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Three Card Poker, there is no
doubt that it's the top proprietary game of all
time. It will probably stay that way for a while,
too. There is, however, for the first time, the
prospects of a new game coming up from behind which
might just someday take the title away from Three
Card Poker.
Four Card Poker was
invented by Roger Snow, Manager of Table Games for
Shuffle Master. It made its debut about a year ago
in California, and in just a year has grown to more
than 130 tables across the country. You can find
tables in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and soon in
Connecticut (Mohegan Sun).
Four Card Poker is an
intriguing game. First of all, the name is a bit of
a misnomer. You try and make the best possible Four
card hand from the FIVE cards you are dealt. The
Dealer gets his advantage from the fact that he gets
SIX cards to make his best Four Card hand, although
one of his cards is dealt up.
The game bears some
similarities to Three Card Poker in there are two
distinct games being played. The first, called Aces
Up, is like Pair Plus. It pays if the Player is
dealt at least a Pair of Aces. There are a variety
of paytables that are available for use by the
casinos but at the moment, the most popular one (50/
40/ 8/ 6/ 4/ 2/ 1) in use, leaves a bit to be
desired in terms of payback. The payback of this
paytable is only 95.76%.
The second wager is
called Ante/Play and pits the Player's hand directly
against the Dealer's hand. Unlike Three Card Poker,
the Dealer does not need his hand to qualify. This
means if you're dealt a big hand, and the dealer is
dealt junk, you're still going to get your big
payout. Once you've seen your cards and the Dealer's
up card, you can either 'Fold' forfeiting your Ante,
or 'Play', placing an additional bet up to 3x your
original Ante. This allows you to really sock it to
the House when you've got a big hand. Additionally,
if you have one of the top 3 hands - Four of a Kind,
Straight Flush or Three of a Kind, you'll get an
additional bonus payout.
Fortunately, Ante/Play
is far more competitive than Aces Up. Ante/Play
returns 98.4+% payback. If you follow Shuffle
Master's 'basic' strategy, you can get about 98.4%
payback. This isn't quite equivalent to most
full-pay video poker machines, but it does beat out
most other Table Games, and gives the Player a
respectable chance at leaving a winner.
Players should be
advised, however, that the betting structure of Four
Card Poker does leave the game a bit more volatile
than similar games. As Roger Snow put it 'One of
three things typically happens. One, you double up.
Two, you get crushed. Three, both one and two, and
not necessarily in that order.'
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