casino games
Ultimate
Texas Hold'em.
The same two cards and the same five on the board, played against the house. It is the game on this list that looks most like poker and is furthest from it. Here is how it works, what it costs, and why the resemblance stops at the cards.
the rules
You put out two equal bets before anything happens, an ante and a blind, and you get two cards. From there the whole game is one question asked three times, and the answer is worth less each time you postpone it.
After your two cards
Raise four times the ante, or check
The only moment the raise is at its biggest. Every later one is smaller, and this is where the entire structure of the game lives.
After the flop
Raise two times the ante, or check
Available only if you did not already raise. Three cards of information have arrived and the price of acting has halved.
After the turn and river
Raise one time the ante, or fold
The last chance. Checking is no longer an option: either you put out one more ante or you give up the ante and the blind.
The dealer needs a pair or better to qualify. If he does not, your ante pushes and the hand is settled on the play bet and the blind alone. Win the hand and the play bet pays even money.
The blind is the piece people misread. It does not pay for winning. It pays only when you win with a straight or better, on a fixed table, and pushes on every smaller winning hand. A pot you win with two pair returns the blind and nothing more.
what the blind pays
| Your hand | Blind pays |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 500 to 1 |
| Straight flush | 50 to 1 |
| Four of a kind | 10 to 1 |
| Full house | 3 to 1 |
| Flush | 3 to 2 |
| Straight | 1 to 1 |
| Anything less | Push |
the house edge
2.185 percent of the ante, played perfectly.
That is the published figure from the combinatorial analysis at wizardofodds.com, and it already assumes the mathematically best decision at every one of those three moments. It is the lowest edge of the three casino games on this site, which makes it the cheapest way to lose rather than a way to win: over a hundred hands it expects to take 2.185 antes.
The second figure is the one worth understanding here, because this game moves far more money than the ante suggests. An average hand finishes with 4.152252 antes on the table, so the same expected loss spread over everything you actually put out works out to 0.526 percent. That is a genuinely small number and it is also why the game feels cheap while a session runs through a large amount of money. Both figures describe the same loss; the first tells you what an evening costs, the second tells you how much had to move through your hands to produce it.
There is usually a trips side bet as well, paid on your own five card hand regardless of the dealer. Its edge depends on which pay table the table uses, and since we could not confirm a single figure for the version you are likely to meet, there is no percentage for it on this page. What can be said without a number: it is a separate bet with its own house edge, and it is not part of the 2.185 percent above.
You will not find a strategy section here. There is an optimal rule for when to raise four times, two times and one times, it is published in plenty of other places, and following it perfectly is exactly what the 2.185 percent already assumes. The overview page puts this edge next to the other two games, and three card poker costs about half as much again per ante.
why this is not poker
The board is the same. Everything around it is gone.
At a real table the two cards in your hand are only half the problem. The other half is the person opposite: what he would do with a different flop, how often he gives up, what he thinks you have. Here that half does not exist. The dealer turns his cards over and a rule settles the hand.
So there is no bluffing, because nobody can fold. There is no position, because there is no one to act after. There is no range to read, no bet size to choose, and no leak in your opponent to exploit. The Hold'em rules page walks through a hand where all of that is still in play, and the page on whether poker is a game of skill turns on exactly this distinction. If you want to see what your own decisions are worth rather than what a pay table is worth, the lessons start from the first street and work forward.
next step
If you want to win by getting better, play people and not the house.
A different game from this one, and the difference is the whole point: against opponents, getting better changes the result.
questions
How does ultimate texas hold'em work?
You post an ante and a blind of the same size, then get two cards. You can raise four times the ante straight away, or check and wait: after the flop the raise available drops to two times the ante, and after the river to one time. If you never raise, you fold and lose both the ante and the blind. The dealer needs a pair or better to qualify; if he does not, your ante pushes.
What is the house edge in ultimate texas hold'em?
2.185 percent of the ante, or 0.526 percent measured against everything you put out during a hand. Both come from the combinatorial analysis at wizardofodds.com, and both assume the player makes the mathematically best decision every time. The gap between the two figures exists because the average hand ends with 4.152252 antes on the table.
What does the blind bet pay?
Nothing at all unless you win with a straight or better, in which case it pays on a fixed table: a straight pays 1 to 1, a flush 3 to 2, a full house 3 to 1, four of a kind 10 to 1, a straight flush 50 to 1 and a royal flush 500 to 1. Win with anything less than a straight and the blind simply pushes.
Is ultimate texas hold'em beatable?
No. It is the cheapest of the three casino games that use poker hands and it is still a losing game by construction. The edge sits in the pay tables and in the rule the dealer follows, so no run of decisions removes it. Perfect play reaches the published figure, and there is nothing beyond perfect play.
How is it different from real Texas Hold'em?
Same cards, same board, same hand rankings, and none of the game. There are no opponents to read, no bluffing, no position, and no folding equity, because the dealer does not decide anything: a rule does. In poker your profit comes from the mistakes of the people you play. Here there are no people and no mistakes.