Your hand and the dealer's card
Raise or fold: the exact numbers
| If you raise | Chance | You get |
|---|
Every possible dealer hand is played out (163,185 with the up card set, 1,533,939 without), so the numbers are exact. The dealer qualifies with ace-king or better. If not, the ante pays 1 to 1 and the raise is returned. If the dealer qualifies and you win, the ante pays 1 to 1 and the raise pays the table. Results are in antes; folding costs exactly 1. Pay-outs are not capped here, but many casinos cap the raise win.
- Maths reviewed by Josh Miller
- Tested by Diana Westfield
Most of Caribbean stud strategy fits on a beer mat: raise with a pair or better, fold anything below ace-king. The hard part is ace-king itself, where the dealer’s up card decides it. The free CasinoCalcs calculator above takes your five cards and the dealer’s card and plays out every one of the 163,185 hands the dealer could be holding, so you get the exact answer rather than a rule of thumb.
Caribbean stud strategy chart
| Your hand | Do this |
|---|---|
| Any pair or better | Raise |
| Ace-king, dealer shows a 2 to queen that matches one of your other cards | Raise |
| Ace-king with a queen or jack, dealer shows an ace or king | Raise |
| Ace-king with a queen, dealer’s card doesn’t match and is lower than your 4th-highest card | Raise |
| Any other ace-king | Fold |
| Anything lower than ace-king (A-Q high, K-Q high and below) | Fold |
Shortcut if you don’t want to look at the dealer’s card: raise A-K-J-8-3 or better, fold the rest. It costs very little against the full chart.
Why ace-king is the line
The dealer qualifies with ace-king or better. A hand below that can never beat a qualifying dealer, so raising it only wins when the dealer doesn’t qualify, and then the raise is just returned. You’d be putting two more antes at risk to win nothing extra. Fold.
Ace-king is different. It can beat a qualifying dealer who also has ace-king with worse kickers, and when the dealer misses you still collect the ante. Whether that’s enough depends on the details. Try A-K-9-6-3 against a 7 in the calculator: raising costs 1.12 antes, folding costs 1. Show the dealer a 9 instead and raising wins by a hair, because one of your 9s is now gone from the dealer’s possible pairs. Change your hand to A-K-Q-6-3 with an ace showing and raising saves almost 0.3 antes.
Pairs are always raises, even 2s. A pair of 2s against an ace showing still saves about 0.3 antes compared with folding.
Pay table and house edge
| Hand | Raise pays |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 100 to 1 |
| Straight flush | 50 to 1 |
| Four of a kind | 20 to 1 |
| Full house | 7 to 1 |
| Flush | 5 to 1 |
| Straight | 4 to 1 |
| Three of a kind | 3 to 1 |
| Two pair | 2 to 1 |
| One pair or ace-king | 1 to 1 |
With good strategy the house keeps about 5.22% of each ante, a little more than most table games. Some tables cap the raise payout, which hurts if you ever hit the big hands. The odds of each hand and the progressive side bet are on the Caribbean stud calculator. If you like the format, Casino Hold’em is cheaper to play at around 2.16%.
Caribbean stud is a slow, steady loser at about 5% of the ante. Budget for that. BeGambleAware.org is free if gambling stops being fun.