Four Card Poker Part One

7 April 2004

By Elliot Frome
I first found out about Four Card Poker by Shuffle Master a few months ago. I was actually reading their quarterly report
and it made mention of their latest game. Being the 'new kid on the block', I was eager to find out about this new game
and be the first or at least amongst the first analysts to take a close look at it.
As I was reading that quarterly report, I envisioned a game a lot like Three Card Poker but with an 'extra' card. While there
are similarities between the two, it's probably more accurate to say they are more like cousins than siblings. Four Card
Poker (FCP) is structured a lot like Three Card Poker (TCP). There are two distinct bets that the player can choose from. The
first is based solely on the Player's cards, while the second is a head to head competition between the Player and the
Dealer.
The first game is called Aces Up, and it's a lot like Pair Plus. The Player is dealt four cards. If you have a Pair of Aces or
better, you win. The paytable that I've been told is in use in Las Vegas, where it is currently 'on trial' at the Sahara is:
Aces Up Paytable
Four of a Kind 50
Straight Flush 40
Three of a
Kind
8
Flush 6
Straight 4
Two Pairs 2
Pair of Aces 1
Playing Aces Up, you can expect to have a winner about 18.56% of the time. Ironically, the most common winning hand will
be Two Pair, followed by Flushes, Straights, Pair of Aces, Three of a Kinds, Straight Flushes and Four of a Kinds. This
paytable will provide a payback of about 95.76%, which can leave a little to be desired. The trend in the casinos seems to
be to leave the 'vig' pretty high on games that require absolutely NO strategy, as the casino cannot count on beginner
players or mistakes to enhance their profits.
The second portion of Four Card Poker is called Ante/Play just like in Three Card Poker. In this portion of the game, the
Player initially places an 'Ante' bet. He is then dealt his four cards and can look at them before deciding if he wants to 'Play'
or 'Fold'. Folding means surrendering his Ante bet and the game is over. Playing means putting up an additional bet and
going head to head against the dealer's hand.
It is here that the differences between Three Card Poker and Four Card Poker become apparent. First of all, when Playing,
the player can place an additional bet of ONE to THREE times the initial Ante Bet. Secondly, the Dealer does not need to
'Qualify' in order for the player to be paid on his 'Play' bet. These two features allow you sock it to the house when dealt a
solid hand. Of course, something's got to be given back. So, the advantage the casino gets is that the Dealer is dealt FIVE
cards to make his FOUR card hand. The player gets one additional advantage. One of the Dealer's cards is dealt 'Up' so that
the Player sees one of the Dealer's cards before deciding to Play or Fold. As we will discover later on, this is only a small
advantage when combined with the rest of the rules.
Additionally, like Three Card Poker, there are bonus payouts for the top three hands for the Player. These are 25, 20 and 2
for Four of a Kinds, Straight Flushes and Three of a Kinds, respectively. These Bonus payouts account for just over 3% of
the payback in Ante/Play.
Given the complexity of the game, Shuffle Master has done the players (and maybe the analysts) a favor. They provide a
suggested strategy on the information card at the table. I was a little suspect when I first saw this. How many gaming
companies give you the strategy when they release new games? Just how accurate would this strategy really be?
Well, after spending quite a few weeks analyzing Four Card Poker, I can tell you that I must offer a big 'KUDOS' to Shuffle
Master. While their strategy is not 'optimal' or 'perfect' (they don't claim that it is), it is pretty darn close. For this week, I'm
going to review their strategy. Given its ease, I'm calling this the 'Basic' or 'Easy' Strategy. In future weeks, I'll review a
more complex strategy that can eek out a bit more payback for the player.
According to their information sheet, there are essentially 3 pieces of strategy:
1. Bet 3X when you have a Pair of Tens or Better
2. Bet 1X when you have a Pair of 3's thru a Pair of 9's
3. Fold if a Pair of 2's or less
Using this strategy will return you about 98.41% (including bonus payout), which is very respectable for a table game. The
number of hands per hour will vary depending on the dealer and the number of players at the table, but on the whole, I
would guess that you can expect to play 35 hands per hour.
The 'Basic' Strategy will call for the Player to Fold about 47.4% of the time, Play at 1X about 21.7% of the time and Play at
3X the remaining 30.95% of the time. You'll win your 1X plays about 3 out of 8 times, while winning your 3X plays 7 out of
10 times.
I'd like to mention one last point about the strategy. It NEVER calls for betting 2x your original bet. You're either Folding,
defending your position (betting 1x) or going All-In (betting 3x). This will be true for ANY strategy developed for Four Card
Poker.
In the next few weeks, I'll go over a more complex strategy, which I'm currently working on that can raise the payback by
about another .1%. This strategy will take into account the Dealer's Up-Card and will require a bit more than 3 pieces of
strategy to remember. I'll also review more of the concepts behind developing a strategy for a game like Four Card Poker,
as well as more 'what to expect' type information.
Four Card Poker started in California, is already playing in Las Vegas and Detroit, and from what I've heard should be in
Atlantic City shortly. It looks like Three Card Poker's cousin is coming to town and planning on staying for a while.

Four Card Poker Part Two
14 April 2004
First of all, I have to say mea culpa. In last week's article describing Four Card Poker, I made a silly error in describing the
game. Last week, I stated that the Player gets four cards, and the Dealer gets five cards. In reality, the Player gets Five
Cards and the Dealer gets Six Cards! I assure you ... (read more)

Four Card Poker Finally
28 May 2004
For those of you who have been waiting for my promised Part Three of Four Card Poker.HERE IT IS! I apologize for the
delay, but I wanted to make sure I had the strategy as close to perfect as possible. When you consider that, with 5 cards to
the Player, 1 Dealer up-card and 5 Dealer down cards, there ... (read more)

Four Card Poker Growing and Growing
27 September 2004
About six weeks ago, I wrote a column here talking about the success of Three Card Poker. There is no doubt that it's the
top proprietary game of all time. It will probably stay that way for a while, too. There is, however, for the first time, the
prospects of a new game coming up from behind which ... (read more)
Four Card Poker Part Two
14 April 2004

By Elliot Frome
First of all, I have to say mea culpa. In last week's article describing Four Card Poker, I made a silly error in describing the
game. Last week, I stated that the Player gets four cards, and the Dealer gets five cards. In reality, the Player gets Five
Cards and the Dealer gets Six Cards! I assure you that all math calculated was calculated using the proper rules of play and
it was merely my description that was in error.
Last week I analyzed the Basic Strategy provided by Shuffle Master. This week, I will introduce the first half of a more
precise Expert Strategy. However, it should be noted that this 'Expert Strategy' will not be 'perfect' strategy. Perfect strategy
for Four Card Poker would require a strategy table, several pages long, that would require close scrutiny of ALL 5 cards
dealt to the player. As each player card can act as a penalty card to the Dealer's hand, even the exact SUIT makeup of the
player's hand can become relevant to the strategy. While I won't go so far as to say that I can't imagine anyone wanting to
be this precise, I will say that if someone wishes to go for the final .01%, they're on their own! The likelihood of misplaying
a hand with such complex strategy will offset any additional advantage the player will get.
Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker is a strategy that will account for the Dealer's Upcard and occasionally a single kicker in
the Player's Hand. It will NOT look at the other cards in the player's hand (i.e. 'second' kickers) or at the suit makeup of the
Player's Hand. What will Expert Strategy buy us vs. using Basic Strategy? Basic strategy will achieve a payback of about
98.41%. Just the first half of Expert Strategy that I will be presenting here will push that up to about 98.50%. This may not
sound like a lot, but it will cut the House Edge ('vig') by about 6%.
Today's look at Expert Strategy will focus on when to bet 3x after looking at your hand, as opposed to betting 1x or Folding.
According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 3x anytime you have a Pair of 10's or Better. This ignores the Dealer's Upcard
completely and is not taking advantage of this benefit. We should be betting 3x ANYTIME the EV of the hand goes positive,
meaning we expect to win the hand more often than we will lose the hand. Through computer analysis, the following Expert
Strategy has been devised:
Bet 3x on all Pair of Aces or Better
Bet 3x on all Pair of Kings, except bet 1x if facing an Ace and you don't have an Ace in your hand
Bet 3x on a Pair of Queens looking into a 2-Q. Bet 1x if Dealer has a K or Ace (EVEN if you have a K or A)
Bet 3x on a Pair of Jacks looking into a 2-10. Bet 1x if Dealer has a Q, K or Ace up. IF the dealer has a Jack up,
Bet 3x if you have at least a Q, K or Ace in your hand.
Bet 3x on a Pair of 10's looking into a 2-9, Bet 1x if Dealer has a 10-Ace.
One reader informed me as well, and it was confirmed by Shuffle Master, that at Thunder Valley Casino, the game is played
with all Dealer cards down. In such a case, there is not much more you can do beyond Shuffle Master's basic strategy. For
those that play at Thunder Valley, the only change I would recommend is that you bet 3x on a Pair of 10's ONLY if you have
at least a Jack or better as a kicker. The overall payback will be the same, but you'll put a little less money on the table. For
any game with less than 100% payback, this will slow the long term loss rate.
Apparently, Thunder Valley is also using a lower paytable for Aces Up. Casinos have a lot of flexibility in deciding how to set
up the paytable for Aces Up. You can calculate the payback of any Aces Up paytable by multiplying the pay (don't forget to
include the return of your original bet!) of the particular hand by the frequency, and sum up the values for each hand. I've
done the math for the paytable in Las Vegas below, and you can plug in any other paytable values to find the payback of
that paytable:
Hand Frequency Pays* Total
(freq. times
pay)
Four of a Kind 0.00024 51 0.012245
Straight Flush 0.000797 41 0.032687
Three of a
Kind
0.022569 9 0.203121
Flush 0.044101 7 0.308705
Straight 0.039173 5 0.195863
Two Pair 0.047539 3 0.142617
Pair A's 0.031203 2 0.062407
Total 0.957465
* This INCLUDES return of the original bet
Aces Up paybacks are considerably less than the payback of the Ante/Play portion of the game. Remember that you are not
REQUIRED to play both. If you feel the casinos are setting that payback just a bit TOO low on Aces Up, you can let the
casino know, either directly or by simply choosing not to play that half of the game.
Next week I'll cover the final part of Expert Strategy which will cover the changes to Basic Strategy on when to Bet 1x as
opposed to Folding your hand.
Four Card Poker Finally
28 May 2004

By Elliot Frome
For those of you who have been waiting for my promised Part Three of Four Card Poker.HERE IT IS! I apologize for the
delay, but I wanted to make sure I had the strategy as close to perfect as possible. When you consider that, with 5 cards to
the Player, 1 Dealer up-card and 5 Dealer down cards, there are more than 167 Trillion possible hands, hopefully, you'll
excuse my tardiness.
In Part One, I reviewed the Basic Strategy provided by Shuffle Master. In Part Two, I introduced the first half of a more
precise Expert Strategy. This week, I will refine the Expert Strategy even further. As previously stated, this strategy will still
not be 'Perfect' Strategy. As previously discussed, perfect strategy for Four Card Poker would require a strategy table,
several pages long, that would require close scrutiny of ALL 5 cards dealt to the player. As each player card can act as a
penalty card to the Dealer's hand, even the exact SUIT makeup of the player's hand can become relevant to the strategy.
The refined Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker is still a strategy that will account for the Dealer's Upcard and occasionally
a single kicker in the Player's Hand. It will NOT look at the other cards in the player's hand (i.e. 'second' kickers) or at the
suit makeup of the Player's Hand. Basic strategy will achieve a payback of about 98.41%. My first cut at Expert Strategy
brought the payback to 98.50%. This final piece of the strategy brings the payback to 98.60%. While the nearly .2%
increase in payback may not sound like a lot, it will reduce the House Edge ('vig') by better than 10%.
According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 3x anytime you have a Pair of 10's or Better. This ignores the Dealer's Upcard
completely and is not taking advantage of this benefit. We should be betting 3x ANYTIME the EV of the hand goes positive,
meaning we expect to win the hand more often than we will lose the hand. The strategy presented below is different than
the one presented in Part Two. The strategy in Part Two was an improvement over Basic Strategy, but the following
Strategy goes a little further. Through computer analysis, the following Expert Strategy has been devised:
Bet 3x on all Pair of Aces or Better
Bet 3x on all Pair of Kings, except bet 1x if facing an Ace and you don't have an Ace in your hand
Bet 3x on a Pair of Queens looking into a 2-Q. Bet 3x if Dealer has a K or Ace up, and you have the Dealer's up-
card in your hand
Bet 3x on a Pair of Jacks looking into a 2-J. Bet 1x if Dealer has an Ace up. If the dealer has a Q or K up, Bet 3x if
you have the Dealer's up-card in your hand.
Bet 3x on a Pair of 10's looking into a 2-9, Bet 1x if Dealer has a J-Ace. If the Dealer has a 10 up, and you have a
Jack or Better kicker, bet 3x, otherwise bet 1x.
Bet 3x on a Pair of 9's looking into a 2. All other Pairs of 9's, bet 1x.
The strategy listed above is for the decision to bet 1x vs. 3x. The other decision that needs to be made is when to fold vs.
bet 1x. According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 1x on all Pairs of 3's or better (except when you bet 3x), and fold all
Pairs of 2's. Expert Strategy will alter this, as well, albeit only slightly. Again, through computer simulation, the following
strategy has been developed:
Bet 1x on a Pair of 2's looking into a 2
So, besides the payback difference, where do these changes leave us in terms of what to expect?
We can expect to fold just a little over 47% of the time. This is essentially unchanged from Basic Strategy
We can expect to bet 1x just a little less than 24% of the time. This compares to just under 22% of the time for
Basic Strategy.
We can expect to bet 3x just a little under 29% of the time. This compares to just under 31% of the time for Basic
Strategy
The net result is to shift about 2% of our wagers from 3x betting to 1x betting. By doing this, we buy ourselves an
additional .2% of payback. On average, we also bet about a nickel less per hand based on a $5 ante bet, which also helps
to slow our loss rate over the long run.
With the analysis now complete, I should be able to focus on completing 'Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker' in the coming
weeks. For those of you who already e-mailed me regarding this new book, I will be sending out the information shortly. For
those who are interested, feel free to drop me a line at compuflyers@prodigy.net and I'll forward information to you as
soon as the book is out. According to Shuffle Master, there are now nearly 100 Four Card Poker tables out there, so this
game looks like it may be poised for a successful run.
Four Card Poker Finally
28 May 2004

By Elliot Frome
For those of you who have been waiting for my promised Part Three of Four Card Poker.HERE IT IS! I apologize for the
delay, but I wanted to make sure I had the strategy as close to perfect as possible. When you consider that, with 5 cards to
the Player, 1 Dealer up-card and 5 Dealer down cards, there are more than 167 Trillion possible hands, hopefully, you'll
excuse my tardiness.
In Part One, I reviewed the Basic Strategy provided by Shuffle Master. In Part Two, I introduced the first half of a more
precise Expert Strategy. This week, I will refine the Expert Strategy even further. As previously stated, this strategy will still
not be 'Perfect' Strategy. As previously discussed, perfect strategy for Four Card Poker would require a strategy table,
several pages long, that would require close scrutiny of ALL 5 cards dealt to the player. As each player card can act as a
penalty card to the Dealer's hand, even the exact SUIT makeup of the player's hand can become relevant to the strategy.
The refined Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker is still a strategy that will account for the Dealer's Upcard and occasionally
a single kicker in the Player's Hand. It will NOT look at the other cards in the player's hand (i.e. 'second' kickers) or at the
suit makeup of the Player's Hand. Basic strategy will achieve a payback of about 98.41%. My first cut at Expert Strategy
brought the payback to 98.50%. This final piece of the strategy brings the payback to 98.60%. While the nearly .2%
increase in payback may not sound like a lot, it will reduce the House Edge ('vig') by better than 10%.
According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 3x anytime you have a Pair of 10's or Better. This ignores the Dealer's Upcard
completely and is not taking advantage of this benefit. We should be betting 3x ANYTIME the EV of the hand goes positive,
meaning we expect to win the hand more often than we will lose the hand. The strategy presented below is different than
the one presented in Part Two. The strategy in Part Two was an improvement over Basic Strategy, but the following
Strategy goes a little further. Through computer analysis, the following Expert Strategy has been devised:
Bet 3x on all Pair of Aces or Better
Bet 3x on all Pair of Kings, except bet 1x if facing an Ace and you don't have an Ace in your hand
Bet 3x on a Pair of Queens looking into a 2-Q. Bet 3x if Dealer has a K or Ace up, and you have the Dealer's up-
card in your hand
Bet 3x on a Pair of Jacks looking into a 2-J. Bet 1x if Dealer has an Ace up. If the dealer has a Q or K up, Bet 3x if
you have the Dealer's up-card in your hand.
Bet 3x on a Pair of 10's looking into a 2-9, Bet 1x if Dealer has a J-Ace. If the Dealer has a 10 up, and you have a
Jack or Better kicker, bet 3x, otherwise bet 1x.
Bet 3x on a Pair of 9's looking into a 2. All other Pairs of 9's, bet 1x.
The strategy listed above is for the decision to bet 1x vs. 3x. The other decision that needs to be made is when to fold vs.
bet 1x. According to Basic Strategy, you should bet 1x on all Pairs of 3's or better (except when you bet 3x), and fold all
Pairs of 2's. Expert Strategy will alter this, as well, albeit only slightly. Again, through computer simulation, the following
strategy has been developed:
Bet 1x on a Pair of 2's looking into a 2
So, besides the payback difference, where do these changes leave us in terms of what to expect?
We can expect to fold just a little over 47% of the time. This is essentially unchanged from Basic Strategy
We can expect to bet 1x just a little less than 24% of the time. This compares to just under 22% of the time for
Basic Strategy.
We can expect to bet 3x just a little under 29% of the time. This compares to just under 31% of the time for Basic
Strategy
The net result is to shift about 2% of our wagers from 3x betting to 1x betting. By doing this, we buy ourselves an
additional .2% of payback. On average, we also bet about a nickel less per hand based on a $5 ante bet, which also helps
to slow our loss rate over the long run.
With the analysis now complete, I should be able to focus on completing 'Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker' in the coming
weeks. For those of you who already e-mailed me regarding this new book, I will be sending out the information shortly. For
those who are interested, feel free to drop me a line at compuflyers@prodigy.net and I'll forward information to you as
soon as the book is out. According to Shuffle Master, there are now nearly 100 Four Card Poker tables out there, so this
game looks like it may be poised for a successful run.