Caribbean Stud Strategy

Caribbean Stud Poker can be a great casino game to play with friends. It carries over the feel from the poker table onto the casino floor, and everyone gets to root against the dealer together. There’s even the chance for a big progressive jackpot if you can make a huge hand.

To get the most from this great game, however, you’ll need to know some basic Caribbean Stud strategy. The key thing to remember is that you get to raise or fold based on three pieces of information. One, you know your own hand; the stronger your hand, the more likely you should be to keep it. Two, you know the dealer’s strategy; they will only play with a hand of ace-king high or better. Three, you know one of the dealer’s cards, which can help you when you need to make decisions on the hands that are close.

Most of basic Caribbean Stud strategy only requires you to follow two simple rules. First, if you have any pair or better, always raise. Secondly, if you have a hand that’s less than what the dealer would qualify with, always fold. These two rules will cover the vast majority of your hands, leaving you with very few tough decisions to make at the table.

Caribbean Stud strategy gets a little complicated when you hold a hand of ace-king high, however. In these cases, playing perfectly is nearly impossible, but a few more rules can be used to simplify the process as much as possible without increasing the casino’s advantage significantly.

First, it’s usually a good idea to raise if the dealer’s face up card matches one of your cards other than the ace or the king, since this makes it less likely that the dealer holds a pair. If the dealer himself is showing an ace or a king, you should consider raising if you hold high cards along with your ace king, since you’ll have a good chance of beating a weaker ace-king hand the dealer might hold. Finally, if most of your cards are higher than the dealer’s up card, that should make you more likely to raise.

If that feels like too much to remember, relax: in reality, none of the ace-king strategy adjustments matter too much. The house edge with perfect Caribbean Stud strategy is about 5.2% (of the original bet, not the total after raising), while several other strategies increase the house edge by only a few tenths of a percent or less. If you raise only with pairs or better, raise every ace-king hand, raise with ace-king only if you can match the dealer’s up card, or anything in between, you won’t change the house edge significantly. As long as you follow the two golden rules – raise with pairs and better, fold hands worse than ace-king – you’ll do just fine.

Another important part of Caribbean Stud strategy is figuring out whether or not to take the progressive side bet. This bet usually pays out various amounts for hands that make a flush or better. The progressive payouts only happen for straight flushes, which get 10% of the jackpot, and royal flushes, which take the entire jackpot.

For the most part, like almost all side bets, the Caribbean Stud progressive jackpot is a sucker bet. However, if the jackpot becomes exceptionally large, the odds can actually turn in the player’s favor! Of course, your odds of making a royal flush would still be extremely low, but overall, the game would actually be worth playing. While the “breakeven” point varies based on the specific payouts offered, it usually occurs somewhere between $150,000 and $300,000. If the pay chart doesn’t give a progressive payout for straight flushes, and instead offers a flat amount, this number usually goes up; conversely, if it offers even a small percentage of the jackpot for four of a kind, the breakeven point is much lower. Of course, since it doesn’t cost much money to play the progressive jackpot game, you can always simply look at it like buying a lottery ticket – the odds may be long, but at least you have a shot at winning!