Mississippi Stud

Two hole cards up, three community cards down, and at each of three streets the same choice: fold, or bet one to three antes more. The finished five-card hand is paid by a ladder against the house — there is no dealer hand to beat.

Three streets, one ladder, no dealer hand

• 3raise streets
• exactevery decision
• 500:1royal

Manual

Ante, then three streets.

Two hole cards face up to you, three community cards face down. At 3rd, 4th and 5th street the same choice: fold, or bet one to three antes more.

There is no dealer hand.

The last card turns and your five cards are paid by the ladder against the house. Nobody qualifies, nobody shows down — only the ladder speaks.

Everything staked rides.

The ladder pays the ante and every street bet at the same rate: royal flush 500:1 down to jacks-or-better at even money.

Middle pairs push.

A pair of 6s through 10s returns the money; anything below loses every unit on the table. The ladder’s floor is the whole strategy problem.

Sunk money counts.

Money already staked is gone either way. A continue that loses less than the fold surrenders is the right bet — even at a loss.

This table is exact.

Every figure on the ledger enumerates the remaining deck. No sampling, no ± — the number shown is the number.

The game

An ante, two hole cards face up to you, and three community cards face down. Then three streets: at 3rd street (hole cards only), 4th street (one community card up) and 5th street (two up), the same choice every time — fold, or bet one to three antes more. Betting turns the next card.

When the last card turns there is no showdown, because there is no dealer hand. Your five cards are paid by a fixed ladder against the house: royal flush 500:1 down to a pair of jacks at even money, a pair of 6s through 10s pushing, and anything less losing everything on the table.

And "everything on the table" is the point: the ladder pays ALL money staked — the ante and every street bet at the same rate. That is why a made hand keeps raising, and why money already sunk changes what a marginal continue is worth.

The ladder

Every unit staked — ante and street bets alike — is paid at the same rate. By hand:

The numbers

This table’s solver is EXACT — no sampling anywhere. At the last decision one card is unknown, at the middle one two, at the first three; the solver walks that whole tree with the money on the table as part of the state, so every EV on the ledger is the true number, and no ± appears on this table.

Under optimal play the house keeps 4.91% of the ante per hand — the pre-deal ledger measures exactly that by solving all 169 starting classes. About 31% of starting hands fold at 3rd street before a single extra unit goes in.

The edge looks steep beside the slow tables, but the raises dilute it: an average 3.59 antes are staked per hand, so the element of risk — the loss per unit actually wagered — is 1.37%.

Tactics

Bet 3x any pair at 3rd street, even a pair that can only push. The ladder pays every unit equally, so a winning position wants the maximum on the table as early as possible.

The hands that continue without a pair continue for 1x, never more: suited connectors, high cards, live draws. One unit buys three streets of information; the second and third unit buy the same information at triple the price.

The 4th-street lesson is sunk money: with two antes already down, a 1x continue can price better than the fold even while both lose — the fold surrenders everything staked, the continue keeps the pushing and paying branches alive for one unit more. Read the fold row as what quitting actually costs.

In training, the peek cheat turns the next community card over early and the exact tree reprices every line conditioned on it — the cleanest measure of what one card of information is worth. At a gold table the peek exists only while the Sharp eyes event is running.

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