Winning Hands In Poker Game

The various card combinations that produce winning hands are the same as in regular poker. Let It Ride uses one standard 52-card deck with no wild cards. The value of a hand depends on which of the fol lowing card combinations it contains, listed in order from the highest to the lowest.

Royal Flush: Five consecutive cards, ten through ace, all of the same suit. Simply stated, it is an ace-high straight flush. This is the highest- value hand in Let It Ride. The odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 649,740 hands. Straight Flush: Five consecutive cards, all of the same suit. The odds of getting a straight flush (excluding a royal flush) are 1 in 72,193 hands. Four-of-a-kind: Four cards of the same rank. The fifth card is unrelated to the others. The odds of being dealt four-of-a-kind are 1 in 4,165 hands.

Full House: Three cards of the same rank and two cards of another rank, that is, three-of-a-kind and a pair. The odds of getting a full house are 1 in 694 hands. Flush: Five cards of the same suit, not in sequence. The odds of getting a flush are 1 in 509 hands. Straight: Five consecutive cards of mixed suits. An ace may be either the lowest card as in A 2345 or the highest card as in 10 J Q K A. The odds of getting a straight are 1 in 255 hands.

Three-of-a-kind: Three cards of the same rank. The remaining two cards are unrelated. The odds of getting three-of-a-kind are about 1 in 47 hands. Two Pair: A pair of one rank and a pair of another rank. The fifth card is unrelated. The odds of getting two pair are about 1 in 21 hands. One Pair: Two cards of the same rank. The three remaining cards are unrelated. The odds of getting any pair are about 1 in 2.4 hands. The lowest winning hand in Let It Ride is a pair of tens. The odds of getting a pair of tens or any better hand is 1 in 1.63.

Poker game in California

The casino rule is that you are not supposed to show your cards to any other players. Is there any advantage to seeing other players’ cards? Only for the banker, and especially if the banker is another player. Theoretically, there is no advantage to the dealer because she has to set her hand strictly according to unvarying house rules. However, there is no assurance to the player that this always happens. It would, without a doubt, be a tremendous advantage for a player to see the banker’s cards, but this is unlikely to ever happen.

Of course, the rule is broken whenever a player asks the dealer for help in setting his hand. This gives the banker/player a look at what he has to beat. It doesn’t matter as much at a full table, because if the banker I player breaks strategy rules to beat the exposed hand, he might end up losing against more of the other hands. With only two or three players, however, there is a clear advantage.

OVERCOMING THE HOUSE EDGE

Aside from blackjack, Pai Cow Poker is the only casino game in which it is theoretically possible to overcome the house edge. The modifier theoretical is used because from a practical standpoint, beating the house is not easy to do. However, because it is possible, this is a subject that needs to be addressed.

The theoretical possibility of beating the house is due to the fact that a banker / player in Pai Cow Poker can have as much as a 0.4% edge over the house under optimum conditions. Most of the time the advantage probably comes closer to 0.2%, but it is still an advantage. Besides winning all copy hands, the other benefit is that the 5% rake is applied to the net aggregate win (wins minus losses) instead of each individual win. Since a player usually gets the opportunity to bank on every seventh hand, how is it possible to overcome the player’s negative expectation of 2.5 to 2.8%? It ain’t easy!
Obviously, the only way to overcome the house edge in Pai Cow Poker is by trying to bank as often as possible. And that alone is not enough. The following conditions are necessary to have any chance of overcoming the house edge:

• A table in which the other players are betting heavily— considerably above the table minimum.
• A table in which the players are all declining the bank and the dealer is willing to let you bank every second or third hand.

This situation is no longer easy to find.

• When not banking, you should wager no more than the table minimum.

When the above conditions are optimal, the long-term expectation can actually become positive. To succeed, however, you must fully understand the best playing strategy and your bankroll must be large enough to sustain potential losses when banking the game.

CONCLUSION

Having gotten its start in the cardrooms of California, Pai Gow Poker is really a gambler’s game. Nevada upped the rake to 5% so it is more difficult to beat the edge, even for a player who banks a lot. Yet, if you never take the bank, the house edge is only 2.85%, assuming you play correctly. Because all the betting is at even money and there are so many pushes, your bankroll will not fluctuate excessively. All in all, the game is a fun and leisurely experience that will not drain your bankroll at an excessive rate. Although the strategy can get somewhat complicated, Pai Cow Poker is basically a very easy game to play.