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 Caribbean Stud Poker

Caribbean Stud is a five card stud poker game played on a blackjack type table with a standard 52 card deck. The cards are normally dealt from a multi-deck "shoe" or by an automatic shuffling machine that deals in groups of five card hands. Players try to beat the dealer.

Each seat at the table has a player's layout and chip slot like the drawing at the right. The slot fixture has six small lights that light up when a chip that has been placed in the slot is allowed to fall through for collection by the dealer.

Play Procedure and Rules
Before any cards are dealt, you place a bet in the "Ante" box in your table layout. This ante bet can be any amount within the posted table limits.

With each hand you may also play for the optional progressive jackpot. If you want to do this, you place a $1.00 chip in the chip slot in front of you. When all the players that want to play for the jackpot have their bets down, the dealer presses a button allowing all the $1.00 chips to drop through the slots for colleciton. The lights on your slot fixture are activated by the chip drop and stay illuminated until the hand is over to show that you made the jackpot bet.

The dealer then gives five cards, face down, to all the players and gives himself four down and one up. You then look at your cards and decide to either play or fold. If you choose to fold, you lose your ante best. If you choose to play, you place double the amount of your ante in the "Bet" box. This is your "call" bet.

After all the players have acted, the dealer reveals his four hole cards. If he has an Ace with a King or higher hand, he qualifies to compete with the players. If he does not qualify with the A-K or higher required, he pays all the bettors even money on their ante bets. Each call bet, in this case, is a "push". If the dealers does quality with A-K or higher, he then compares his hand to each of the players' hands. If the dealer's hand is higher, the player loses both his or her ante bet and call bet. If the player's hand is higher than the dealer's, then he or she wins even money on the ante bet and the bonus amount on the call bet, in accordance with the Call Bet Bonus schedule.

Also, if the player made the $1.00 jackpot bet and has a flush or higher, he or she receives payment for the hand, in accordance with the Jackpot Payout schedule. When players are eligible for jackpot payouts they must announce that they have a jackpot hand to the dealer, as soon as they see it and before the hand is over. The jackpot is simply a side game. The player wins whether he or she beats the dealer or not.

Progessive Jackpot Strategy
Since the house advantage in this game is usually outrageously high, your best strategy is not to play. However, if play you must, find the game with the highest payouts for the flushes, full houses and four of a kind.

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A common mistake that many players make is to refuse to bet on low pairs like twos, threes and fours because they seem to lose a lot more often than they win. ..They're right! They do. But what they don't realize is that not betting those deuces and forfeiting the ante bet every time, is more costly in the long term than betting them. It's like splitting a pair of eights vs. a dealer ten in blackjack. Very costly, but not splitting is even more so.

Optimal Strategy*
Always Call Bet When You Have: *
A-K-J x x or higher (or)
A-K and the dealer's upcard denomination
* Otherwise Fold