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Casino Games & Bonuses: BookMaker Tournaments

Jack Jones — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:23:55 +0000

One thing that there’s never a shortage of over at BookMaker.com is a wide variety of casino game tournaments. With great prizes and cheap buy-ins, it’s a great way to have some fun and put some extra money in your pocket. From now until the end of January there are some exciting tournaments on the horizon. If you love craps, three-card poker, or Spanish Blackjack, you should open up an account and get started with the tournaments listed below. The great thing about tournaments are the payouts. Becasue you’ve got a large pool of people playing, Bookmaker can offer you the most bang for your buck! Several of their tournaments have just a $20 buy-in with 1st-place payouts of $700! Here’s a schedule of upcoming tournaments offered at BookMaker.com and what the prizes are:

January 24th, 2009
Craps/Daily Tournament
Buy-in: $20
Re-buy: $10

1st: $400 Cash Prize
2nd: $200 Cash Prize
3rd: $100 Cash Prize
4th-10th: Realtime Blackjack Network Entry + 2 Office Pool Squares

January 24th, 2009
Three Card Poker/Daily Tournament
Buy-in: $20
Re-buy: $10

1st: $400 Cash Prize
2nd: $200 Cash Prize
3rd: $100 Cash Prize
4th-10th: Realtime Blackjack Network Entry + 2 Office Pool Squares

January 25th, 2009
Three Card Poker/Daily Tournament
Buy-in: $20
Re-buy: $15

1st: $700 Cash Prize
2nd: $400 Cash Prize
3rd: $200 Cash Prize
4th-10th: Realtime Blackjack Network Entry + 2 Office Pool Squares

January 25th, 2009
Spanish Blackjack/Daily Tournament
Buy-in: $20
Re-buy: $10

1st: $700 Cash Prize
2nd: $400 Cash Prize
3rd: $200 Cash Prize
4th-10th: Realtime Blackjack Network Entry + 2 Office Pool Squares

Bookmaker also offers cash bonuses for new accounts! BookMaker Online Casino brings you the best in online gaming! Whether you are looking to play classic casino games like blackjack, roulette, online slots, video poker or if you want to try your luck at shooting craps, BookMaker is a great choice!

Now you can play all your favorite casino games in one of the most reputable and trusted casinos online. BookMaker online casino is all about fair gaming. Their software is designed for true randomness and fairness on all casino games.

* Join the BookMaker Casino!

Rake on Three Card Poker Hands

Jack Jones — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:11:43 +0000

There are some Indian casinos out there who offer 3-card poker but make you pay 50 cents per hand just to get in on the action. They sometimes try to get away with this tactic by telling players that the odds on three-card poker are so good that this is the only way for them to make any money. Our casino expert Mark Pilarski says this is a bunch of hogwash.In poker, the fifty cent juice per hand is called the rake; money that the casino charges for each hand of poker. It is usually a percentage or flat fee of the pot-in this case fifty cents from each players hand-after each round of betting.

Normally, this fee is tolerable in poker because players do not bet against the house, but against each other. How else is the casino going to pay for their employees, playing tables and neon lights?

However, you were hoodwinked, okay, suckered, into giving up the additional fifty cents per hand because 3-card poker DOES have a built-in casino advantage.

Even if you were to employ a sound betting strategy like not making the “play” wager unless your hand consists of at least a queen, six, and a four in your hand, the house edge on the “ante” wager is about 2.1%, with the “pair plus” slightly higher at 2.3%. A bearable casino advantage, yes, but it does not merit you giving the casino an additional fifty cents per hand.

Giving them their supplementary fifty cents is akin to being suckered into making a sucker bet, which, if you do not know the difference, makes you the sucker.

Three Card Poker

Jack Jones — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:26:58 +0000

Three card poker is two games in one where the player may bet on either one, both, and in different amounts. Both games are based on hands consisting of three cards. Before I go on here are the possible hands in three card poker, the number of combinations of each hand, and the probability of forming. Note that a straight is harder to form than a flush.

Probabilities in Three Card Poker

PairplusThis is a simple game in which you get three cards and are paid according to their value. The dealer’s hand is immaterial. There is no raising and no discarding, in fact no skill of any kind is involved.The following table shows various pay tables for Pairplus. It used to be that the only table was pay table 1. Now pay table 4 is becoming increasingly prevalent in Las Vegas, especially on the Strip.

Payoff Table for Pairplus

Ante and Play

Play begins with a wager on ante. After the player views his three cards he may either raise by putting an equal bet on play or fold and lose the ante bet. If the player folds he also loses the pairplus bet if one was made, however this should not be any sacrifice because if the pairplus bet paid anything the player shouldn’t fold.If the player does raise then he goes against the dealer’s hand. The dealer needs at least a queen high to qualify. Below are the possible outcomes and their payoff:

Dealer does not qualify: Ante wins 1 to 1, play bet is returned
Dealer qualifies and player beats dealer: Both play and ante win 1 to 1
Dealer qualifies and dealer beats player: Both Play and ante lose
Dealer qualifies and dealer ties player: Both Play and ante push
In addition the Ante bet has an extra bonus that does not depend on the dealer’s hand. There are different variations of the bonus paytable. The following table shows some variations I have seen along with the corresponding game house edge and element of risk.

Ante Bet Bonus

Optimal strategy in ante and play is to raise if you have a queen/6/4 (that is a queen, 6, and 4 all in the same hand) or greater, regardless of the bonus pay table. Overall the player stands to lose 8.66% of the original wager but win 5.29% on the bonus.Many people have asked me what I mean by queen/6/4, wondering for example whether queen/7/3 is greater than queen/6/4. In any poker based game hands are scored first according to the highest card, then the second, and then the third, and so on if there are more. So a queen/7/3 would beat queen/6/4. The queens tie so the second highest cards are used to break the tie, and a 7 beats a 6. The third card does not matter in this case because the hand was resolved by the second card.

If you want to know why queen/6/4 is the borderline hand it is because if you raise on queen/6/3 you can expect to lose 1.00255 units, more than the 1 unit by folding. However if you raise on queen/6/4 the expected loss is .993378, less than the 1 unit by folding.
I have been asked several times about the strategy of raising on any queen or better, in other words mimicking the dealer. This is not a bad strategy but you will lose more with it than the optimal strategy above. The house edge playing the mimic the dealer strategy is 3.45%. Raising on everything, or playing blind, results in a house edge of 7.65%.

Player Wins Ties

I have been asked a few times about the probability of tying the dealer in Three Card Poker. This is a valid question because some casinos let ties go to the player. The effect of this rule lowers the house edge in the “full pay” bonus table 1 above from 3.37% to 3.24%. I saw this happen once at the Luxor and the player was paid.

There is a small strategy change to make if the ties go to the player. Under this rule the player should still raise on Q/6/4 or better, plus raise on Q/6/3, only when all three suits are different (this lowers the probability of a dealer flush).

If the player follows the proper raising strategy under the ties win rules then the probability of a tie is 268272/407170400 = 1 in 1517.75 hands. For academic purposes only, if the player always raises then the probability of a tie is 450528/407170400 = 1 in 903.76.

Better known as “The Wizard of Odds”, Michael Shackleford uses math and computer analysis to determine optimal playing strategy for all casino games. His work can be found on his website, WizardofOdds.com with player strategies and probabilities on most of the casino games. Michael lives in Las Vegas and in his spare time likes to college license plates and gamble.You can read more about Michael’s work at his website, WizardofOdds.com