Global Sports: A Guide to Playing Casino Poker Tables

Friday, November 19, 2010

A Guide to Playing Casino Poker Tables

By Thomas Kearns


Walking up to a table in a small or major casino today requires an understanding of the game play, house rules, opponents and overall strategy. As you slowly approach the poker room in a casino, you'll walk past a variety of games including Pai Gow Poker, Caribbean Stud, Hold'em Tournaments as well as tables dedicated to Omaha and Hold'em. Being a highly observant player requires analyzing your competitors in advance of putting down your chips at a table - if you carefully select your position, learn your opponents and play with discipline then you can turn the advantage in your direction.

While traditional table poker games have a distinct house advantage, there are strategies that can help ensure you maximize your chances of winning and may even come out ahead when you factor in comps and other perks from the casino. Solid poker players, however, rely upon skill and intuition to play well at traditional competitive games where they are playing against other players rather than the house.

House Poker Games - Pai Gow and Caribbean Stud

Dealer games in casinos provide an opportunity to compete directly against the house, and have a dominant strategy in order to minimize your losses. As a general rule, house games always place the dealer at an advantage even when you play best strategies.

Pai gow, or double hand, poker played with a normal 52 card deck including a joker is one of the more popular games. There are six player positions, plus the dealer at the pai gow table. The game objective is to get a better hand than the banker. Players build two hands based on seven cards. One is a five card poker hand, the other a two card hand. When arranging the cards, the five card hand must be greater than the two card hand. Counts for the hands are based on normal poker rules, with jokers counting as aces or as a wild card to make a flush or straight. In order to win the players both hands must beat those of the dealer, and the dealer will win any tie hands. These rules provide a slight advantage to the house, and in some cases tables may require antes or commissions in order the give an even greater advantage to the house.

Also popular is Caribbean stud poker. In this table game, similar to stud poker, the players are dealt five cards and the dealer shows one of his cards. Players are not permitted to share hand information. After studying their hands player can place their bet (double their ante) or give up their initial bet (fold).Dealer hands at Ace-King or better are entered into play (or else the ante bets are returned) and the higest hand wins. This hand choice delivers a slight house advantage, but most players will choose to play all hands greater than Ace-King (at least a pair). Raising against a dealer's week hand when your are holding strong cards can also result in the best possible play.




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