Introduction

Ultimate Texas Hold'em is a variation of the game Texas Hold'em in which you play against a casino dealer. The game is available at casinos using Chartwell software, as well as many land based casinos. The game's low expected loss per unit wagered makes it a useful alternative for clearing bonuses. Optimal strategy is complex, so game play can be slow. Note that Ultimate Texas Hold'em and Texas Hold'em Bonus are not the same game, even though they both have the same house edge per wager of 0.53%.

 

Rules and Play

At the start of the hand, you must make equal ante & blind bets, so you are betting two units. You may also make an optional trips bet. The trips bet has a higher house edge per wager than the main game, so I expect most players reading this will only make an ante & blind bet. Ultimate Texas Hold'em has three opportunities to raise -- at the start of the hand when all community cards are unknown, after three community cards are dealt (the flop), and after all five community cards are dealt. After any raise, the remaining cards are dealt, and the hands are scored. As more community cards are known, the maximum raise decreases. A summary is below:

Start of hand without any community cards -- May Raise 4x, Raise 3x, or Check without raising. The hands ends after a raise.

After flop is dealt, with 3 community cards -- May Raise 2x or Check without raising. The hands ends after a raise.

End of hand, with all 5 community cards visible -- May Raise 1x or Fold and forfeit the hand, losing both the ante and blind bets.

 

Ultimate Texas Hold'em has many possible payouts. If the dealer has a pair or better, the dealer "qualifies." Payouts depend on whether the dealer qualifies, as summarized below:

Player Wins, Dealer Qualifies -- Blind bet pays according to the table below, all other bets pay 1:1

Player Wins, Dealer Does not Qualify -- Blind bet pays according to table below, raise bets pay 1:1, ante bet pushes

Player and Dealer Tie -- All bets push

Player Loses, Dealer Does not Qualify -- Ante bet pushes, all other bets lose

Player Loses, Dealer Qualifies -- All bets lose

 

Optional Trips Bet

 

Strategy

Start of hand without any community cards -- You should never raise 3x. When the raise bet has good odds, you should make the maximum raise of 4x. This makes the strategy decision a choice of raising 4x or checking. You should raise 4x with the minimum hands below. That is, you should raise with a suited Q6, but not a suited Q5 or 22 pair.

Pair -- 33
Suited -- A2, K2, Q6, J8
Unsuited -- A2, K5, Q8, JT

Additional raises with 3 or 5 community cards -- Unfortunately, there is no simple way to explain optimal strategy for the additional raise decisions of Ultimate Texas Hold'em, due to the large number of exceptions to general rules. Instead I recommend using the Ultimate Texas Hold'em Strategy Calculator, which compares the EV or raising to checking/folding and returns the highest EV decision. Once you get a feel for the game, you will recognize hands that a large portion of hands are obvious, and you'll only need to use the calc for a small minority of hands.

 

House Edge

 

Variance