Playing with House Money



            Over the years, there have been numerous successful sidebets to blackjack.  Many people have wondered why blackjack Players would bother with a sidebet.  A good blackjack Player can play the game at 99.5%, so why would they want to play a sidebet that might pay anywhere from 75%-90%.  That would seem to defeat the purpose of playing a game with such a narrow house edge. 

            I think the success of blackjack sidebets lie in the volatility of them.  Blackjack is essentially a game of coin tosses.  You win one, you lose one.  You win two, you lose three, you win two more.   It is hard to make a real killing (or get killed) on anyone hand unless you have one of those cases where you split 8's, draw another 8 and then a bunch of 2's and 3's for Double Down situation.   The average wager at a blackjack table is a mere 1.15 (roughly) units.

            The sidebet on the other hand will frequently afford the Player the opportunity to win big on a single hand.  The more frequent payoffs might pay 4 to 1 or even 10 to 1.  The more rare winning hands might pay 100 to 1 or 1000 to 1.  A $5 wager can quickly (so to speak) become $500 or $5000.    The tradeoff for this opportunity is generally the lower paybacks associated with no strategy sidebets.  The casinos can't offer 97-98% paybacks for games with no strategy because they can't rely on human error to help drive the casino edge.

            A couple of months ago, Roger Snow, Chief Product Officer at Shuffle Master brought a game idea to me to analyze.  As is frequently the case when we work together, the game went through multiple iterations before we arrived at the final product.  After we 'ran the numbers', I think Roger liked it but didn't love it.  I, on the other hand, told him I thought we had just come up with a nearly perfect sidebet for blackjack.  It was given the name House Money for reasons which will soon become clear.

            As far as I know, it is the first and only blackjack sidebet that has strategy, yet somehow does not affect base blackjack strategy at all.  As a result, if a Player chooses not to play the sidebet, he gives up nothing to the house by sitting at a table that offers it. Also, the casinos are able to offer a sidebet with a payback in the 95+% range because there is the possibility of human error in the strategy.  With all this, the concept of the sidebet is quite simple.

The Player makes a wager before being dealt his blackjack hand.  The Dealer deals the cards as per normal blackjack rules.  If the Player is dealt a Pair, a Straight or a Straight Flush, he wins.  As always, there may be multiple paytables over time, but for now, this is the most common one for a 2, 6 or 8-deck game:



Hand
Pays (TO 1)*
Suited A-K
9
2-Card Straight Flush
4
Pair
3
2-Card Straight
1
            Those payouts may not look all that spectacular.  In all honesty, they are not.  If the game ended right here, the payback would only be about 75% and this would just be another 'nothing special' blackjack sidebet.  But, the game does not end here.  The Player now has two options:

·         Take his winnings and play out his blackjack end per usual
·         Add any/all of his winnings to his base blackjack wager and then play out his hand per usual

            There are NO restrictions on these rules.  If the Player is dealt a Suited A-K, he will be paid 9 to 1 for his sidebet and then can add the entire 10 units to his base Blackjack wager which has ZERO chance of losing.  And YES, the casino will pay 3 to 2 for this additional wagered amount if the Dealer does not also have a Blackjack.

            If the Player is dealt a Pair of Jacks, he will be paid 3 to 1 for the sidebet.  If the Dealer has a 6 up, he can add all 4 units to the blackjack wager.  If the Dealer has a 10 up, he can choose to do so too, but here's where the strategy part comes in.  Is this the right move?  In reality, it is the correct move.  I should add that if the Dealer has Blackjack, the Player NEVER risks his winnings from the sidebet.

            The real fun begins when the Player is dealt a 5-6 (or 5-6 suited) and wins even money (or 4 to 1) and has to decide whether to risk his winnings on his base blackjack wager.  If the Player chooses to do so, it becomes a part of his wager in every sense of the word.  If he decides to double down, he MUST match the ENTIRE wager.  The same applies if he is dealt a Pair and chooses to split.

            Imagine starting with a $5 wager on both the base wager and the sidebet and being dealt a Pair of 8's.  The Dealer pays you 3 to 1 on your sidebet and you now have to decide if you want to add the $20 to your base blackjack wager, making it a total of $25.  Assuming you do and you go ahead and follow standard strategy, you will now split those 8's and you'll have to put up an additional $25 of your own.  Now, you are dealt another 8 and you put up another $25.  Then you're dealt a '3' and you double down and play ANOTHER $25.  You started as a $5 Player and now you have $100 down on the table on essentially one hand!

            For the record, you would only let your sidebet winnings ride if the Dealer has a 2 through 7 as an upcard.  However, whether you cap your bet or take your winnings, you still follow basic blackjack strategy and split those 8's.  You double down on all 11's.

            So far, House Money has been very well received by the casinos that it has been demonstrated in.  It is expected to go live in the next couple of weeks in Reno at the Grand Siena Reno.  It should go live in other casinos shortly thereafter as regulatory approvals are granted.  In a few weeks, after the game has gone live, I'll review the complete strategy for the game.

           


Four Play



           
            Four Card Poker has a special place in my heart because it sort of launched my career as a gaming analyst.  Ironically, I didn't analyze it as it was being developed.  Rather, I wrote about it right here in Gaming Today way back in February 2004.  The column got noticed by the then President of Shuffle Master, who put me in touch with Roger Snow, the inventor of the game and at the time, the Manager of Table Games for Shuffle Master.  That introduction was the beginning of what has been a very successful collaboration which has included blockbuster games such as Ultimate Texas Hold'em and Mississippi Stud, along with countless sidebets for virtually every game in the casino.

            Four Card Poker was also an important game for the evolution of proprietary table games.  By the time Four Card Poker hit stride, there had been a bit of a lull in table game creation.  The casino floor had already changed a good deal with Let It Ride, Caribbean Stud Poker, Three Card Poker and Spanish 21, but those games were all already several years old.  Perhaps there were some other games in between that I am unaware of.  Admittedly, this lull I speak of, occurred after my father passed away and before I entered the field.

            The game itself didn't really break any new ground in terms of betting structure or rules.   The new ground was broken by Four Card Poker's 'crazy' cousin - Crazy 4 Poker, which introduced the Super Bonus wager - which is more commonly known as the Blind wager on more recent Shuffle Master games.  This wager will push if the Player wins with a poor or so-so hand and will win odds if the Player wins with a strong hand.  I'll cover more about Crazy 4 Poker in a few weeks.  Crazy 4 Poker has about 100 tables in the marketplace as compared to Four Card Poker which has about 250.

            Four Card Poker utilizes the same betting structure as Three Card Poker.  There are two separate wagers - Aces Up and Ante/Play.   The Aces Up pays on a pair of Aces or better and is not concerned with the Dealer's hand at all.   The Ante/Play is the wager where you are playing head to head against the Dealer's hand.  You make an Ante wager to begin play and you are dealt your hand which you can review.  Now you can either make a Play wager of 1x - 3x your Ante or Fold, forfeiting your Ante wager.  If you beat the Dealer's hand, you are paid even money.  If you don't you lose both wagers.   Also, similar to Three Card Poker are the Ante Bonuses.  These pay the Player whether he wins or loses against the Dealer - if the Player can achieve a Four of a Kind, Straight Flush or Three of a Kind.  They pay 25, 20 and 2, respectively.

            So, by this point, if you are not familiar with Four Card Poker already, you're probably guessing that the Player and Dealer each get 4 cards and you might be wondering what hand the Dealer needs to qualify.  WRONG!  The name comes from the size of the hand the Player makes.  He is dealt FIVE cards to make a FOUR card hand.  The Dealer is dealt SIX Cards to make a FOUR card hand.  Thanks to this little benefit, the Dealer does NOT need to qualify in Four Card Poker.  Every hand plays. 

            In Three Card Poker, many people follow a strategy to just do what the Dealer does - and play any hand that is Queen or better.  This is a little below perfect, but will not hurt your bankroll significantly.  If you want to play like an Expert, you go with Queen-6-4 as the lowest hand you Play.  So, with the Dealer qualifying on every hand in Four Card Poker, you have nothing to guide you at all.  Adding to the dilemma is when to Play 1x vs. Play 3x.  As is normally, the case, we NEVER bet 2x.  We either cut our losses (FOLD), hedge (Play 1x) or slam on the gas (Play 3x).

            When Four Card Poker was introduced, Shuffle Master supplied information cards that included a basic strategy on them.  This strategy produced a 98.41% payback and includes only 3 rules.  In my analysis of the game, I took that strategy a bit further and produced one with about 7 rules (admittedly, more complex rules too) that takes the payback up to 98.60%.  Even this strategy is not absolutely perfect as it does not take into account specific suit make up of the Player's hand nor go any further than the first 'kicker' in the Player's hand.  It is my expert opinion that to do so would only get the Player an additional 0.01 - 0.02% in payback, but it would also greatly increase the probability of errors by making the strategy that much more complex.

            Without further ado, I present the basic strategy which Shuffle Master initially developed and I have verified.

·         Fold with a Pair of 2's or Less
·         Bet 1X with a Pair of 3's thru 9's
·         Bet 3X with a Pair of 10's or Better
           
            It's that simple if you want to earn the 98.41% payback which is respectable.   Expect to Fold a good amount of the time - just under half.  Four Card Poker was designed to be quite a bit more volatile than Three Card Poker.   As Roger told me way back in 2004, "one of three things typically happens.  One, you double up.  Two, you get crushed.  Three, both one and two, and not necessarily in that order." 

            If you'd like to learn more about Four Card Poker, including the Expert Strategy, I highly recommend my Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker.  You can order it by sending $5.95 to Gambatria, P.O. Box 36474, Las Vegas, NV 89133.  This price includes free shipping and handling.

For the Love of the Game



            Perseverance can be a positive trait when you are trying to invent a new table game.  Unfortunately, it can also be a negative one which can all but kill your chances of ever having a game reach the casino floor.  This translates to one simple thought - Don't fall in love with your game.

            Getting a game into a casino is not an easy thing.  Getting it stay in the casino if you manage to get it placed is even harder.  Perhaps 5% of all games that are conceived of make it to the floor.  Of those that do, maybe 5% that make it there stay for any length of time and continue to grow.  When you add it all up, about 1% of all games invented are some type of financial success for the inventor. 

            This past week I had a conversation with a newcomer to the industry and reminded him that only 1 out of a hundred games becomes a success.  His response was that he'll just have to make sure he comes up with 100 games so that one of them can be successful.  That type of perseverance is the type you want to have. 

            A few years ago, I got a call from an inventor who wanted me to tweak a game that my father had originally worked on for him.  I found the file.  My father had worked on the game 10 years earlier.  In the 10 years, the game had been given a trial or two in a casino and been pulled out relatively quickly.  This is not a time for tweaks.  It is a time to move on to the next idea.  This type of perseverance could be a killer. 

            Roger Snow, Executive VP of Shuffle Master, may very well be the most prolific table game inventor of them all, with games like UltimateTexas Hold'em, Four Card Poker and Crazy 4 Poker to his credit.  He likes to remind people that he has probably invented more flops than anyone in the industry as well.  This doesn't mean that you should take any idea you have and quickly try to get it into a casino, with the goal being to try as any games as you can and hope something sticks.  Unless you have a track record of success, casinos are going to give you only so many chances, so you do want to put your best foot forward.

            If you do manage to get your game into the casino for a trial, it is time to take off the rose-colored glasses.  Listen to the feedback the table games manager gives you.  If the game isn't fairing well, don't start blaming it all on the casino that was kind enough to give you the trial.  They are NOT setting you up for failure.  Even in a free trial, it costs the casino money to try out your game.  They need to train the dealers.  They need to make room for your game by removing some other game that might have been doing okay - in hopes that yours will do great.

            No one can predict the success or failure of a game with a high degree of certainty.  In the end, it must perform which means its success is at the whim of the Players.  I have been working directly with inventors for a decade and indirectly for three decades and there is no clear rhyme or reason as to what succeeds and what doesn't.   The only thing is certain is that if you bring it to the Players and the Players don't like it - it is NOT a success.  It does not matter that your brother, sister, mother and Aunt Tilly all love the game and think it is the greatest thing they've ever seen.  I don't know how to tell you this - but they are BIASED!  This is the same bunch that told you how much they love that new pair of glasses - you know, the ones that make you look like a 1970's version of Elton John.

            If you spend 10 or 15 years trying to get a single game into the casino, you will likely have overlooked many other good ideas that you might have had.  There is a 99% chance that any single game idea you have will fail.  Every game that is invented is, as they say, a slave to the math.  That same math should be telling you that after a certain number of setbacks, your chances of success are greater by moving on than by insisting that the reason your game failed was some flaw of anything but the game itself.  Putting it another way, the expected value of working on the next game is greater than continuing to beat the dead horse.  And by now, you all know that the right play is the one with the higher expected value.

Who Isn't Crazy 4 Poker?

             Shortly after  Four Card Poker was being launched, another similar, yet different, game hit the marketplace.  It was called Crazy 4 Poker.  In a recent conversation with Roger Snow, Executive Vice President at Shuffle Master, he revealed that Crazy 4 Poker was invented on January 28, 2002.  How does he remember the specific day?  It was the same day that Four Card Poker went live at Jackson Rancheria in California.  Fearful that Four Card Poker was going to flop, he immediately went to work on its successor game.  As it turns out, he got them both right.

            For reasons not fully known, the game was a big hit in Nevada.  There are currently about 100 Crazy 4 Poker tables, of which 40 are in Nevada.  Virtually every major casino in Las Vegas has one.  Crazy 4 Poker is an important piece in the history of table games.  It introduced the concept of a ‘Super Bonus’ (now more commonly referred to as the “Blind” wager) in Shuffle Master games.  This has become a staple of their more recent games.

            Crazy 4 Poker is broken down into two separate wagers.  The first is called Queens Up is like Pair Plus.  If the Player is dealt a Pair of Queens or better he wins according to the paytable in use.  The second portion of the game is like Ante/Play.  It requires that the Player make both an Ante wager and a Super Bonus wager.  The Player and the Dealer are each dealt FIVE cards to make their best FOUR card hand.

            Once the Player has reviewed his hand, he can either Fold, forfeiting his Ante and Super Bonus wagers, or he can Play.  If the Player has a Pair of Aces or better, he may Play 3 times his Ante wager.  If he has less than a Pair of Aces, he can only wager 1 times his Ante.  Thus, when the Player has a strong hand, he can really sock it to the casino. 

            After all Players have decided what they want to do, the Dealer reveals his hand.  If the Dealer does not have at least a King High, his hand does not qualify.  In this case, the Ante wager is pushed and the Play wager is paid even money.  This means that if you have a strong hand and Play 3x you will still win even money on this when the Dealer does not qualify.  If the Dealer’s hand IS a King High or better, his hand qualifies.  In this case, if the Player’s hand outranks the Dealer’s hand, he will be paid even money on both his Ante and Play wagers.  If the Dealer’s hand outranks the Player’s hand, the Player will lose his Ante and Play wagers.

            The payouts on the Super Bonus wager are a bit more complex.  If the Player has a Straight or better (keep in mind with a 4-card hand, Trips outrank Straights and Flushes), he is paid according to the paytable regardless of the Dealer’s hand.  If the Player beats the Dealer, but with a hand less than a Straight, the wager pushes.  If the Player loses to the Dealer with a hand less than a Straight, the wager loses.

            The strategy for Crazy 4 Poker is rather similar to that of Three Card Poker.  The Player must remember only a single strategy to master the game – K-Q-8.  If the Player’s hand is K-Q-8 or higher, he should Play.  Technically, he must also remember to Play 3x if he has a Pair of Aces or better, but I consider this part of the strategy to be more than a little obvious.  The Player will win 90% of these hands.  It should be noted that K-Q-8 is not actually ‘perfect strategy’.  There are a handful of hands which should be Folded above K-Q-8 and a few that should be Played below.  However, these require taking into account the specific suit makeup of the hand and are more likely to cause errors by the Players than they are worth.  The difference between ‘perfect’ and ‘expert’ strategy is a mere 0.01% of payback.

            Speaking of payback, if you follow the simple strategy provided here, you’ll find Crazy 4 Poker affords a 98.91% payback on the Ante/Play portion of the game.  Given the relatively easy strategy, this is a very strong payback to offer.   As a side note to those that like to play games like this and never Fold.  Never folding in Crazy 4 Poker will take the payback down to 96.5%.  Considering an average wager of more than 3 units per hand, a $5 Player will be throwing away about $15 per hour more by following this wayward strategy.

            Stick to the K-Q-8 and before you know it, you’ll be Crazy 4 Poker too!  You can read more about Crazy 4 Poker and many other games at my website – www.gambatria.com.

The Storm After the Calm

            After Three Card Poker takes the casinos by storm, there is a bit of a lull in activity of new games.  That’s not to say that there weren’t many attempts, some with some success.  Up until Three Card Poker, casinos were not exactly chomping at the bit to put in new games.  Of course, as Three Card Poker grew in popularity and casinos started making that much more money even AFTER paying for the table, they probably began to realize that there was more money to be made with yet newer games.

            Enter Four Card Poker.  My initial reaction to hearing the name of the game was that I hoped it was NOT just Three Card Poker with four cards.  Fortunately, it is not.  Four Card Poker holds an interesting place in my heart.  On one hand, it is one of the few successful table games that was NOT analyzed by my father or myself.  It was developed after my dad passed away and before I jumped into the profession.  Nonetheless, it helped speed my entry into the profession. 

            Shortly after starting to write for Gaming Today in 2003, I received an e-mail from a reader about my Three Card Poker article.  He asked me if I had ever heard of Four Card Poker.  I had just read about the game earlier that day and the gentleman and I had an exchange of a few e-mails.  I finally asked him if he had a financial interest in the game (based on his questions) and he told me that he had just become the President of Shuffle Master (Paul Meyer).  Obviously, he had not been using his company e-mail address.  A few months later, after completing an analysis of Four Card Poker, I wrote an article about it in Gaming Today.  Again, I received an e-mail from Paul, this time commending me on nailing the math for the game.  I had accurately repeated the original analysis of the game.  Paul wound up putting me in touch with Roger Snow, then Manager of Table Games for Shuffle Master.  Roger gave me a few small projects to ‘test’ me and the rest is as they say ‘history.’  Roger and I have been working together ever since.

            Four Card Poker does have some similarities to Three Card Poker.  It is broken down into two games – the Ante/Play and the Aces Up wagers.  The latter is like Pair Plus.  The Player is paid if dealt a Pair of Aces or better.  Despite the name of the game, neither Player NOR Dealer get dealt four cards.  The Player is dealt five cards to make his best four card hand.  The Dealer, in the meantime, is dealt SIX cards to make his best four card hand.  One of his cards is dealt face up, but this makes only a minor amount of difference to our strategy.  To help compensate the Player for the Dealer’s ‘extra’ card, the Player has the opportunity to bet up to 3 times his base wager as part of Ante/Play.  So, he can Fold (forfeiting his Ante), Play 1 times his Ante or Play 3 times his Ante.  Also, there is no qualifying in Four Card Poker.  Once you decide to Play it is your hand vs. the Dealer hand.  There is one additional benefit to the Player in Four Card Poker.  The Player wins all ties.  Ties mean identical four card hands.  The cards not used to make the four card hands are NEVER taken into consideration.  If the Player’s hand beats or ties the Dealer’s hand, he is paid even money on his Ante and Play Wagers.  Additionally, the Player is paid an Ante Bonus if he has a Three of a Kind or better.

            With 5 Player cards and 6 Dealer cards, there are 28 TRILLION possible hands that can be dealt.  This makes creating a program to run all of them impractical.  Instead, we go in search of the beacon hands.  These are the hands that are at the strategy points.  In the case of Four Card Poker, we need to find two of them.  We need to know when to Fold vs. Play 1x and we need to know when to Play 3x instead of 1x.  Much to my surprise, Shuffle Master provided a basic strategy for the game on their information card.  When I simulated this strategy, I found a payback of 98.41%.  When I performed a more complete analysis, I found that I could push this up to 98.60%, but it requires memorizing a strategy that is a bit more complex.

            The basic strategy is as follows:
  • Play 3x if you have a Pair of 10’s or Better
  • Play 1x if you have a Pair of 3’s through 9’s
  • Fold if you have a Pair of 2’s or less

            The Expert Strategy I developed has 6 rules for when to Bet 3x which more fully takes into account the Dealer upcard.  While the additional 0.19% might not sound like a lot, it cuts the house edge by about 12%, which is significant.  If you’re interested in learning more about Four Card Poker, you can order Expert Strategy for Four Card Poker for $5.95.  Send a check or money order to Compu-Flyers, P.O. Box 132, Bogota NJ 07603.

            Four Card Poker was an important milestone in table game development as it showed that Three Card Poker wasn’t just a fluke success.  The Players were looking for more games with more excitement than the casino standards of Blackjack, Craps and Roulette.  Four Card Poker would soon lead to Crazy 4 Poker and then the Texas Hold’em craze started to build.  You can read about some of these other games on my website at www.gambatria.com or you can just stay tuned here and I’ll be covering them in the coming weeks.

The Year of the Rabbit


            Happy Chinese New Year!  2011 is the year of the Rabbit on the Chinese calendar.  I think the folks at Shuffle Master are hoping it’s the year of the Rabbit too!  In the last few months, one of their latest table games, Rabbit Hunter launched at two casinos in California – Pala Casino and Jackson Rancheria.  I wrote about this game back in November in a lead in to the game being on display at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas.  I had the pleasure of working with Roger Snow, Executive VP at Shuffle Master in developing the math for the game.

            Rabbit Hunter is very unique in its betting structure and rules of play.  I don’t know of another game in which you have the opportunity to literally buy an extra card, and as a result, play six cards to the Dealer’s five.  Let me review the basics of the game and then I’ll go into more detail about buying a card.

            To begin play, the Player makes an Ante wager and an optional Bonus bet.  While this Bonus bet is ‘optional’, I will tell you that the strategy makes this wager all but mandatory.  The Player and Dealer are each dealt five cards face down.  The Dealer will also deal a 6th card to each Player FACE DOWN in a separate spot.  The Player may look at his 5-card hand and then he has to make a choice as to how to play the hand.

He can Fold, forfeiting his Ante and Bonus wager.  He can make an additional wager (Play wager) equal to his Ante which will allow him to go head to head against the Dealer OR, he may make that Play wager AND buy the 6th card for an amount equal to his Ante wager.  Note, that the Player CANNOT only buy the card without also making the Play wager.  If you choose to buy the card, the money you pay goes right to the casino.  This extra card can help you win more on your other wagers, but the money you pay is gone. 

Assuming the Player does not Fold, his five (or six) card hand will go head-to-head against the Dealer’s five card hand.  His hand will also be used to determine if he wins the Bonus wager.  In both cases, if he bought the 6th card, he may use any five of the six to make his hand.  If the Dealer’s hand is not at least an Ace High, the Player’s Ante Wager is a push and the Play bet will be paid even money if the Player’s hand outranks the Dealer’s hand.  If the Dealer’s hand qualifies with an Ace High or better, then both the Ante and Play wagers will pay even money if the Player’s hand outranks the Dealer’s hand.  If the Dealer’s hand outranks the Player’s hand, the Play wager is lost. 

            I have little doubt that many Player’s will sit down to play Rabbit Hunter and find the notion of buying a card rather distasteful.  That said, the analysis takes this fully into account, and the paytable in use at the two casinos has a payback of 99.35% which is more than a little competitive.  It is one of the highest for any table game anywhere and just a smidge below Blackjack.

            The strategy for Rabbit Hunter may seem a bit odd at first.  Buying the additional card is mostly for the benefit of the Bonus bet.  While it can have some residual impact to the play against the Dealer, this benefit is limited to low ranking hands or partial hands improving.  For example, if you buy a card with Two Pair and it turns into a Full House, your Bonus pay goes from 2 to 30 – well worth the expense.  But, the impact to beating the Dealer is much smaller.  With a Two Pair you’ll beat the Dealer 92+% of the time vs. 99.9% for a Full House.  The extra 7% is nice, but would not be worth buying the extra card on its own.

            As a result, we find that there are certain High Pairs which are not worth buying the card for.  The improvement from a High Pair to a Two Pair or Trips is simply not enough to warrant buying the card.   Whereas when a Low Pair improves to a Two or Trips, we find that it does pay to buy the card because we turn the Bonus bet from a loser into a winner while ALSO improving our hand.

            When all is said and done, this is the complete strategy for Rabbit Hunter for the paytable in use currently.  I should point out that there are a couple of minor exceptions, but we’re talking about 0.01% or 0.02% of payback as a result. 

Play and Buy the Card when:
-          Player has a Straight Flush that is a 4-Card Royal
-          Player has a Flush that is a 4-Card Straight Flush or 4-Card Inside Straight Flush
-          Player has a Straight that is a 4-Card Straight Flush or 4-Card Inside Straight Flush
-          Player has Three of a Kind
-          Player has Two Pair
-          Player has a High Pair that is a 4-Card Straight Flush, 4-Card Inside Straight Flush or Flush
-          Player has a Pair of 10,J, Q that is a 4-Card Straight or 4-Card Inside Straight
-          Player has a Pair of K that is a 4-Card Straight
-          Player has a Low Pair
-          Player has nothing, but a 4-Card Straight Flush, 4-Card Inside Straight Flush, 4-Card Flush, 4-Card Straight or 4-Card Inside Straight

Fold when:
-          Player has A-8 or less and is not a Play/Buy hand

Play and not Buy when:
-          Any other hand

            With this strategy you will Fold 23% of the time and Buy the Card about 47% of the time.  When you buy and miss, it will hurt.  When you buy and get that Rabbit, it will pay off big time!
           
            Shuffle Master has 8 additional casinos lined up for Rabbit Hunter, including the Las Vegas trial at the Luxor.  Stay tuned for more information on it.  As Elmer Fudd would say, “Here’s to the year of the wabbit. Hehehehehe.”