 
New Star attraction:
Boston 5 Stud Poker
I was visiting Majestic
Star casino in Gary recently, and
marketing vice president Jef Bauer
wanted me to take a look at a new
table game.
"We're the
only casino in Indiana that has
this game," he said as he steered
me toward Boston 5 Stud Poker. "Our
players really like it. In fact,
we're going to add a second table."
Illinois casinos
haven't picked up on the game yet,
but if it sustains its early success
at Majestic, Boston 5 will spread.
Like most new table
games these days, Boston 5 is based
on five-card stud poker and involves
an ante-bet sequence. There is no
progressive jackpot, but there is
the possibility of a big payoff
because royal flushes pay 1,000
times the ante.
What's different
about this game is that it has a
much higher hit frequency than the
most popular poker-based table games,
Caribbean Stud and Let It Ride.
In Caribbean Stud, the player wins
on 39 percent of hands, and wins
more than the ante only 17 percent
of the time. In Let It Ride, the
player wins on only 24 percent of
hands. But in Boston 5 Stud Poker,
the player who bets every hand wins
50 percent of hands played to a
decision.
The house edge on
Boston Stud doesn't come from any
dealer advantage in the rules of
the game. Boston 5 is simply player
against dealer in five-card stud
poker, better hand wins. If the
hand is a tie, the bets push and
the money is returned to the player.
Players will win
as often as they lose, but the house
still has an edge. That's because
the total wager includes an ante
and two bets, and when players win,
they are paid on the two bets, but
not necessarily on the ante. When
they lose, they lose the whole shebang.
Here's the way it
works. The player starts with an
ante plus a bet twice the size of
the ante. (At Majestic Star, the
minimum ante is $2.50, so the bet
must be $5, leaving a $7.50 initial
investment.) After being dealt three
cards, the player may either fold
or make a second bet, also twice
the size of the ante. Those who
make the second bet are dealt two
more cards to make the final five-card
hand.
If the player wins,
the dealer pays both bets and the
player keeps the ante. If the dealer
wins, the house takes both bets
AND the ante. If that's all there
was to it, losing $12.50 for each
$10 won in a 50-50 game, no one
would ever play.
Fortunately, there's
more. The ante isn't just out there
waiting to cross to the dealer's
side of the table. There is a bonus
payoff on the ante whenever the
player has two pairs or better--even
if the dealer has a better hand.
The full pay table
on the ante bonus is as follows:
royal flush 1,000 x ante; straight
flush 200 x ante; four of a kind
100 x ante; full house 25 x ante;
flush 15 x ante; straight 8 x ante;
three of a kind 5 x ante; two pairs
2 x ante.
Those payoffs won't
get us back everything we lose on
the base game, but the effect is
to lower the overall house edge
on the ante-bet-bet combination
to 3.33 percent for the player who
bets every hand.
That's a house edge
right in line with most new table
games (5.22 percent of the ante
or 2.7 percent of the ante-bet combination
in Caribbean Stud; 3.5 percent in
Let It Ride). The player can lower
it a bit some judicious folding.
We don't fold as many hands here
as in Caribbean Stud because the
penalty is much higher. In Caribbean
Stud, when we fold we forfeit only
the ante, or one-third of our potential
ante-bet combination. In Boston
5, we forfeit the ante and the first
bet or 60 percent of our potential
ante-bet-bet combination. We lose
60 percent as much by folding the
hand as we would by just playing
it out and losing.
We're better off
making the final bet any time we
have at least a 23 percent chance
of winning. I don't have a detailed
strategy on Boston 5 yet, but the
player should hold all pairs, and
early indications are that the player
should make the final bet when holding
three-card flushes and open-ended
straights, and with as little as
10-high in the first three cards.
Majestic Star's
version of Boston Stud also offers
an optional side bet for a bonus
jackpot on the first three cards,
similar to Three Card Poker's Pairs
Plus game. In fact, Boston Stud's
three-card pay table (pairs pay
even money, flushes pay 4-1, straights
pay 6-1, three of a kind pays 30-1
and straight flushes pay 40-1) is
the same as in the best available
version of Pairs Plus. The house
edge is 2.32 percent, the same as
you'll get if you're playing at
a Three Card Poker table.
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