1/19/2020 Free 4 Card Poker
Shortly after Four Card Poker was being launched, another similar, yet different, game hit the marketplace. It was called Crazy 4 Poker.
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In a recent conversation with Roger Snow, executive vice president at Shuffle Master, he revealed Crazy 4 Poker was invented on January 28, 2002. How does he remember the specific date? It was the same day Four Card Poker went live at Jackson Rancheria in California.
Four card poker is a relatively new casino card game similar to three card poker, invented by Roger Snow and owned by ShuffleMaster. The player makes an ante bet and may also make an ‘Aces Up’ bet. Five playing cards are dealt to the player who has to make the best four-card hand possible. Free Four Card Prime is a really fun form of instant play poker, so it’s no surprise for us to hear that players want to get their hands on more of the same. Thankfully, you won’t need to stray far, as Galaxy Gaming has a ready made alternative all lined up in the form of Three Card Prime.
Fearful that Four Card Poker was going to flop, he immediately went to work on its successor game. As it turns out, he got them both right. For reasons not fully known, the game was a big hit in Nevada. There are currently about 100 Crazy 4 Poker tables, of which 40 are in Nevada. Virtually every major casino in Las Vegas has one. Crazy 4 Poker is an important piece in the history of table games. It introduced the concept of a 'super bonus' (now more commonly referred to as the 'blind' wager) in Shuffle Master games. This has become a staple of their more recent games. Crazy 4 Poker is broken down into two separate wagers. The first called Queens Up is like Pair Plus. If the player is dealt a pair of queens or better he wins according to the paytable in use.
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The second portion of the game is like Ante/Play. It requires the player to make both an ante wager and a super bonus wager. The player and dealer are each dealt five cards to make their best four card hand. Once the player has reviewed his hand, he can either fold, forfeiting his ante and super bonus wagers, or he can play. If the player has a pair of aces or better, he may play three times his ante wager. If he has less than a pair of aces, he can only wager one times his ante. Thus, when the player has a strong hand, he can really sock it to the casino. After all players have decided what they want to do, the dealer reveals his hand. If the dealer does not have at least a king high, his hand does not qualify. In this case, the ante wager is pushed and the play wager is paid even money. This means if you have a strong hand and play 3x you will still win even money on this when the dealer does not qualify. If the dealer’s hand is a king high or better, his hand qualifies. In this case, if the player’s hand outranks the dealer’s hand, he will be paid even money on both his ante and play wagers. If the dealer’s hand outranks the player’s hand, the player will lose his ante and play wagers. The payouts on the super bonus wager are a bit more complex. If the player has a straight or better (keep in mind with a four-card hand, trips outrank straights and flushes), he is paid according to the paytable regardless of the dealer’s hand. If the player beats the dealer, but with a hand less than a straight, the wager pushes. If the player loses to the dealer with a hand less than a straight, the wager loses. The strategy for Crazy 4 Poker is rather similar to that of Three Card Poker. The player must remember only a single strategy to master the game (K-Q-8). If the player’s hand is K-Q-8 or higher, he should play. Technically, he must also remember to play 3x if he has a pair of aces or better, but I consider this part of the strategy to be more than a little obvious. The player will win 90% of these hands. It should be noted that K-Q-8 is not actually 'perfect strategy.' There are a handful of hands that should be folded above K-Q-8 and a few that should be played below. However, these require taking into account the specific suit makeup of the hand and are likely to cost more in errors by the players than they are worth. The difference between 'perfect' and 'expert' strategy is a mere 0.01% of payback. Speaking of payback, if you follow the simple strategy provided here, you’ll find Crazy 4 Poker affords a 98.91% payback on the ante/play portion of the game. Given the relatively easy strategy, this is a very strong payback to offer. As a side note to those who like to play games like this, never folding in Crazy 4 Poker will take the payback down to 96.5%. Considering an average wager of more than three units per hand, a $5 player will be throwing away about $15 per hour more by following this wayward strategy. Stick to the K-Q-8 and before you know it, you’ll be Crazy 4 Poker too! You can read more about Crazy 4 Poker and many other games at my www.gambatria.com website.
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4 Card Poker PlayA few months ago, I wrote a column in GamingToday that took a first look at Shuffle Master’s latest game, Four Card Poker. At that time, I promised a closer look at the strategy that Shuffle called Basic Strategy. It’s taken a few months, and countless hours of pouring over computer output, but I believe the wait was worth it. To refresh your memories, Four Card Poker, like its predecessor Three Card Poker has two distinct games. The first, called Aces Up, requires no strategy. The player is dealt five cards to make his best four card hand. In Aces Up, the player wins if he is dealt a pair of aces or better. The second and far more complex portion of the game is the Ante/Play version. After seeing his five cards and ONE of the dealer’s cards (i.e. an upcard) the player may either fold or play. When he chooses to play, he places an additional bet from one to three times his original ante. As stated in my prior article, in reality, the player NEVER bets two times his original bet. The dealer will get a total of six cards to make his best five card hand. Shuffle Master’s Basic Strategy will net us a payback of 98.41%, which is highly competitive for a Table game. Of course, the Basic Strategy doesn’t take into account the dealer’s upcard which must prove to be of some use to the player. Free Four Card Poker PracticeSo, today I will review the Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker. However, it should be noted that this Expert Strategy will not be perfect strategy. Perfect strategy for Four Card Poker would require a strategy table, several pages long, that would require close scrutiny of all five cards dealt to the player. As each player card can act as a penalty card to the dealer’s hand, even the exact suit makeup of the player’s hand can become relevant to the strategy. While I won’t go so far as to say that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be this precise, I will say that if someone wishes to go for the final .01%, they’re on their own! The likelihood of misplaying a hand with such complex strategy will offset any additional advantage the player will get. Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker is a strategy that will account for the dealer’s upcard and occasionally a single kicker in the player’s hand. It will NOT look at the other cards in the player’s hand (i.e. ”˜second’ kickers) or at the suit makeup of the payer’s hand. What will Expert Strategy buy us vs. using Basic Strategy? Basic strategy will achieve a payback of about 98.41%. Expert Strategy will push that up to 98.60%. This may not sound like a lot, but it will cut the house edge (”˜vig’) by more than 10%. According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 3x anytime you have a Pair of 10’s or Better. As stated earlier, this ignores the dealer’s upcard completely and is not taking advantage of this benefit. We should be betting 3x ANYTIME the expected value (EV) of the hand goes positive, meaning we expect to win the hand more often than we will lose the hand. Through computer analysis, the following Expert Strategy has been devised: ”¡ Bet 3x on all pair of aces or Better. ”¡ Bet 3x on all pair of kings, except bet 1x if facing an ace and you don’t have an ace in your hand. ”¡ Bet 3x on a pair of queens looking into a 2-Q. Bet 3x if dealer has a K or ace up, and you have the dealer’s upcard in your hand. Free Online 4 Card Poker”¡ Bet 3x on a pair of Jacks looking into a 2-J. Bet 1x if dealer has an ace up. If the dealer has a Q or K up, Bet 3x if you have the dealer’s upcard in your hand. ”¡ Bet 3x on a pair of 10’s looking into a 2-9, Bet 1x if dealer has a J-Ace. If the dealer has a 10 up, and you have a Jack or better kicker, bet 3x, otherwise bet 1x. ”¡ Bet 3x on a pair of 9’s looking into a 2. All other pairs of 9’s, bet 1x. The strategy listed above is for the decision to bet 1x vs. 3x. The other decision that needs to be made is when to fold vs. bet 1x. According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 1x on all pairs of 3’s or better (except when you bet 3x), and fold all pairs of 2’s. Expert Strategy will alter this, as well, albeit only slightly. Again, through computer simulation, the following strategy has been developed: bet 1x on a Pair of 2’s looking into a 2 Free Four Card Poker Play OnlineOne reader informed me, and it was confirmed by Shuffle Master, that at Thunder Valley Casino in California, the game is played with all dealer cards down. In such a case, there is not much more you can do beyond Shuffle Master’s basic strategy. For those who play at Thunder Valley, the only change I would recommend is that you bet 3x on a pair of 10’s ONLY if you have at least a Jack or better as a kicker. The overall payback will be the same, but you’ll put a little less money on the table. For any game with less than 100% payback, this will slow the long term loss rate. As many of you know by now, Expert Strategy for any game, consists of three basic components. Knowing the right game to play, playing the right strategy and knowing what to expect. So far, I’ve basically covered what the right strategy is. There isn’t a lot to discuss in terms of ”˜knowing the right game to play’, as there really are no variations in paytables for the ante/play version of the game. There is the bonus payouts for four of a kind, straight flush and three of a kind which pay 25, 20 and two respectively, but to the best of my knowledge, no casino has altered these payouts. Aces Up is another story. The casinos have a lot more flexibility with the paytable for Aces Up. The most common table in use returns a less than stellar 95.76%. Remember, that you do not have to play both Aces Up and ante/play. The paytable for Aces Up is listed below: Aces Up Paytable
The last part of Expert Strategy is knowing what to expect. There are countless statistics that I could cite from my analysis, but I’ll stick to some key ones here. ”¡ You can expect to fold about 47% of the time Free 4 Card Poker Online”¡ You can expect to bet 3x about 29% of the time ”¡ You can expect to bet 1x the remaining 24% of the time ”¡ When you bet 3x, you will win about 71% of the time ![]() ”¡ When you bet 1x, you will win only about 38% of the time According to Shuffle Master, Four Card Poker now boasts nearly 100 tables, which means it may be poised for a long and successful run. Many readers have already written to me to tell me how much they enjoy the game, and so far they’ve been doing it without the benefit of Expert Strategy. Hopefully, they (and you) will now be able to enjoy it all the more. For more exclusive tips on betting and free daily picks, become a VIP member today! Comments are closed.
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