Caribbean Poker

History

Nobody really knows how or where poker began; some say that its origins lie in a 16th century Persian card game, whilst others believe that it originated in Europe at the turn of the 19th century. One thing we can be sure of is that poker was brought to North America by French explorers, and that it was originally played in Louisiana. Many accounts name New Orleans of 1830 as the place and time where modern-day poker was first played. After being initially established, the game quickly spread from Louisiana and soon became a favorite in the West.

While we don't know who specifically invented Caribbean Stud Poker, the tropical version of the game, we do know that it originated on the island of Aruba. This popular tourist destination is just off the coast of Venezuela, and boasts a population of only 100,000. Caribbean Stud Poker is based on the rules of five-card stud poker, with the major difference being that players bet against the house, rather than other players.

Caribbean Stud Poker was initially played in the Holiday Inn Hotel & Casino in 1988, where the turquoise ocean and beaches of white sand provided a fitting motive for its exotic name. Now known as the Excelsior Casino, this location is still widely popular with tourists and forms the basis of a thriving community. It has recently been the focus of attention once more, with the World Poker Tour being held there in September 2005.

In the late 1980s, Caribbean Stud Poker spread throughout the islands of the Caribbean, and it was also offered in casinos on cruise ships in the area. Over the next few years it received an ever-growing reputation until, inevitably, it arrived in Las Vegas in 1992.

The gambling gurus in Nevada realized that the game wasn't quite rewarding enough to the player, so they added a progressive jackpot as a sweetener. Their plan worked, and the popularity of the game skyrocketed throughout North America and Europe. Nowadays, it's hard to find a casino in the world that doesn't offer Caribbean Stud Poker, and with the arrival of Internet gambling, everybody has a chance to play.

Rules

Caribbean Stud Poker is a popular casino table game that can be played at online or "bricks and mortars" casinos throughout the world.

Note there are a variety of payout tables for Caribbean Stud Poker and associated Progressive Jackpot. The tables listed on this rules page are the most commonly found payout tables in US land based casinos and many online casinos.

Betting

To play the player must make an ante bet in an amount between the set table minimum and maximum.

Deal

1) Cards are dealt from a standard deck of 52 cards to between 1 and 7 players.
2) Each player at the table who has made an ante bet receives 5 cards dealt face down. Each player is allowed to look at their own cards but is not allowed to share this information with other players.
3) The dealer is dealt 5 cards - 1 card face up, visible to all players, and 4 cards face down.

Play of Hand

1) Each player examines their hand and the dealer's up card to determine which one of the following 2 options to take.

• Fold - The player loses their ante bet and participates no further in the hand.
• Raise - The player places an addition wager of exactly two times the ante amount.

2) The dealer reveals his hand by turning over and exposing his 4 down cards.

Determining Winner

1) The dealer's hand is ranked according to standard poker hand rankings.
2) The dealer's hand is said to qualify if it is ranked high card with Ace/King kickers or better.
3) If the dealer does not qualify the player is paid even money (1 to 1) on the ante bet and pushes the raise bet. (ie player wins an amount equal to the ante bet).
4) If the dealer does qualify the player's hand ranking and dealer's hand ranking are compared and the result is as follows.

• Player's Hand Loses - Player loses ante and raise bets (ie an amount equal to 3 times the ante bet).
• Player's Hand Ties - The ante and raise bets are a push.
• Player's Hand Wins - The ante bet is paid even money (1 to 1) and the raise bet is paid according to the following table.

 

DEALERS UPCARD
Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Four of a Kind
Full House
Flush
Straight
Three of a Kind
Two Pairs
One Pair or Less

Strategy

Caribbean Stud Poker is one of the variations of poker. As the name suggests it comes from the Caribbean islands. It is very popular and can be found at the majority of the casinos and cruise ships in the Caribbean islands. The game has a lot of similarities with standard table poker. As far as the strategy is concerned, one of the best rules to play by is to raise on Ace-King-Jack-8-3 or better, and give up otherwise. Such situation is called the beacon hand and it is the lowest break even hand in the game. You must realize one thing about playing Caribbean poker at the online casino- that the dealer has to qualify in order for you to make the payoff. Unfortunately though, in Caribbean Poker this does not take place frequently. The great advantage of playing Caribbean poker is that it offers a huge payoff. And that is why people do their best to take their chances and play in spite of the slim odds of winning.

Caribbean Poker consists of two phases of betting. In the first phase, you bet in, before the cards are dealt by the dealer. After the dealer deals cards to you and himself, and reveals one of his cards, you either place a "call" bet or give up.

Payoff becomes interesting, when the dealer qualifies and you receive even money for your ante and your "call" pays out as follows:

As far as the odds go for Caribbean poker, the house has a 5.2 per cent edge over you and most of the time the dealer will only qualify 56 per cent of the time. This means that 46 per cent of the time you will only get paid for your ante bet. Due to this Caribbean poker is a very tough game to win at the online casino.

Probability

Removing the difficult elements of betting, raising, bluffing and playing against the entire table of players, Caribbean Stud Poker attracts many players who do not want to work on their individual poker skills. Caribbean Stud Poker allows you to play against the dealer only. Progressive jackpots for Royal Flush and Straight Flush hands have become extremely popular.

Hand Payoff Probability Royal Flush 100 to 1 0.0000015 Straight flush 50 to 1 0.0000139 Four of a kind 20 to 1 0.0002401 Full house 7 to 1 0.0014406 Flush 5 to 1 0.0019654 Straight 4 to 1 0.0039246 Three of a kind 3 to 1 0.0211285 Two pair 2 to 1 0.0475390 Pair 1 to 1 0.4225690 Ace/King 1 to 1 0.0643642

Hand Probability

It can really help your game if you know how often certain hands come up. Sure, anything can happen at the card table, but the following list will give you more of an advantage than if you didn't know any of the hand probabilities. I have rounded the numbers so we don't need to be mathematicians to understand the data.

A hand with nothing - once every 2 hands
One Pair - once every 2 hands
Two Pair - once every 21 hands
Three of a Kind - once every 47 hands
Straight - once every 256 hands
Flush - once every 526 hands
Full House - once every 694 hands
Four of a Kind - once every 4,167 hands
Straight Flush - once every 72,202 hands
Royal Flush - once every 649,351 hands

Looking at the data, we can easily see that our hands, and the dealer's hands, will likely be one pair or nothing at all. If you hand has nothing at all, you are playing according to the highest card. If that card is not so high, it's best to fold right away. Should your hand be at least one pair, you really have to play. The downside of the data is that the dealer is going to have a lot of non-qualifying hands, which means those nice hands will largely only get paid a flat ante fee.

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