Free Three Card Poker
Practice only. No real money, ever.
Tap Ante and/or Pair Plus to add your chip. The Play bet is only made after you see your cards.
Session stats
Hand rankings & payouts
Hand rankings
- Straight Flush — three in a row, same suit
- Three of a Kind
- Straight — three in a row (A-2-3 low to Q-K-A high)
- Flush — three of one suit
- Pair
- High Card
Ante Bonus
| Straight Flush | 5:1 |
| Three of a Kind | 4:1 |
| Straight | 1:1 |
Paid on the Ante whenever you Play, even if the dealer beats you.
Pair Plus 40-30-6-3-1 table
| Straight Flush | 40:1 |
| Three of a Kind | 30:1 |
| Straight | 6:1 |
| Flush | 3:1 |
| Pair | 1:1 |
Pays on your hand alone. The dealer's cards don't matter.
How to play
- Bet — put chips on the Ante, Pair Plus, or both. Pair Plus alone is allowed; you then just see if your three cards make a pair or better.
- Look and decide — with an Ante up you see your three cards (the dealer's stay face down) and choose: Fold and lose the Ante, or Play by adding a Play bet equal to the Ante.
- Folding — forfeits the Ante and any Pair Plus bet, the standard casino procedure. Correct strategy never folds a pair or better, so this only costs you when you fold a hand Pair Plus would have paid.
- Dealer qualifies with Queen-high or better. If not, your Ante pays 1:1 and your Play bet is returned.
- Dealer qualifies — compare hands. Beat the dealer: Ante and Play both pay 1:1. Lose: both lose. Exact tie: both push.
- Ante Bonus — a straight or better pays the bonus on your Ante whenever you Play, win or lose.
How it differs from regular poker
There's no drawing and no bluffing: three cards each, one decision. The ranking also flips in the middle. In five-card poker a flush beats a straight; with only three cards, a straight is the rarer hand (720 ways versus 1,096 for a flush out of 22,100), so it ranks higher. Three of a kind is rarer than a straight here too, which is why it sits just under the straight flush.
The one strategy rule: Q-6-4
Play any Queen-6-4 or better, fold anything worse. Compare your cards highest first: Q-7-2 plays (7 beats 6), Q-5-K is really K-Q-5 and plays, Q-6-3 folds. Any pair or better always plays. Exact enumeration of all 22,100 hands confirms this rule makes the best decision on every one of them. Played that way, the Ante and Play cost 3.37% of the Ante, or 2.01% of everything you put on the table.
Is Pair Plus worth it?
On this 40-30-6-3-1 table, Pair Plus has a 7.28% house edge, more than double the Ante. It's the bet that pays 40:1 on a straight flush, and it's the bet the casino likes you making. The older 40-30-6-4-1 table, where a flush pays 4:1, cuts that to 2.32%. Look at the flush line before you play it.
When to play or fold: the Q-6-4 rule, worked through →
Ante vs Pair Plus: the house edge explained →