Too good to
be true?
9 November 2007
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark: Could you please give me some
information on "Let it Ride." I tried it
recently and liked it, but I had the unpleasant
feeling that something this easy couldn't be
"too good to be true." Tom Z.
Let It Ride is a variation of five-card stud
poker where the player wagers on a poker hand
consisting of three cards in the player's hand
and two community cards in the dealer's hand.
Play begins with each player making three bets
of equal denomination in spaces labeled (1), (2)
and ($). The dealer then gives each player three
cards, and two community cards are dealt face
down. After seeing his or her first three cards,
each player has the option of pulling back their
first bet, or, as the game is eponymously named,
saying "Let it ride."
The dealer then exposes one of the two community
cards. Each player now has the option to remove
the second bet or to "let it ride," regardless
of the first decision. Finally the second
community card is flipped over. Losing bets not
meeting the payout criteria are collected, and
the winning wagers are paid, based on the
ranking of the player's hand and a payout
schedule. Typically a Royal Flush pays 1,000 to
1, a Straight flush: 200 to 1, Four of a kind:
50 to 1, Full house: 11 to 1, Flush: 8 to 1,
Straight: 5 to 1, Three of a kind: 3 to 1, Two
pair: 2 to 1, and a pair of 10s or better: 1 to
1.
I'll be the first to agree the game is fun to
play, slow enough for the gambling neophyte, and
does allow you to pull back two of the three
bets, but my problem, Tom, is that even when
played flawlessly, the casino's edge on
Let-It-Ride is 3.51%, which is almost six times
what it is in blackjack when using perfect basic
strategy. That's well above my gambling grade.
Recall, Tom, my recommendation: "Never make a
wager that has higher than a 2% house edge."
Worse yet, Tom, are the Let-It-Ride side bets
where for $1 you are offered an additional
payoff with certain paying hands; these bets
carry a double-digit casino edge making them,
"too good to be true," -- Oh,Yeah! -- and they
should labeled for what they are; sucker bets.
Dear Mark: This weekend I hit my first royal
flush ever. What was interesting was that it was
dealt naturally to me in hearts. Is there a
simple way of figuring out what my odds were of
getting it? Chuck F.
Congratulations, Steve, on your first, of --
hopefully -- many more royals to come.
The odds, Steve, of achieving your natural royal
in the specific suit of hearts, were 1 in
2,598,960. Here's how it calculates out,
compliments of my fifth grade math teacher,
Sister Cyrilla: 5/52 X 4/51 X 3/50 X 2/49 X 1/48
= 1/2,598,960. The first fraction, 5/52, is the
chance of getting any one of 5 particular hearts
in the deck (10H, JH, QH, KH, AH) with the 52
representing 52 cards in a poker deck. The
second fraction is your chance of getting any
one of the four hearts needed as your second
card with 51 cards remaining, and so on through
the fifth fraction. You multiply them all
together to find out what your chances are of
getting any hand of pre-identified cards, which
in your case was a natural royal flush in
hearts.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week:
"Lying about your losses to your friends is
minor and harmless compared to lying to
yourself." VP Pappy, Midwest Casino Guide
|
