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Four Card Poker also offers an Ante Bonus that is paid in addition to the Ante and play bet, based on the player’s hand for the Ante game. If you have a three of a kind you are paid 2 to 1. If you have a straight flush you are paid 20 to 1. If you have four of a kind you are paid 25 to 1. You will be paid for the bonus regardless if the dealer beats your hand or not. (This pay schedule may vary in different casinos.If the player has three of a kind or better, he will receive a bonus based on the ante wager as follows: three of a kind - 2 to 1, straight flush - 20 to 1, four of a kind - 25 to 1. The ante bonus is ‘automatic’ and is paid regardless of whether or not the player’s hand has beaten the dealer’s hand. The aces-up bet is resolved independently of the dealer’s hand, purely on the rank of the player’s payout. The specific payout depends on the payout in use, with payouts for a pair of aces (pays even money on the aces-up wager) or better. The dealer has an advantage in having an extra card from which to select the best four, and the fact that if the player folds, he will lose his ante, even if his hand was better than the dealers. The player gets return from the bonus bet payment and from the ability to raise by more than one unit one the hand is goodWinning optional bonus wagers are settled after all other wagers.  Winning optional bonus wager payouts are as follows:

*Winning bonus wagers are paid regardless of whether or not the dealer’s hand beats their hand.  There is a $50,000 maximum payout per player per hand on all winning ante, flop, turn, river and bonus wagers.

You see that the usual Poker hierarchy is drastically changed when four-card hands are used. Three of a Kind beats a Straight and Two Pair beats a Flush. What is more, the frequencies for Flush through Three of a Kind are very close. It was my contention that Poker players would be uncomfortable with these rankings. I still believe that. Nevertheless, in the past couple of months two different four-card Poker games have come to my attention, one of which, I understand, has been playing for over a year now. So do I have to eat crow on this? Well, I came close to eating crow but fortunately I did mention in my article that one could produce different numbers by having the player choose the best four-card hand from 5, 6, or 7 cards (although I tempered the remark by indicating that a player would not be happy turning a Full House into Two Pair). So, crow is not on my bill of fare since both of the aforementioned games deal five-card hands and have the player (or dealer) select the best four-card Poker hand from the five. Let’s see what this does to the frequencies.

How many Straight Flushes (including Royals) are there? Well there are four suits and the straights in each suit occur as A-J down to 4-A so there are eleven of them. The A-J can be paired with any of the 48 remaining cards; the other 10 can be paired with only 47 of the remaining 48 since, for example, putting a suited J with a 10-7 Straight Flush would produce a J-8 Straight Flush rather than the desired 10-7. Hence there are 4 x 48 + 4 x 10 x 47 or 2072 Straight Flushes. There are 13 four-card Four of a Kinds and any one of the remaining 48 cards can be paired with each to make a five-card hand, so there are 13 x 48 or 624 of these. There are 13 choices of ranks for a Three of a Kind and for each such choice there are four ways to pick the three from the four. Picking 2 of the remaining 48 (1128 ways) we have the number of five-card hands containing a Three of a Kind is 13 x 4 x 1128 or 58,656. Now here is where things get interesting. The two games mentioned above rank hands as follows:

Clearly the inventor of Game #1 wanted to keep the hand rankings the same as they are in regular Poker even though, as we will see, the natural rankings by frequency are different. Game #2, on the other hand, has the top three hands in the correct order according to frequency. Both games rank the Flush above the Straight. Is this correct? Well, note first that if the Flush is ranked above the Straight and we are faced with a situation wherein our five-card hand contains hands of both types, we should opt to pick the Flush rather than the Straight. The calculation is a bit tricky so I’m going to skip it - write to me if you would like details. It turns out that with this strategy there are 116,688 five-card hands that contain four-card Flushes. Of these 2,072 are Straight Flushes so subtracting these we end up with 114,616 five-card hands that contain ordinary Flushes. This leaves 101,808 five-card hands that contain ordinary Straights. So both of the above rankings appear to be in the wrong order.

The optimal strategy for Four Card Poker is quite simple to memorize. There is a basic strategy guide published by Shuffle Master - who incidentally, invented the game - which states that players can get a 98.41% return on the combined Ante wager and winning Ante Bonus. Although this may vary slightly, depending on which casino you are playing at (some casinos offer better ante bonus payout schedules than others) On average, the House Edge will be around 3.6% when played with optimized strategy.
Online Poker skill is based on:
1. Knowledge of the game’s mathematics.
2. Money management.
3. Psychological deception.
4. Card memory and analysis.
5. Betting courage.
Your skills at playing poker online depends upon the above elements, and you should be aware of these as you play.

If you want to become a good poker player, you must know the odds of each hand and the probability of receiving a certain card. If you haven’t a clue about the odds, you won’t be able to decide. Yes - you will still be able to win based on luck alone, but why not improve it and make more money? Try and remember at least vaguely the odds and this will help your decision making. Compare the below table of poker odds where each possible poker hand is addressed:

By comparing the above table you will note that the odds of getting a pair or better in the first five cards dealt is almost even, while the probability of being dealt a no-pair hand is practically the same. So it’s almost a 3 to 1 chance, when playing against two opponents, that one of them will hold a pair or better in the first five cards dealt.

Likewise, you can create your own rules and tips based on the above data. I have also added additional information about hands where you get no pairs among the first five cards dealt:

Memorize and use the above statistics to improve your playing. Remember that without practice, no matter how many books or new strategies you come across - you will never be able to use them in the heat of poker. So? Practice!

Five of a Kind - A five of a kind is only possible when using wild cards and is the highest possible hand. If more than one hand has five of a kind, the higher cards win, five Aces will beat five kings, which beats five queens, and continues on down the ranking of the cards.

Royal Flush - An Ace, king, queen, jack and ten of the same suit. A royal flush is the highest ranking natural hand. Sometimes referred to as an Ace high straight-flush.

Straight Flush - A straight flush is the second best natural hand. A straight flush is a straight (5 cards in order, such as 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10) that are all of the same suit. As in a regular straight, you can have an ace either high (A - K - Q - J - T) or low (A - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5). You can not use the Ace in a wraparound and example would be K - A - 2 - 3 - 4, which is not a straight.

Four of a Kind - Four cards of the same rank like four Aces or Four Kings. If there are two or more hands that qualify, the hand with the higher-rank four of a kind wins. Very rarely, I mean really rarely, if you are playing a game with alot of wild cards, you may have two four of a kinds with the same rank. In this case you use the High Card rule (number 10 on this list).

Full House - A full house is a three of a kind and a pair, such as Q - Q - Q - 4 - 4. When there are two full houses the tie is broken by the three of a kind. An example would be J - J - J - 5 - 5 would beat 9 - 9 - 9 - A - A. If for some reason the three of a kind cannot determine the victor then you go to the pair to decide (this would only happen in a game with wild cards). An example of this would be K - K - K - A - A would beat K - K - K - J - J.

Flush - A flush is a hand where all of the cards are the same suit, such as A-J-9-7-5, all of spades. When flushes ties, follow the rules for High Card.
Straight-Five cards in rank order, but not of the same suit (it can be any combination of the four suits). An example of a straight is 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7. The Ace can either be high or low card, either A - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 or 10 - J - Q - K - A. Wraparounds are not allowed (an example being K - A - 2 - 3 - 4). When two straights tie, the highest straight wins, K - Q - J -10 - 9 would beat 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - A. If two straights have the same value, A K Q J T vs A K Q J T, the pot is split equally.

Three of a Kind - Three cards of any rank with the remaining cards not being a pair. Once again the highest ranking three of a kind would win. K - K - K - 2 - 4 would beat Q - Q - Q - 2 - 3. If both are the same rank (only in a wild card game), then the High Card rule would come into effect with the remaining two.

Two Pair - Two distinct pairs of card and a fifth card. The highest ranking pair wins. If both hands have the same high pair, the second pair wins. If both hands have the same pairs, the high card wins.

Pair - One pair with three distinct cards. Highest ranking pair wins. High card breaks ties.

High Card - When a hand has none of the above qualifications of any of the ones listed above, nobody has even a pair or better, then it comes down to who is holding the highest ranking card. If there is a tie for the high card then the next high card determines the pot, if that card is a tie than it continues down till the third, fourth, and fifth card. The High card is also us