Poker Games That Are Not Poker

You log on to a casino's Web site and see that it lists poker among its games, or you call a casino and ask if the establishment has poker and the person you ask responds yes. Beware, because what casinos call poker is sometimes a game that is not really poker. The game may use poker rankings, but the elements of poker – that is, competing against other players, building a pot based on the strength of your hand, sometimes convincing other players to call your bets, and other times causing players to fold better hands – are not present. What you are doing in these faux poker games is placing wagers before you see your hand, and playing one-on-one against the dealer, or sometimes not even trying to beat the dealer's hand (because the dealer doesn't even have a hand) but just trying (or hoping) to make a certain hand or better to get paid according to a preset pay table.

I have been presenting in this series the rules for casino games that appear to be poker but are not. Here are more such games:

Caribbean Draw Poker: A house-banked game played at a blackjack-type table. The game is related to poker in the way hands are formed, but is not really a poker game. Players first ante, and then the players and dealer all receive five cards facedown. Players can also make an additional, optional jackpot wager, in which certain hands at the end will be eligible for payouts. Players elect in turn to either fold, and lose the ante, or play, in which case they put up an amount double the ante wager (the back bet). A player who plays can then replace up to two cards. After each player makes a decision, the dealer reveals his whole hand. A dealer's hand must qualify (be a pair of eights or better). If it does not, the player receives even money on the ante and the back bet is a standoff. If the dealer's hand does qualify, and his hand is higher than the player's hand, that player loses both the ante and back bet. If the player's hand is higher, the player wins even money (1-1) on the ante wager and a bonus amount based on the back-bet wager, up to some maximum payout (often $5,000), from a payout table that starts with even money for one pair and ranges up to 100-1 for a royal flush. The jackpot wager is then paid separately, whether or not the player's hand has beaten the dealer's. These payments come from a separate payout table, with hands ranging from a flush to four of a kind receiving fixed payouts, a straight flush 10 percent of a progressive jackpot, and a royal flush 100 percent of the jackpot. In a variant known as VIP-poker, a player pays one ante to draw one card and two antes to draw two. In another variant, a player pays one ante to add (rather than replace) a sixth card to his hand.

Caribbean Stud Poker: A house-banked game played at a blackjack-type table. The game is related to poker in the way hands are formed, but is not really a poker game. Players first ante and then receive five cards facedown, while the dealer receives four facedown and one faceup. Players can also make an additional, optional jackpot wager, in which certain hands at the end will be eligible for payouts. Players elect in turn to either fold, and lose the ante, or play, in which case they put up an amount double the ante wager (the back bet). After each player makes a decision, the dealer reveals his whole hand. A dealer's hand must qualify (be A-K or better). If it does not, the player receives even money on the ante and the back bet is a standoff. If the dealer's hand does qualify, and his hand is higher than the player's hand, that player loses both the ante and back bet. If the player's hand is higher, the player wins even money (1-1) on the ante wager and a bonus amount based on the back-bet wager, up to some maximum payout (often $5,000), from a payout table that starts with even money for one pair and ranges up to 100-1 for a royal flush. The jackpot wager is then paid separately, whether or not the player's hand has beaten the dealer's. These payments come from a separate payout table, with hands ranging from a flush to four of a kind receiving fixed payouts, a straight flush 10 percent of a progressive jackpot, and a royal flush 100 percent of the jackpot. The game is often known simply as Caribbean Stud. A variant of Caribbean Stud exists in which a player may replace one card, at the expense of invalidating the bonus bet.

I'll have more next time.

Michael Wiesenberg's The Official Dictionary of Poker is the ultimate authority on the language of cardrooms. Order it online at CardPlayer.com. And look for The 1,000 Best Casinos in the World this summer.