3 Card Poker Odds
Like most casino games, 3 Card Poker is a game of odds and probabilities. While learning the odds of different outcomes isn’t necessary to learning how to play Three Card Poker, a lot of players find it interesting to know them. There are many different kinds of 3 Card Poker Odds, some of which might surprise you! Let’s look at a few categories of Three Card Poker Odds that might give you some additional insight into the game.
First of all, it should come as no surprise that better hands are much rarer than weaker ones, just like in any form of poker. In fact, over 74% of the time, you will only make a high-card hand. Pairs are the next most common, at nearly 17%; you will make a pair approximately 1 in every 5.9 hands.
Many people, when they start playing Three Card Poker, wonder why straights beat flushes – in most types of poker, a flush is the stronger hand. Of course, the answer has much to do with Three Card Poker odds. You’ll make a flush nearly 5% of the time (about 1 in every 20 hands), while you’ll look at your cards and find a straight about 3.3% of the time (about 1 in 33 hands). Thus, straights are the more difficult hand to make.
Finally, we get to the very rare hands. Three of a kind is a very difficult hand to make; you will get trips only about 0.24% of the time (close to 1 in 425 hands). The rarest of all hands, the straight flush, actually isn’t that much rarer than three of a kind, coming in approximately 0.22% of the time (1 in 460 hands). And if you play at a table that has a bonus for a “mini-royal” (a straight flush with ace, king and queen), that hand is the rarest of all; you will only see it once in every 5525 hands.
Some players like to add a little bit of drama and surprise to Three Card Poker while they play. After looking at the first two cards of their hand, some players will not look at the third card if they already know they have a hand they want to raise with – for instance, if they have a pair or at least one high card. What are the odds their hand will improve with the final, unknown card?
These Three Card Poker odds are fairly easy to calculate. Let’s start with the situation where we have a pair in our first two cards. The only hand we can improve to is three of a kind. We will get our three of a kind 4% of the time (1 in 25 hands).
If we have two suited cards, such as A6 of spades, we can improve to either a pair or a flush. We will make the pair 12% of the time (1 in 8.3), while a flush will come in 22% of the time (1 in 4.5).
Off Topic: Check out our 3 Card Poker Strategy article if you are interested in learning the best way to profit when playing 3 Card Poker!
The strongest “draw” of all is suited connectors that give us an open ended straight draw – for instance, KQ of diamonds. With that hand, there are many hands we can improve to. We can still make a pair 12% of the time (1 in 8.3), which are also the exact odds of us making a straight. We’ll now make a flush 18% of the time (1 in 5.6). The reason the flush odds go down is that we now have the chance of making an even stronger hand – the very rare straight flush! This will happen 4% of the time (1 in 25 hands).
Three Card Poker Odds aren’t too difficult to understand, and knowing them might make the game a little more fun, or even help you avoid frustration when things aren’t going well for you. Next time you see that you’re rarely getting strong hands, you’ll know that this is just a normal part of the game.