Three Card Poker Strategy for Expert Players

Published: November 20, 2014

If you are the type of person to take strategic games very seriously, then you maybe decide that you want to become an expert player at Three Card Poker. We want to show you how to go about doing that. The first step is to understand the rules. First off, you're going to post your ante bet. Note that you'll never make the pairplus bet because it has such a horrible payout rate. You'll get three cards with the option to fold or raise. Raising adds another bet the same size as your ante. From there, the dealer has a chance to qualify, and you get payouts accordingly.

First thing's first: You need to know the order of three-card poker hands because they're different than five-card poker hands. In order of strength, it goes high-card hands, one pair, flush, straight, three of a kind and straight flush. The strongest hand is AKQ of the same suit which can be called a royal flush, but it doesn't typically get its own payout in Three Card Poker, so there's not much use in giving it a distinct name. Now that you understand the gameplay, there are two scenarios you need to know about.

The first rule about strategy is that in Three Card Poker without any special rules, you'll need to remember the hand Q64. If you have Q64-high or better, then you raise. If you have Q63-high or worse, then you fold. You need to learn how to read high card hands. For example, Q72 is better than Q64. Once you can do this, you only have to learn to play one specific type of special hand to be an expert at this game. We're going to break down this special hand in what follows.

In some Three Card Poker games, the player wins when the hands tie. Hands very rarely tie, but there is a strategic adjustment that you'll need to make. If you have Q63, then you will raise as long as all three of the suits of the cards are different. For example, you would raise on Qc6s3d, but you'd fold on Qc6c3d. This happens because of the chances of flushes coming up, and this is a particularly borderline play. Only experts know to make this play when the players win ties rule is in effect, and that's why you need to learn it.