How to Play Caribbean Draw Poker in a Strategic Way

Caribbean Draw Poker is one of the most popular as well as one of the most complicated online casino games out there. There are a lot of moving parts to this game, and you’ll need to have a good handle on them before you’re able to play the game well. It’s required that you know the standard, five-card poker hand rankings before you play this game.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay is as follows. You place a bet called an ante and are dealt five cards. The dealer is dealt five cards, and you can see one of them. You have an opportunity to fold your hand and lose your ante, or you can raise by placing an additional bet that’s worth twice as much as the ante. After your raise, you can discard up to two of your cards to receive new cards to try to make a better hand, and the dealer also gets a chance to discard up to two cards. Once you receive your final hand, if the dealer fails to make at least a pair of eights or better, then your ante bet pays out at 1:1 and your raise is a push. If the dealer does qualify, then losing the hand results in losing both your ante and your raise. Winning the hand gets you a 1:1 payout on your ante and various payouts based on the final result of your hand. And while Caribbean Draw Poker be played at the best online casinos, it still not being offer at Live dealer casinos, however, they do offer Casino Hold’em which is still consider the next best thing.

The Progressive Jackpot

Caribbean Draw Poker also has a progressive $1 side bet that’s optional. The standard payout table on this side bet gives you the progressive for a royal, a 2,500x payout for a straight flush, and 500x for four of a kind with prizes all the way down to a 4x payout for two pair. This is based on the initial five cards that you receive and not the cards that you may discard. This bet requires a progressive jackpot of at least $233,670 to be profitable in the long run. For example, if the progressive is at the $150,000 level, then the payout rate on the side bet is a super-low 87.1 percent.

The Elements of Strategy

There are two basic parts of strategy when it comes to this game. First, you have to decide on which hands to fold. Second, you have to decide how to play your hand in terms of taking discards if you decide to raise. When it comes to folding, you should fold if you don’t have at least a pair and if you don’t have at least three high, suited cards. With three high, suited cards, you’re drawing to try to make a pair or long-shot straight and flush draws. If you have a low pair (lower than 8s), then keep your pair and your highest unpaired card. If you have a low pair and a four-card straight or flush draw, then you should take the draw. However, if you have a high pair and a four-card straight or flush draw, then you should keep the pair. This will cover almost every difficult drawing decision you’ll have in Caribbean Draw Poker.