We’re not sure how and when, but types of wildlife became terms to bracket poker players at some point. If you are good at poker, you are a shark. If you are inexperienced or bad, you become a donkey or a fish. The idea is that the shark poker player will devour the donkeys and fish. While we’ve seen videos of sharks eating fish in the ocean, we’ve never seen a shark eat a donkey. But we digress.
If you play Texas Hold’em poker, 메이저사이트 the chances are you consider yourself a shark. You have watched the World Series of Poker on television, smashed your home game, and perhaps played hundreds of thousands of poker hands online.
But while battling against other players is all well and good, did you know you can use your hold’em skills to take on the casino, too? Casino Hold’em is a table game available at most casinos, and your skills can bring down the house edge in your favor.
What Is Casino Hold’em?
So long as you understand the basic poker hand rankings, you’re well on your way to success in Casino Hold’em. You and the dealer receive two cards, and then the community cards are dealt in the middle, just like in regular Texas Hold’em.
While your two cards are face-up, the dealer’s cards are face-down, and you; first of all, see the ‘flop’ – the first three community cards. You aim to make the best five-card poker hand you can, and critically, one that will beat the dealer’s hand.
Using your Texas Hold’em skills, where you understand the probability of making a hand when the last two community cards are dealt, you can decide at this point whether to pass or play on.
The betting is simple. At the start of each round, you place an ante, the price of being in the game. Like other casino table games, you can find different stakes to play, and in this case, it could be anything from $0.10 up to $100 a time. Once the initial cards are dealt, and you see how your hole cards match up to the flop, you can elect to call and play on or fold.
Folding means you forfeit your ante, and the round is over. But if you call, you must double the size of your initial ante and then see the final two community cards, called the turn and the river. At the end, the dealer’s two cards are revealed.
Now, there are five community cards in the middle, and, as you would expect from Texas Hold’em casino games, you and the dealer must make the best possible hold’em ranking hand based on those community cards and your two cards.
How To Determine The Winner
It’s not just a case of deciding whether you or the dealer has the best poker hand. Happily, for you, the dealer must have at least a pair of fours to qualify. So, even if you have nothing better than a king-high, you can still beat the dealer even if he has ace-high or a pair of twos or threes.
Payouts are not like in blackjack, where you simply get a 1:1 payout. Well, you do get 1:1 for making a hand of a straight or less. But there is more money to be won for better hands:
Royal Flush 100/1
Straight Flush 20/1
Four of a Kind 10/1
Full House 3/1
Flush 2/1
With these bigger payouts for premium hands, you can use your Texas Hold’em skills and judgment to determine the risk of paying to see out the rest of the hand or folding and forfeiting your ante. It’s a bit like when you play video poker – the more you risk going for the big royal flush, the higher the rewards.
Most online casinos also allow side bets in casino hold’em. You might see this portrayed by the AA Bonus box on screen. If you place the equivalent of your starting ante in this box, you can increase your payouts if you go on to make a premium hand. The payouts are good, although not on the scale of winning the WSOP!
But be warned, while you might, for example, find you get paid 7/1 for a pair of aces up to a straight, the bonus only counts when you make these hands on the flop – using the first three community cards and your own two hole cards. This makes the win far less likely.
Fun Casino Table Action
For any regular poker player, who will understand the nuances and probabilities of making hands in Texas Hold’em, Casino Hold’em is a perfect casino table game. You will certainly be at an advantage over players who do not understand hold’em well.