Caribbean Hold’em Poker – also known as Casino Hold’em Poker – is a game that shares some similarities with Caribbean Stud. The goal of both games is to make a better hand than the dealer, with big hands paying out a special bonus.

• How To Play Caribbean Stud
• Caribbean Stud Poker Optimal Strategy
• Caribbean Poker Strategy
• Caribbean Poker Rules

However, Caribbean Hold’em revolves around the extremely popular Texas Hold’em form of poker, bringing some of the excitement of the popular poker room game into the world of casino table games. The game is licensed by Games Marketing Ltd.

How To Play Caribbean Stud

1. The following walkthrough is intended to teach newcomers to Caribbean Draw Poker how to play the game, before moving on to advanced concepts and proper strategy. Even if you’ve never played a hand of a table game before, this primer should leave you feeling knowledgeable about the rules, confident in your strategy, and ready to dive right.
2. Faced with a tricky decision whilst playing Caribbean Stud Poker Online? No problem, we're here to save the day with our Caribbean Stud Poker Strategy.

Player makes an ante wager plus an optional $1 progressive side bet. Each player and the dealer get five cards each. All cards are dealt face down, except one dealer card is exposed. The player may examine his own cards. Player must fold or raise. If player folds he forfeits his cards. Caribbean Stud Poker Strategy Your level of skill, how committed you are to the game, how often you play, and how much you want to bet when you play online will determine what kind of strategy is best for you to learn and take into the game when you are playing.

Practise Caribbean Hold´em Poker below

Guide To Caribbean Hold Em Poker

Rules and Hand Play

Each hand begins with the player making an ante bet. Both the player and the dealer are dealt a two-card hand, face down. The player may examine his own cards. The dealer will also deal ‘the flop’ and three community cards that both the player and the dealer can use.

At this point the player must make a decision as they may either fold or call. If the player folds, he must surrender his hand and loses the ante bet. If the player chooses to call they must make a second bet, twice the size of the ante bet.

The dealer now deals out two more community cards, which are known as the turn and the river in poker terms. After these cards are dealt the dealer then reveals his hand. Each player must make their best five-card poker hand using any combination of their cards and the community cards.

The dealer needs a pair of fours or better to qualify. If the dealer does not qualify, any player still in the hand wins their ante bet (see pay-outs below) and all call bets push.

If the dealer does qualify, then the dealer’s hand is compared to the player’s hand. If the dealer’s hand is better, then the player loses both the ante and call bets. If the player wins after the dealer qualifies then the call bet wins even money and the ante bet wins, according to the posted pay table. In the rare case of a tie, both bets push.

There are several different pay tables available for this game. However, the following is the most common, especially at online casinos. Winning ante bets typically pay-out as follows:

Pay Chart

Pay-Outs

Side bets are also common in Caribbean Poker. Many tables feature a progressive side bet that works similarly to that of the Caribbean Stud Poker progressive game. In fact, the game is identical as only the player’s first five cards – their two-card hand and the flop – are considered when paying the progressive side bet.

Pay-outs are typically similar to the following:

Another common side bet is the AA+ bet, in which the following pay-outs are again given, based on the strength of a player’s hand and the flop (in other words, before the turn and river are dealt):

The Quick Strategy

It is rarely correct to fold. In fact, according to analysis, a player should only fold 18 per cent of the time. This means folding only on very bad hands, like those where you hold low cards compared to the board and don’t have realistic flush or straight draws.

Using the most common pay table listed above, the house edge with optimal play is about 2.16 per cent. While it’s hard to quantify exactly what the optimal strategy is, you should be able to come very close to this figure simply by raising about the right percentage of hands.

Just like with the progressive side bet in Caribbean Stud Poker, the Caribbean Hold`em progressive jackpot is usually a bad bet for the player. However, if the jackpot gets quite large – usually somewhere over $200,000 – then the bet actually has a player advantage, and should be taken at every opportunity!

Caribbean Stud Poker Optimal Strategy

The AA+ side bet is also one you might want to avoid, as the house edge is over 6 per cent.

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:

1. - Player folds and loses their ante bet

2. - Player raises and wins only the ante bet because the dealer does not qualify

3. - Player raises and wins both the ante and the raise bet because the dealer qualified and the players hand beats the dealer's hand

4. - 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 a 'no-brainer'. If the player has a flush for instance, they will raise and hope the dealer qualifies. And there are times when it's obvious that the player must fold. For instance, when the player does not have a pair and no Ace or King in their hand. It's the times when a player's decision is not cut and dried that will determine whether or not they hold onto as much of their money as possible.

Let's start with pairs. Players should ALWAYS play ALL pairs regardless of the dealer's up card. 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 up card 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.

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%! 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:

Caribbean Poker Strategy

The reason the dealer's up card 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:

Also note, that the $1 Caribbean Stud progressive jackpot wager is a sucker bet and should not be made until the jackpot meter exceeds $263,000. Use this strategy the next time you play Caribbean Stud Poker and you will improve your chances of winning.

Caribbean Poker Rules

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