How to Play Casino Poker

1. Ante. Put a chip in the Ante circle. A Pair Plus chip, if you want one, goes in its own circle now and is settled separately.
2. The deal. Three cards to you face up, three to the dealer face down. There is no draw and no shared cards.
3. Play or fold. To continue, place a second chip equal to the ante in the Play circle. To fold, surrender the ante; a Pair Plus bet is still paid if the hand qualifies for it.
4. The dealer turns over. With queen high or better the dealer qualifies. If not, the ante pays even money and the Play bet is returned.
5. Showdown. If the dealer qualifies, the higher hand wins; ante and Play both pay even money on a win and both lose on a loss. A tie returns both.
6. Ante bonus. A straight or better earns a bonus on the ante whether the hand won, lost or the dealer failed to qualify: at the usual table 1 to 1 for a straight, 4 to 1 for three of a kind and 5 to 1 for a straight flush.

The rule: A dealer hand short of queen high never reaches a showdown: your ante wins its even money, your raise goes back, and the strength of your own cards does not come into it.

1. Ante. The opening chip, with a fixed-size jackpot chip beside it where the table runs a progressive.
2. The deal. Five cards to you, five to the dealer with one of them face up. That card is the only information about the dealer's hand you get before deciding.
3. Raise or fold. The raise is twice the ante, placed in the Bet circle. Folding loses the ante.
4. Qualifying. The dealer needs ace-king high or better. Short of that, you collect even money on the ante and the raise comes back untouched.
5. Showdown. Against a qualifying dealer, a winning ante pays even money and a winning raise pays from a schedule that rises with the hand, from even money on a pair or less up to a large multiple on a royal flush. Lose, and both bets go.

Oasis Poker is this game with one extra step between the deal and the decision: for the price of one ante per card you may exchange any number of your five for new ones. Everything else, including the dealer's ace-king line, is unchanged.

1. Ante. The opening chip, and if you like a second on the AA bonus, which is settled on your two cards and the first three shared ones.
2. The deal. Two cards to you, two to the dealer face down, and three shared cards face up: the flop.
3. Call or fold. The call is twice the ante. Folding gives up the ante.
4. The last two cards. The turn and river are dealt face up, and each side makes its best five-card hand from its own two and the five shared.
5. Qualifying. The dealer needs a pair of fours or better. Otherwise the ante pays from the ante schedule and the call is returned.
6. Showdown. If the dealer qualifies and you win, the call pays even money and the ante pays on a scale that climbs from even money to its top rate for a royal flush. A losing hand forfeits both.

The two other Hold'em games keep the deal of two cards and five shared and change where the money goes in: the first takes separate bets at the flop, turn and river; the second takes one play bet whose size is largest before the flop and smallest at the river, and gives the dealer a pair to qualify. Their guides are their own and this page does not describe their schedules.

A side bet is settled from its own schedule and has no bearing on the ante or raise. Each one is priced on the odds page where its arithmetic is settled, and discussed on the strategy guide.

Four lines on the felt separate one title from the next, and all four are printed. The qualifying hand sets how often the raise is actually compared with the dealer's cards; at Three Card Poker a queen-high line is met by 69.59% of dealer hands. The ante bonus schedule decides what a strong hand earns regardless of the outcome. The side-bet schedules set the price of Pair Plus and its cousins, and the raise multiple, a single ante in the three-card game and double in the five-card ones, sets how much a decision puts on the table.

The four lines: Qualifying hand, ante bonus, side-bet schedules and raise multiple: all four are printed on the felt, and between them they are the entire price of a table.

Online tables also differ in pace and in what they show. Some deal the dealer's cards face up the moment you act, some add a rebet button, and a few let several hands be played at once against one dealer hand. None of that changes a bet's price; the four printed lines do.