Discount Gambling

AGS’s Hold’Em-style flush game has recently arrived at my local Viejas Casino, and now it’s all I play anymore. It’s fun and relaxing to just play symbols and colors, and there’s a lot more different outcomes than in simple Ultimate Texas Hold’Em. Structurally, it’s similar, where the player paces equal Ante and X-Tra wagers (similar to UTH’s Ante = Blind) before the hand begins. The players and dealer then each receive three hole cards, which is more interesting than UTH’s two hole cards, because of the increased ways to make a hand.

I did the analysis for AGS back in 2017 when they developed the game, and I’ve previously posted all the details about the house edge and the original bonus. I included a basic strategy for the game in that original post, but now that I’ve played it at length, I think I can present a much more concise description of a nearly optimal strategy.

To summarize the rules, the player posts an equal Ante and X-Tra bonus bet before the hand begins. Each player and the dealer each receive three hole cards. There are four community cards, exposed via a 2-card flop, then a 2-card turn/river. The player may go all-in with a 3x Play bet pre-flop, or with a 2x bet after the flop, or with a 1x bet after the turn/river. Otherwise the player folds and loses his Ante and X-Tra bets. The dealer qualifies with a 3-card Nine-high or better hand, otherwise the Ante pushes. The Play bet always receives even-money action, and the X-Tra bonus pays odds when the player beats the dealer with a 4-card flush or better. The only hand for the main game are flushes (i.e., not straight flushes, or any other rank) rated by the number of cards of the same suit in a hand, followed by their descending card ranks.

Fortunately, the near-optimal strategy works out to be very straight-forward, and plays fairly automatically. You know what to look for in advance of each step, and how to react to what cards hit the board. Basically, you preflop raise (3x) strong starting hands, generally 2x/1x bet a 3-card flush (except for a few exceptions), and occasionally 1x call a two-card flush against a rainbow board. The exceptions are few and very specific, and will make sense to you as soon as you encounter them.

You can practice this game online on AGS’ website.

Improved and Intuitive Strategy

Preflop, you should 3x the following strong hands:

Bet 3x:
    any three suited cards
    any suited Ace
    suited King with sufficiently high offsuit kicker:
        KQs.3+, KJs.4+, KTs.5+, K9s.5+, K8s.6+, K7s.7+,
        K6s.7+, K5s.7+, K4s.7+, K3s.8+, K2s.8+
    suited Queens w/ high kickers:
        QJs.J+, QTs.J+, Q9s.J+, QXs.Q+
    suited Jack with King+ offsuit kicker
    suited Ten with Ace offsuit kicker
    three high rainbow cards:
        AA.4+, KK.J+, AK.7+, AQ.T+
Else check

Then, after the flop:

Bet 4+ card flush:
    always
Bet 3-card flush:
    flop:
        offsuit board:
            when have both suits of board
            when 3-card flush > other board suit
            with 9-6-x flush or better
        suited board:
            with flush hole card SIX or higher
    river:
        rainbow board:
            always
        2-suited + 2-suited board:
            when < 15 single dealer cards beat you
        2-suited + 2-offsuit board:
            any card of majority board suit
            any 3-card flush > 2-suited board cards
            any 3-card flush when 2-suited board cards < NINE
            any qualifier > board suits not part of your flush
        3-suited + 1-offsuit board:
            play any 3-card flush > board
            play board if offsuit board card is <= 3-card flush
Bet 2-card flush:
    flop:
        offsuit board:
            when have both board suits, and these two 2-card flushes make:
                nut 2-card flush
                2nd-nut 2-card flush & 8th nut 2-card flush or better
                3rd-nut 2-card flush & 5th nut 2-card flush or better
    river:
        when rainbow board and < 10 single dealer cards that beat you

Else check/fold

Why It’s Fun

You may have noticed that UTH has become very crowded these days, and everyone knows the game well enough to take all the fun out of it. The games are usually expensive, with minimums at $10-$15-$25 Antes, because of its popularity. And I don’t have to tell you how bad that game can run, especially when the boards miss your 4x raising hands.

Chase The Flush is kind a return to the days when Ultimate was new, and nobody knew how to play. It’s kind of fun to see people learning a new game, trying out new strategies. UTH has become a bit boring, and less communal. People selfishly call out for their specific card(s) to hit the board, which would probably hurt you. In Chase The Flush, multiple people make various hands out of all kinds of boards. This is probably due to the fact that players hold three hole cards instead of two.

Also interesting is that the 7-card flush (pays 250:1 on both the X-Tra and the Same Suit Bonus) and the 6-card flush (pays 20:1 on the X-Tra, and 50:1 on the Same Suit Bonus) hit much more frequently than their Royal and Straight Flush counterparts on UTH. It’s perceptible. Also the Same Suit Bonus hits about 25% of the time, but at my local casino (Viejas), they’ve lowered the payouts a bit, and the house edge is substantially higher than the typical UTH Trips side bet.

At my local casino, they always seem to have a $5 minimum table, and sometimes it’s not very full, and you can enjoy having some more personal space than at a packed UTH table. Also, because of the 3x (instead of 4x) preflop raise, the game tends to feel like it’s less volatile (until you hit a nice 6-card flush or better, which generally happens every session).

How to Play Quickly

Once you’ve played a bit and understand the strategy, you’ll probably come up with some kind of similar ways of remembering your hand so you don’t have to constantly look at them to decide what to do. Normally, when I 3x raise, I just tuck the cards and forget what I have, and wait for showdown. Otherwise, if I have “rainbow” cards, I just remember the one suit I don’t have. Then, I’ll know if I flop a 3-card flush, or flop two 2-card flushes. If one of the suits I don’t have hits the flop, then chances are I’ll fold if any more hit the turn or river.

If my hole cards are two of one suit, and one of another suit, I’ll mentally note something like “spades, heart”. That way, if both hit the flop, I’ll automatically bet, and otherwise I’ll know if I flop a 3-card flush that I might bet. Similarly, remembering “spades, heart”, I’ll know if I have a 3-card flush or better or not on the river.

Same Suit Bonus (w/ 3-Card Straight Flush Payout)

Outcome	Combinations	Frequency	Payout	Return
6-or-7 Card Straight Flush	1,624	0.000012	500	0.006069
5 Card Straight Flush	39,312	0.000294	100	0.029385
4 Card Straight Flush	636,272	0.004756	20	0.095119
7 Card Flush	6,664	0.000050	250	0.012415
6 Card Flush	256,620	0.001918	50	0.095908
5 Card Flush	3,550,872	0.026542	5	0.132709
3 Card Straight Flush	6,736,184	0.050351	3	0.151053
4 Card Flush	22,152,936	0.165587	1	0.165587
Nothing	100,404,096	0.750491	-1	-0.750491
Total	133,784,560	1.000000		-0.062246