10JILI How to Play 3 Card Poker, Step by Step

Knowing how to play 3 card poker takes one short read: two wagers, three cards each and a single fold-or-raise decision. It is the entry game of the online poker Philippines overview, where card games split into house-banked tables and player-versus-player tables. Three Card Poker is a house-banked table, so you play against the dealer, not against other people.

How to Play 3 Card Poker in Five Steps

Follow this order on every hand.

1. Place your Ante on the Ante spot. A Pair Plus is optional.
2. Look at your three cards while the dealer’s three stay face down.
3. Fold and forfeit the Ante, or raise with a Play bet equal to the Ante.
4. The dealer turns over three cards and needs queen high or better to qualify.
5. Settle the wagers. If the dealer qualifies, the higher hand wins even money; if not, the Ante wins and the Play bet is returned.

The rules above follow the Wizard of Odds page for Three Card Poker. Your table’s rules screen is the final word on its own pay table.

Ante, Play and the Fold-or-Raise Choice

The Ante is your entry wager. After you see your cards you have exactly two choices, and no others:

• Fold: you forfeit the Ante and the hand ends for you.
• Raise: you add a Play bet, and it must equal your Ante exactly.

A worked example, with a made-up stake: you ante ₱100 and raise. You now have ₱100 on the Ante and ₱100 on Play, ₱200 in all. Folding would have cost ₱100.

Dealer Qualification: Queen High or Better

The dealer must show queen high or better to qualify. The three outcomes decide your payout:

A hand of straight or better pays the Ante Bonus whatever the dealer holds. The Wizard of Odds page lists several Ante Bonus pay tables and notes that most follow the first one: 5 to 1 for a straight flush, 4 to 1 for three of a kind and 1 to 1 for a straight.

Three Card Hand Ranks and Why a Straight Beats a Flush

Only three cards are dealt, so the hand ranks differ from five-card poker. From highest to lowest they are straight flush, three of a kind, straight, flush, pair and high card. Out of 22,100 possible hands, the saved page counts them:

A straight appears in 720 hands and a flush in 1,096, so the straight is rarer and ranks higher. That is the opposite of the five-card order, where a flush outranks a straight.

Pair Plus as a Separate Wager

Pair Plus does not depend on the dealer. It pays on the value of your three cards alone, and it can be placed with or without an Ante.

The most common Pair Plus pay table, as the Wizard of Odds prints it:

That table carries a house edge of 7.28%, which means each ₱100 staked on it returns about ₱92.72 over a very large number of hands. The house edge meaning entry explains the term. Check your own table’s pay table, because several versions exist.

Before You Join a Table

Read these on the table’s screen before you place a wager:

1. The pay table for the Ante Bonus.
2. The pay table for Pair Plus.
3. The stake limits.
4. Whether the dealer’s qualifier is queen high.

Two other house-banked card games are covered next: the Red Dog card game rules deal two cards and a spread, and the high low card game guessing rules ask for a single higher-or-lower call. You must be 21 or older to play.