Instructive Hand Examples of Caribbean Stud Poker

Published: July 31, 2014

In the game of Caribbean Stud Poker, you really only have one decision to make. You have to decide if you're going to fold your five-card hand or if you're going to raise and put your hand up against the dealer's. It's a game with fairly simple rules, but being able to play it on a very high level is pretty difficult. One of the best ways to learn this game is to walk through example hands, and we have three instructive hands that will show you exactly how to play this game in just about any situation you run into.

Our first situation is when you have 2259A with no flush up against a dealer who is showing a king. In this situation, you're going to raise and play your hand, and here's why. The cutoff point for raising is AK-high, so any hand that's AK-high and above you'll want to raise. Since you have a pair of twos, you're going to be raising no matter what the rest of your cards are and no matter what card the dealer is showing. This makes playing a lot of hands really easy on the raising front.

So here's another situation. Suppose you have AQT75 with no flush, and you're up against a 4. This is always a fold, though it doesn't actually matter what the dealer's card is. If you ever have a hand that's AQ-high or lower, which this hand is, then you always fold. Again, this makes a lot of hands easy to play because it becomes automatic to throw away the worst of your holdings. After these two guidelines, you only have one type of hand left to play, and that's when you have exactly AK-high.

Suppose you have AK984 with no flush, and the dealer has a 9, an 8 or a 4. You'll always raise because you hold a blocker to the dealer being able to make a pair, and this goes for any dealer card that is a queen or lower. You can also raise if the dealer's card doesn't match one of yours as long as it doesn't beat more than one of your cards, so any dealer card lower than an eight is something you'll also raise against, so overall, you'll raise against a 9 or lower in this particular hand. If it is an ace or king, then just raise if you have a queen or jack to go with your AK-high.