plus and the 6 Card Bonus Bets. Which is funny, because according to him he's playing with a house edge of over 7%, so those flushes on the Pair Plus Bets must be adding up! He's betting $25 on the 6 Card Bonus Bet which may be the table limit so if it wins the jackpot it will pay $25,000. He's betting $100 on the Pair Plus Bet which could pay up to $4,000 on a top hand if there was one. He didn't play Ante or Play Bets so I didn't see how that works. I'll have to read the link earlier in the thread in the Wizard's article about how the game is played. I'm pretty sure there's nothing but $25 tables of this game near me in this pandemic era.

Of course, I used to play, so I'll tell you what I know)

Just like in traditional poker, hand ranking is used here, but in 3 Card Poker, you only have three cards.

To get your three cards, you place an Ante bet.

After looking at your cards, you have two options:
Play: Place a Play bet equal to your Ante bet.
Fold: Place an Ante bet if you don't think your hand will beat the dealer's hand.

If you decide to play, the dealer reveals his or her cards.
The dealer must have a queen or higher to qualify. If not, you win the same amount of money as the Ante bet and the Play bet is equalized.

If the dealer qualifies and your hand beats the dealer's, you win both the Ante and Play bets.
If the dealer qualifies but your hand loses, you lose both bets.
If you and the dealer tie, both bets push.
Some casinos offer bonus payouts for specific hands, like a straight or better.

Quote: ChumpChange

I've never seen this game but I'm sure others on the forum have. Victor Luck (as he calls himself, because he has nothing but bad luck) says he has the best luck of any table game on this table game just playing the Pair Plus and the 6 Card Bonus Bets. Which is funny, because according to him he's playing with a house edge of over 7%, so those flushes on the Pair Plus Bets must be adding up! He's betting $25 on the 6 Card Bonus Bet which may be the table limit so if it wins the jackpot it will pay $25,000. He's betting $100 on the Pair Plus Bet which could pay up to $4,000 on a top hand if there was one. He didn't play Ante or Play Bets so I didn't see how that works. I'll have to read the link earlier in the thread in the Wizard's article about how the game is played. I'm pretty sure there's nothing but $25 tables of this game near me in this pandemic era.

Pffft on this guy’s strategy.

I was playing about 6 months ago at Borgata, and having pretty bad luck (because there is only one decision, and it isn’t hard, so it’s pretty much luck against the edge). I play PP (because I like variance more than odds), and ante, but not the 6 Card, because the variance is so high it will just chew up your bank before you ever hit anything. Anyhow, to get to the story part, the guy next to me was really drunk and just killing that 6 Card bet. Full house, 4oak, straights, etc. Big stack of blacks. And when he left to go to the bathroom I was talking to the dealer and I said that he has had some really good luck on that bet. And the dealer scoffed and said, “Yeah, THIS time. But he usually loses everything.”

Three Card is fun enough. The typical PP pay table is about a 7% edge, but straights and flushes hit often enough to keep it fun, and 3oak and SFs aren’t so uncommon that you’d never see one. If you stick to Ante/Play the element of risk is about 2.38% I think, but PP is where the fun is. Stick to $10 and it’s a nice way to blow a couple hours. Raise on Q-6-4 or higher, that’s all you need to know, so you can have a few drinks and not lose your train of thought.

I’m not AP, but I’ve found some flashers when I’ve sat closest to the shoe.

I cruised by a few far away casinos last week and found some $5 tables, but they had signs that the Pairs Plus bet could not be more than the ante bet, so that rules out the antics Victor was using of skipping the ante. I didn't play the game. If I'm trying to skip tax forms, I'd skip the 6 Card Bonus bet. There was only a $25K max payout so I'd better be ready with green chips for that bet if I'm gonna try it. The table max for the ante and other bets was $100.

Most pay tables for the 6 card bet range from 14% to 19% house edge. There are a couple that are around 10%, but I’ve never seen those in a casino.

Locally we can play just the PP, and we have a button bet of $1 that pays a progressive, paying on a 3 card royal in spades. Many people play one had ante/PP, and a second hand just PP.

On the video 3 card poker machines you could just not play pp. You had to be ante if you wanted to play pp. Sometimes just like play pp.

I found the game on the Wizard's site at https://wizardofodds.com/play/three-card-poker/
I started out with a $10,000 bankroll but kept my bets to a minimum to get a feel for the game. I tried betting just $10 on the Ante bet with a matching Play bet when called for and lost nearly $300 fairly quickly. So I switched it up to $15 on the Ante and $5 on the Pair Plus bet and $15 on the Play bet when called for. I won my $300 back but lost a couple hundred back. Then this happened. I won a straight flush vs a flush. I had a mini-Royal. I wonder if some tables pay for mini-Royals. The Wiz's site has no 6 Card bet. No 5 card Royal was won here. A 5 card straight flush (non-Royal) pays 200 to 1 or on a $5 6 Card Bonus bet would pay $200.
My $15 Ante bet paid $15 + $75; my Play bet paid $15; my $5 Pair Plus bet paid $200; and my $35 wager came back for a total of $340 Win in the box shown. That $1 progressive would have paid off whatever it was worth, but it hit very early.


I played a handful of hands more, like 5 maybe and hit 3 of a kind.
My $15 Ante bet paid $15 + $60; my Play bet paid $15; my $5 Pair Plus bet paid $150; and my $35 wager came back for a total of $275 Win in the box shown.


I doubled my bets and played for another half hour before I hit another 3 of a kind for myself. It was the same straight flush!
My $30 Ante bet paid $30 + $120; my Play bet paid $30; my $10 Pair Plus bet paid $300; and my $70 wager came back for a total of $550 Win in the box shown.


10 minutes later I hit a second straight flush!
My $30 Ante bet paid $30 + $150; my Play bet paid $30; my $10 Pair Plus bet paid $400; and my $70 wager came back for a total of $680 Win in the box shown.


3 hands later I hit another straight flush. I had increased my Pair Plus bet to half of the ante bet or upped it $5 to $15.
My $30 Ante bet paid $30 + $150; my Play bet paid $30; my $15 Pair Plus bet paid $600; and my $75 wager came back for a total of $885 Win in the box shown.


My computer crashed or shutdown involuntarily so when I got back my game had started over. I started out betting $50 on the Ante and Play bets and $25 on the Pair Plus bet. Within 10 minutes I hit another 3 of a kind. Real time table conditions would be much much slower.
My $50 Ante bet paid $00 (Dealer did not qualify) + $200; my Play bet paid $50; my $25 Pair Plus bet paid $750; and my $125 wager came back for a total of $1,125 Win in the box shown. I came back up $50 short of even.


When my Pair Plus bet is half of my Ante bet and I get a Flush but lose to the Dealer, at least I get a Push out of it and win back my total bet amount.
$25 Pair Plus bet pays $100 for a $125 Win with the winning wager returned. Total wagers were $125.


Flushes pay 4 to 1 in this old school game. Las Vegas tables have been lowered to 3 to 1. But if you're outside of Vegas, look for 4 to 1 payouts.

I upped my bets to $100 on the Ante/Play and $50 on the Pairs Plus. I was on quite the losing streak but hit 3 of a kind to get back to even.
My $100 Ante bet paid $100 + $400; my Play bet paid $100; my $50 Pair Plus bet paid $1,500; and my $250 wager came back for a total of $2,350 Win in the box shown.

Don't most places pay 3-1 for the flush? When the game came out, it was 4-1 but that quickly disappeared. Is it back?

Yes, Victor said in the video that the flush pays 3 to 1 in most of Las Vegas but you should keep an eye out elsewhere for tables that pay 4 to 1 for the flush. I didn't check my local tables yet so I don't know. He also said the 6 Card Bonus payout for a 5 card flush is 15 to 1 in Las Vegas and if you're elsewhere you should look for 20 to 1. On another video by another vlogger I saw a 6 Card Bonus for the 3 of a kind at 7 to 1 instead of 5 to 1.

I'm not aware of any 4-1 tables. The Pioneer in Laughlin kept it longer than anyone else, but they closed their tables down a few years ago.

I'm not aware of any 4-1 tables. The Pioneer in Laughlin kept it longer than anyone else, but they closed their tables down a few years ago.

I haven’t seen 4/1 at 3CP in years. The last holdout I know of was Borgata’s PP bet attached to Let It Ride, but that went to 3/1 about 5 years ago. That PP not only paid 4/1 for a flush, but also paid 100/1 for a mini Royal, making it the best PP bet in the country. But it’s gone now.

Quote: ChumpChange

I found the game on the Wizard's site….

That’s a lot of 3OAKs and SFs in a short time! At a table, you might see that, and then not see another of either for months. I’ve hit 3OAK on back to back hands, and SFs twice in one session; Mrs Mosca hit a SF on her very first hand of 3CP. But I’ve also sat down and lost all my money without getting even a pair, many times.

Moneywise, it’s best played as ante/play only, but that’s a grind, and the game isn’t any fun like that; if you’re going to grind, blackjack has more action, is faster, and has better odds. And the extra bets will drain your bankroll really fast, even at the casinos with the $1 button bet for the progressive. But the progressive turns positive somewhere around $10k. And you don’t want to be sitting there smiling while everyone else gets paid the envy bonus! So I play ante/play, PP, and the $1 button when I’m at a casino that has it, and I skip 5 card and 6 card bonus bets because the $5 minimum on those drains my bank to quickly to overcome the odds/variance.

If I'm stuck waiting for an open spot at the $10/$15 BJ table, I can try the $5/$10 3 Card Poker Table in the meantime.
If the table minimum is $10, can the Pairs Plus bet be $5 or does it have to be $10?

Quote: ChumpChange

If I'm stuck waiting for an open spot at the $10/$15 BJ table, I can try the $5/$10 3 Card Poker Table in the meantime.
If the table minimum is $10, can the Pairs Plus bet be $5 or does it have to be $10?
link to original post

Most places will allow $5. The bet isn’t required.

MGM casinos won’t let you bet just the PP, which puzzles me. Ante/play is about 2.5% edge, PP is about 7.5% edge. They should ENCOURAGE PP alone! Mohegan Pocono lets you play two hands of just PP!

The Wizard's game allows just the Pair Plus bet. But I can win a 3 of a kind bet and lose it all with no pairs following.

I played a session at $10 Ante/Play & $5 on Pair Plus and lost $750. So if I win that kind of money playing BJ and have it to spare, that's when I might play this game.

My biggest hit on the 6 card bet was 4 kings. I had 2 kings and so did the dealer. Was playing $25 pp and 6 card. Only played for 4 hands as I was leaving.nice to hit at the end. Of all places this was horseshoe Cincy and they had the million for 6 card straight flush in diamonds A-9

I found one casino that pays 40, 30, 6, 4, 1 on the Pairs Plus for a 2.32% HA & 1,000, 200, 100, 20, 15, 10, 5 for the 6 Card Bonus for an 8,56% HA. They had a $15 minimum with a $5 minimum for the side bets. If I play, I'd play here.
Another casino pays 40, 30, 6, 3, 1 on the Pairs Plus for a 7.28% HA & 1,000, 200, 50, 25, 20, 10, 5 for the 6 Card Bonus for a 15.28% HA. I assume they had $25 minimums but I was there when all the tables were closed. I'll be sure to not play this game here! At least I have a choice.