Ultimate Texas Hold’em Poker: How to Play and Win Real Money

The Betting Circles

On the table, you’ll see four betting options in Ultimate Texas:

• Ante: A mandatory opening bet to start the game.
• Blinds: Another mandatory bet that works alongside the Ante.
• Play: A bet you can add during the hand at different stages.
• Trips: An optional side bet that pays out for certain high-value hands.

To start, you must place at least two bets: the Ante and Blinds. The Trips bet is optional and only pays out if you hit specific hands.

How the Game Works:

1 Opening Bets:

All players place their Ante and Blinds bets to begin. You can also choose to place an optional Trips bet.

2 Dealing Cards:

You and the dealer each receive two cards face down.

3 First Betting Decision:

After looking at your cards, you can make a Play bet worth 3x or 4x the Ante bet. Or, you can check (pass) and wait for the next betting round.

4 Community Cards – The Flop:

The dealer places three community cards face up on the table. These are shared by all players and the dealer. If you checked in the first round, you can now make a Play bet worth 2x your Ante or check again.

5 Final Betting Round:

The dealer deals two more community cards, completing the five shared cards on the table. If you haven’t made a Play bet yet, you must now either: Bet 1x your Ante. Or fold and lose your Ante and Blinds bets. Once you’ve made a Play bet, no further bets can be placed.

Comparing Hands:

After all bets are placed, everyone reveals their hands. The best five-card poker hand wins. If your hand beats the dealer’s, you’ll win based on the bets you made and the hand you’ve formed.

Key Takeaways

To summarize, UTH can be reduced to three conclusions:

• You must always place the Ante and play bets. 
• The Play bet gives you the chance to raise your stakes at different stages of the game.
• The optional Trips bet is a fun side bet that can pay out for high-ranking hands.

Dealer Qualifying Hand

To qualify, dealer must have at least a pair. If the dealer doesn’t qualify, your Ante bet will be returned to you, while all other bets will still be played as normal.

Play, Ante and Blind Bets

If your hand is stronger than the dealer’s, you win even money on both the Play and Ante bets, while the Blind bet pays out based on a payout scale. If the dealer’s hand is stronger, you lose all your bets—Play, Ante, and Blind. However, if the dealer doesn’t qualify to play, your Ante bet is returned, and no further play occurs. In the case of a tie between your hand and the dealer’s, all bets are considered a push, meaning no one wins or loses.

Blind Bet Payouts

Your Blinds bet from the beginning of the hand will pay you out according to the strength of your hand. This is regardless of whether it beats the dealer hand or not.

The hand you need to get paid is straight or better. If you beat the dealer with less than a Straight, though, your bet is a push. Here is a standard payout chart for Ultimate Texas Hold’em Blinds bets:

Trips Bet Payouts

The Trips bet has a slightly more complex payout structure than the other bets. Bets are won according to the value of your hand regardless of whether your hand beats the dealer’s.

Each Trips pay table will likely be slightly different but a common one looks like this:

• Royal Flush 50:1
• Straight Flush: 40:1
• Four of a Kind 30:1
• Full House 9:1
• Flush 7:1
• Straight 4:1
• Three of a Kind 3:1
• All Other -1

Again, this is an optional bet you do not have to make before the hand starts to pay but can pay out an extra bonus, if you will, should you hit a big hand. The house edge for the Trips bet is usually around 1.9%.

Progressive Jackpot Payouts

At some Ultimate Texas Hold’em tables, you’ll find an optional Progressive Jackpot bet, usually costing $1 or $5. Part of each bet goes into a growing jackpot, which can pay out big if you hit a strong hand.

The Progressive Jackpot hand is made using your two hole cards and the first three community cards. If you get a Royal Flush, you win 100% of the jackpot. A Straight Flush pays 10%, and smaller hands earn payouts based on a sliding scale.

It’s a fun extra bet that gives you the chance to win big rewards while playing!

Hole Card Bonus

The Hole Card bonus can be found in Vegas and elsewhere and pays out based on hole cards alone, both yours and the dealers. Common hole card bonus bets include, for example:

• Both you and dealer have aces: 1000-1
• You have aces: 30-1
• AK Suited: 25-1
• AQ Suites: 20-1

Best Ultimate Texas Hold’em Payouts

The easiest and most effective Ultimate Texas Hold’em strategy to remember for the pre-flop round is simple: always bet the maximum (4x your ante, not 3x) when you’re dealt strong starting hands, also known as premium hole cards.

So, what counts as premium hole cards? Generally, these include:

• Pairs of 3s or higher
• Q6 suited or better
• J8 suited or better
• Any suited King
• Q8 offsuit or better
• K5 offsuit or better
• Any Ace

If your hole cards are weaker than these, it’s usually better to check or fold instead of raising pre-flop. However, you can still continue playing and place bets in later rounds—your cards might improve and turn into a strong hand later in the game.

Post-Flop Strategy

Once you’ve reached the flop, the computations and decisions to play “perfect” Ultimate Texas Hold’em Strategy get far more complicated. If you’ve played a lot of hands of Texas Hold’em online, you likely have a good feel for which hands will ultimately hit or not.

Otherwise, an Ultimate Texas Hold’em odds calculator is required to know what to do in each and every situation. There are a few general rules to keep in mind:

• Raise 2x when you have two pair or better, a hidden pair (one hole card, one community card) above 22 and 4 cards to a flush
• Raise 1x on the final bet if you have a hidden pair or better or under 21 dealer outs that can beat your hand

House Edge

As far as casino table games go, Ultimate Texas Hold’em has a fairly low house edge. Taken separately your ante and blinds bets lose about 2.2% of the time. Together, they drop down to about 1%.

So overall you have a fairly decent shot at breaking even. To really minimize the house edge you need to follow the optimal strategy as loosely outlined above or by pinpointing exact scenarios with an Ultimate Texas Hold’em calculator or chart.

We won’t provide you with a full breakdown here but you can dig around and find them online easily. What we will say, though, that is you fold most of your trash hands and make sure you raise the maximum when you have the best hole cards as outlined above, you won’t stray too far from optimal play.

Best of luck at the tables!