3 Card Poker Sticky Bonus Strategy

There are a number of quality Sticky Type I bonuses available that do not allow Blackjack or Video Poker play to complete the WR. Likewise, many of these casinos have also banned the play of another popular alternative for Sticky bonuses, Casino War. In these instances, the next best game alternative is 3 Card Poker. In fact, 3 Card Poker is actually superior to Casino War for highly aggressive players (with large targets), and only slightly inferior for our purposes on the whole.

The following strategy discussion assumes you are familiar with the rules and strategy of 3 card poker, also known as Tri-Card Poker (at RTG Casinos) and Poker Three (at Playtech Casinos). If you are new to 3 card poker or need to brush up on the rules or basic strategy, please review our 3 Card Poker rules and strategy page.

As with all our advanced sticky bonus strategies, the main advantage of our 3CP Sticky bonus strategy is that players will either hit a big target quickly and lock in a nice score, or bust out very quickly, thus wasting little time and making very few negative EV wagers towards the WR. In terms of potential hourly rate, these bonuses are far superior to many large WR cashable bonuses. Of course, like all Sticky Bonus strategies, the variance and risk of busting is considerable.

As with all our other Sticky Type I bonus strategies, players should begin by setting a target amount and bet size. For more information on these topics, please our Sticky Type I bonus Strategy page.

It is recommended that players set more aggressive targets with 3CP sticky bonuses, than say with BJ, VP, or even War bonuses. The reasoning behind that is to use the high variance of 3CP to the player’s advantage. Yes, you will bust out more with these higher targets, but given the pay schedule of 3CP, when you do hit a hit a big hand, you will easily reach even very aggressive targets. At a minimum, I would recommend a target of 3x(D+B), and would really consider a target of 4-5x(D+B) or greater more appropriate for most players. Obviously, as your target goes up, your variance also increases, however, so too does your expected profit.

As far as bet size, in my opinion there really are only 2 options for Sticky Type I 3CP bonuses, either ½ your entire initial balance (D+B) or ¼ of your total. Personally, I prefer to give myself a little more leeway to lose a hand or 2 and prefer to begin wagering ¼ of my total balance, and recommend the same for my players.

Once you have decided on your target and bet size, proceed by wagering the predetermined bet amount on the “Ante” wager only, with no wager placed on the “Pair Plus” bet. As always with 3CP play, should you be dealt a hand of Q/6/4 or better, you will raise your bet, and should you be dealt worse than this, you will fold. Whether you raise or fold, win or lose, you should continue betting in this fashion (betting 1/4 of your initial balance on the Ante wager only) until either hitting your target, or getting down to where you do not have the 2 bets left in your balance required to raise should you hit a raising hand on your next deal. To clarify, assuming you are betting the recommended ¼ of your bankroll (say $200 initial balance, thus $50 wagers), if you lose 3 wagers and are left with only $50, you do not want to put this all on the next hand, as your only option in that case will be to fold regardless of the hand you are dealt. Please note, as long as you have ½ of you initial balance remaining or greater, continue betting the ¼ of your initial bankroll until you hit your target. When you get down to less than ½ your initial balance, you can go 1 of 2 ways. You can either decide to lower your bet amount on the ante wager and wager only $25 on the Ante wager for our example, or you can take the entire $50 remaining and put it only the “Pair Plus” bet and wager nothing on the Ante wager. The effective house advantage of the Pair Plus wagers is in fact very comparable to the Ante wager, however, the variance is greatly increased over the Ante wager. Given that at this point (1/4 of initial balance remaining) you really need to hit a big hand anyways in order to give yourself a fighting chance to hit your target, the increased variance is really not a bad thing at all. This is the course of action (wager it all on Pair Plus) that I would highly recommend in this scenario.

Assuming things go well and you hit your target (either on your early Ante wagers, or with a big Pair Plus score after being down), you will want to drop your bets down to your normal cashable bonus wager amount (whatever you feel comfortable with whether it be $2, $5, $10 or whatever) and grind the remainder of the WR assuming any remains unfulfilled at this point. Once the WR is complete, you are free to cashout.

An alternate strategy to the one laid out above, that should only be used by players with considerable bankrolls and tolerance for added risk, is to simply put your entire balance (or half of it) right off the bat on the Pair Plus wager instead of making the Ante wagers. While the effective longrun EV of this strategy is similar to the Ante wager strategy, the variance of this play is MUCH higher than the Ante wager style. While you will most likely lose your entire balance in a few hands, you do give yourself the opportunity to hit one of the big hands and hit a HUGE score with this play. Again, this play is not for the meek and should only used by those players with very healthy bankrolls and tolerance for added risk.

As noted earlier, but worth reiterating, NEVER EVER wager more than half of your remaining balance on the Ante wager as you will only have one option, to fold, regardless of the cards you are dealt.

It is also worth noting that several of the best 3CP Sticky Type I bonuses, also offer quality monthly bonuses as well. Obviously, the 100% bonuses are worth playing, however, the 50% monthly bonuses and reloads are also worth playing if you have a large enough bankroll and risk tolerance. The 50% bonuses are really only +EV and worth the effort if you set a large enough target. I would advice a target of at least 5x(D+B) for the 50% bonuses and at least 3x-4x(D+B) for the 100% monthlies.

In terms of overall expected value, all of the 3CP bonuses listed here have positive expectation. For players wanting to estimate their chances of hitting a particular target, the Wizard of Odds calculates the odds of a player winning a random bet on the Ante wager at 44.91%, a push at .06% and a dealer win at 55.03%. So the players odds of hitting a target of 2x(D+B) are around 45% , a target of 4x(D+B) are around 21%.

As noted in other Sticky Bonus strategies, this aggressive style will also give players the added benefit of looking like a serious gambler in the eyes of most casinos, especially when you bust out quickly. Casinos love these kind of bet it all gamblers, and are much more likely to offer very nice reloads to these types of players. Several of the casinos on this list, most notably the Bet Rev group of Playtech casinos (Royal Dice, Sierra Star, Giant Vegas) have been known to offer certain returning players 100% and even 200% reload bonuses often on a monthly and even weekly basis.

This strategy can of course be implemented for cashable 3CP bonuses as well if you prefer to try a hit it big or bust quickly strategy rather than grind it our strategy for cashable bonuses.