Texas Hold’em Bonus

About Texas Hold’em Bonus

Texas Hold’em bonus is a Texas Hold’em poker variation where you play against a dealer and not against other players as usual. The main casino softwares offering this game are Cryptologic, NetEnt, Party Gaming and Wagerworks.

Texas Hold’em Bonus Rules

Player starts by placing Ante bet and is dealt two hole cards, like in Texas Hold’em. After receiving these two cards, the player chooses to either play the hand or fold the hand. If the player folds, he loses the Ante bet and the hand is over. If the player chooses to play, he has to place a second bet, which is 2 x Ante. After making this bet, three community cards a dealt. These community cards are shared between the player and dealer but dealer’s hole cards are not visible. At this point, based on the strength of your hand, you can continue to call or raise by placing additional bet which is equal to Ante bet. The fourth community card is dealt. Again you have the chance to either call or raise (the size of the ante bet) and the fifth community card is dealt. After all cards are dealt, dealer’s hand is revealed and your hand is compared to dealer’s hand. All the bets and raises you made are either won or lost depending whether your hand beats dealer’s hand. The breakdown of the pays is following:

Dealer’s hand wins – All bets made lose

Player and Dealer tie – All bets made are returned (a push)

Player Wins with Straight or Higher — All bets pay 1:1

Player Wins with Less Than a Straight — All raise bets pay 1:1, the ante bet pushes

When making the Ante bet, notice that your final bet size will be 3x – 5x the Ante bet depending on the raises you make. So pay attention to not make too large Ante bets.

Optimal Strategy

There are three strategy decisions to be made during playing the hand. The first decision is to whether raise or fold after getting the hole cards. And then there are two decisions on whether to raise or call after the flop and turn. These decisions depend on your hand versus the community cards, while dealer’s hand is unknown so the optimal strategy is complicated.

First raise vs. Fold

The first strategy decision is to either play or fold the hand before community cards are dealt. The optimal strategy (minimizing house edge) is to fold unsuited 2/3, 2/4, 2/5, 2/6, 2/7 and play all other hands. So the player should still play for example unsuited 3/6.

2nd and 3rd Raises

The player should raise his bet if the probability of winning the hand is bigger than the probability of losing the hand. The correct strategy is to raise rather often which also increases the overall variance of the game.

House Edge and Rule Variations

Under standard rules the house edge of Texas Holdem bonus with bonus wagering is 0.53% by playing optimal strategy.

Variance

The variance of Texas Holdem bonus is quite high because of frequent raises. The average bet size is 3.82x the Ante which the player should take into account when deciding the size of the Ante bet. The standard deviation per wagering unit of one hand in Texas Hold’em bonus is 1.79.