Ultimate Texas Hold'em

Ultimate Texas Hold'em is a ShuffleMaster casino game based on the popular Texas Hold'em poker game.

Rules
A player must place an equal Ante bet and Blind bet to play. The player may make an optional Trips bet, which is a bonus bet paying for three-of-a-kind or better, regardless of the dealer hand.

The player and delaer receive two down cards.

The player looks at his hand, and decides to either raise 4x the Ante, or just check. This is called the Play bet. If the player decides to raise 4x, his action is complete for the entire hand.

When the preflop action is complete, the community flop is dealt. If a player checked preflop, he may now bet 2x the Ante, or just check. If he bets 2x, his action is complete for the hand.

After the flop action is complete, the turn and river are dealt. If the player has checked to this point, he now must decide to either call 1x the Ante bet, or fold. If he folds, he forfeits all his bets (Ante and Blind).

When the river action is complete, the dealer turns up his hand. If the dealer hand is higher than the player hand, the player loses all his bets. If the dealer hand is equal to the player hand, the player pushes all bets. Finally, if the player hand beats the dealer hand, the player wins the Play bet (4x preflop raise, or 2x flop bet, or 1x river call), wins the Ante bet if the dealer qualifies (dealer hand is a pair or better), and wins the Blind bet according to the paytable (1-to-1 for a straight, 3-to-2 for flush, ... 500-to-1 for royal, etc.; push for trips and lower).

EVs
The game is very well balanced, making it very enjoyable to play. Although probably categorized as a "carnival game" by the house, the 2.2% house edge of the Ante bet is mitigated by the average 4.2x bet (i.e., = 1 Ante + 1 Blind + average 2.2 Play). So, the house hold is only $0.50 for each $100 bet, which is probably as good as or better than blackjack. And, the Trips bet offers high payouts for a small 1.9% house edge, which is much lower than the Three Card Poker "Pair Plus" bet.

Basic Strategy
The basic strategy for this game is summarized in a color-coded card at Ultimate Texas Hold'em Basic Strategy. The strategy was prepared using a recursive C++ program to analyze the decision points of the game. The basic strategy is easy to master, and yields nearly optimal results.