Pre-Folding and Pre-Raising in Caribbean Poker
There are always ways on how to improve our play in a game. caribbean poker is no exception. We can consider the following strategies before we decide on folding or raising.
Most times in Caribbean, we would observe that we would be getting small pairs. Of course, we would hope of getting at least second best hands if not high pairs or something that would give us a shot at a royal flush or at least a 4 of a kind hand. But reality is often more harsh. We find that we're mostly dealt with small pairs. If our principle is to fold weak hands in Caribbean, we would end up folding half of the time, perhaps even more.
Why not consider taking a chance with small pairs before we fold? With other weak hands, of course, we should have the wisdom to fold rather raise and continue with the game. Remember that the house odds in Caribbean poker is 5 percent plus. So with other hands that don't stand any chance against a dealer's qualified hand—which is at least an AK—we're better off folding and save more money for later games. But with small pairs, we can take risks and give them a shot. Thus, because most times we would find ourselves having to deal with small pairs, we ought to get used to playing the hand.
When raising, we should always remember to important things: We should always consider raising when we have a high pair, and we should also raise whenever we come up with any Caribbean hand better than a pair. When we hold something less than a pair and decide to risk a raise just to hit a promising card, chances are, we would not. Less than a pair risks is not a good proposal in Caribbean. It's good timing to rather fold.
The face up card of the dealer always affords opportunity for us to think in advance. With an up card that is likely to win and our hand is not that promising, we better fold. But with an up card that seems beat compared to our hand, we play. This is one advantage in Caribbean we should grab to save our face and our chips from further losses. And this is one good reason why we go easy on the Ante bet.
It's a good thing to re-think our decisions pre-folding and pre-raising in Caribbean poker. This is precisely why the dealer's up card is shown us.