Three Card Poker - Rules

At the start of each hand players must place their bets. Players may bet on either pairplus or ante-and-play or both. Each player is then dealt three cards face down.

Pairplus is a simple bet on the cards you hope to receive and involves no strategy at all. If you get a pair or above you will get paid off according to the following table. Note that the hand rankings in three card poker are different to other forms of poker, with three of a kind being paid much better than a flush, for example.

Payouts vary, but a typical table would be as follows:

Straight Flush: 40 to 1
Three of a Kind: 30 to 1
Straight: 6 to 1
Flush: 4 to 1
Pair: 1 to 1

Ante- and-Play is slightly different in that players have to make a decision. Having seen his cards a player must decide whether or not he wants to continue. If a player likes his cards he must match his ante bet with another bet of equal value (called the ‘play’ bet), otherwise he can fold his cards and lose the ante bet.

If a player chooses to continue there are three possible outcomes. First the dealer may not qualify. To qualify a dealer must have a queen high or better. If he doesn’t then the player’s ante bet is paid out even money, but his matching ‘play’ bet is simply returned.

If the dealer does qualify then the player wins if his hand is better than the dealers, and is paid out even money on both his ante bet and his play bet. If the dealer wins he takes both bets.

Strategy for ante-and-play is extremely simple. You should continue with Q-6-x or better and fold with anything worse. Strictly speaking the cut off point is Q-6-4, ie: you should continue with Q-6-4 and fold with Q-6-3, but it will make little difference to your overall win rate if you stick with Q-6-x. The rest is down to luck!