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| Best online casino / Online casino games / Caribbean stud |
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By its very nature Caribbean Stud Poker is not especially favorable for the player, when Las Vegas casinos first added Caribbean Stud Poker; they needed to include a progressive jackpot sweetener. In truth the jackpot doesn't benefit the Caribbean Stud Poker player that much but it has helped to make the game popular enough to become a pretty standard not only in Nevada, but in casinos all over the country.
Something tells me if Caribbean Stud Poker was actually called Jamaican Stud Poker they would be more laid back about such things as the house advantage. Caribbean Stud comes from the more anal retentive of the vacation islands so it has a built-in house advantage of 5.26%. So for every $100 a player wagers, in the long run they should lose $5.26. There are ways to tip the odds to something that is closer to 50/50 than the current 55.26/44.74.
The most critical decision a player faces is whether to fold or raise their bet once the cards are dealt. There are four possible outcomes that result from this decision:
• Player folds and loses their ante bet;
• Player raises and wins only the ante bet because the dealer does not qualify;
• Player raises and wins both the ante and the raise bet because the dealer qualified and the players hand beats the dealer's hand;
• Player raises and loses both the ante bet and the raise bet because the dealer qualified and the dealer's hand beats the player's hand.
Some of the time the decision to raise is an easy one. If the player has a Flush, for instance, they will raise and hope the dealer qualifies. There are other times when the decision to fold is equally easy. For instance, when the player does not have a Pair and no Ace or King in their hand, it would be best to simply give up and fold the cards. A large percentage of the time the decision is not that black and white, and the player needs to navigate around in a whole bunch of gray.
So what do you do when you have a pair? Automatically folding is the wrong answer here. Players should always play all pairs regardless of the dealer's upcard. Pairs are dealt out a little more then 42% of the time. Of the thirteen possible pairs, seven of them have a positive expectation, meaning they should win more times than they lose in the long run. Three of the possible pairs have a positive expectation when the dealer's upcard is equal to or lower than the player's pair. Lastly, there are only three pairs that are expected to lose in the long run (2's, 3's and 4's). Therefore, ten of the thirteen possible pair combinations should show a profit and three should not.
This idea that all pairs should played seems contradictory to with the fact that 2s, 3s, and 4s lose in the long run. So why not just avoid playing the small pairs? If a player folds these pairs and forfeits their ante bet, the house advantage jumps to 7%. Their advantage is already big enough, why make it bigger? Since any player or the dealer can expect to be dealt a hand containing a pair over 42% of the time, that means the dealer will have a non-paired hand over 50% of the time. Also the dealer will actually qualify with an Ace-King hand around 6 percent of the time. During these times, the player will win both their ante bet and their raise bet.
Now let's look at non-paired hands. Players should fold all non-paired hands that do not contain an Ace and a King. Players should raise when they hold an Ace and a King under the following conditions:
| Player's Hand |
Dealer's Upcard |
| A-K-Q-J-x |
Any |
| A-K-Q-x-x |
Must match one of players cards |
| A-K-J-x-x |
Must match one of players
cards |
| A-K-10-x-x |
Must match one of players cards
|
The reason the dealer's upcard must match one of the player's cards is to reduce the chance of the dealer having a pair.
Here is the complete chart of when the player should make the raise bet:
| Player's Hand |
Dealer's Upcard |
| Any Pair |
Any Upcard |
| A-K-Q-J-x |
Any Upcard |
| A-K-Q-x-x |
Must match one of players
cards |
| A-K-J-x-x |
Must match one of players cards
|
| A-K-10-x-x |
Must match one of players cards
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