Quick help
Five-card dealer poker practice
- Choose an Ante, receive five cards, and see one of the dealer’s five cards face up.
- Raise exactly twice the Ante to continue, or Fold. There are no progressive or side bets.
- The dealer qualifies with a pair or A–K high. Without qualification, Ante wins and Raise pushes.
- Against a qualifying dealer, a winning Ante pays 1:1 and the Raise follows the published hand paytable. Ties push.
Controls: Select Ante · deal · Raise / Fold
Dealerone card up
Youfive cards
Choose an Ante and deal. The Raise is exactly twice the Ante.
Island Stud Poker rules and payouts
- After seeing five cards and one dealer up-card, fold or Raise exactly 2× the Ante. The dealer qualifies with a pair or A–K high.
- If the dealer does not qualify, Ante wins 1:1 and Raise pushes. Ties push. Against a qualifying dealer, Ante pays 1:1 and a winning Raise pays the displayed profit table.
high card1:1
pair1:1
two pair2:1
three kind3:1
straight4:1
flush5:1
full house7:1
four kind20:1
straight flush50:1
royal flush100:1
How to play
Five-card dealer poker practice
Play an original Caribbean Stud–style hand with one up-card, a fixed 2× Raise, A–K qualification, and published payouts.
- Choose an Ante, receive five cards, and see one of the dealer’s five cards face up.
- Raise exactly twice the Ante to continue, or Fold. There are no progressive or side bets.
- The dealer qualifies with a pair or A–K high. Without qualification, Ante wins and Raise pushes.
- Against a qualifying dealer, a winning Ante pays 1:1 and the Raise follows the published hand paytable. Ties push.
Controls
Island Stud Poker controls
About this game
Raise is double the ante, so folding is expensive
Island Stud is five-card stud against a dealer showing one card. Your only decision is to fold or raise, and the raise costs twice the ante — which sounds steep until you notice that folding forfeits the ante outright and the dealer fails to qualify often enough to make raising correct far more often than instinct suggests.
Typical session: 2–10 minutes.
The practice-credit balance stays in this browser. It has no cash value and is not connected to accounts, points, rewards, cosmetics, or leaderboards. No download is required. Read the safety and compatibility facts.
When to raise in Island Stud
Five cards, one visible dealer card
You receive five cards face up and the dealer receives five with one exposed. After looking at your hand and that single upcard, you either fold — losing the ante — or raise, which costs twice the ante.
The dealer must qualify to play the hand out. If the dealer does not qualify, your ante wins even money and your raise is returned as a push, regardless of how good either hand was.
If the dealer qualifies and you win, the ante pays even money and the raise pays according to your hand’s strength — from even money on a pair or high card, up to a hundred to one on a royal flush. That escalating raise payout is the game’s distinguishing feature.
Raise more than feels comfortable
The economics push hard toward raising. Folding costs you the ante with certainty and returns nothing. Raising risks two more units but collects on two paths: winning the comparison, and the dealer failing to qualify at all — the second of which pays regardless of whether your hand was any good.
That non-qualification path is why marginal hands are worth playing. A weak hand that would lose a showdown still collects the ante whenever the dealer misses the qualification threshold, and that happens often enough to matter. Folding surrenders that chance entirely.
The practical rule most players get wrong in the same direction: any pair is a clear raise, and even ace-king high is usually worth raising, particularly when your high cards match or beat the dealer’s upcard. Reserve folding for genuinely weak unpaired hands below the dealer’s exposed rank.
What the raise pays
The ante always pays even money on a win. The raise pays on a scale that rewards strong hands heavily, which is why a big hand here is worth substantially more than in games where both bets pay flat.
Both bets push when the dealer fails to qualify — meaning a monster hand can be worth only the ante if the dealer misses. That is the trade-off for the generous raise scale.
| Hand | Raise pays |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 100 to 1 |
| Straight flush | 50 to 1 |
| Four of a kind | 20 to 1 |
| Full house | 7 to 1 |
| Flush | 5 to 1 |
| Straight | 4 to 1 |
| Three of a kind | 3 to 1 |
| Two pair | 2 to 1 |
| Pair or high card | 1 to 1 |
Common mistakes
Almost every error here is folding a hand that was worth raising.
- Folding unpaired hands automatically. High-card hands still collect the ante whenever the dealer fails to qualify, and that path pays without needing to win a showdown.
- Being deterred by the two-unit raise. Folding loses one unit for certain; raising risks two but has two separate ways to profit.
- Ignoring the dealer’s upcard. It is the only information you are given, and whether your hand outranks it is the main input into a marginal decision.
- Expecting the big payout on every strong hand. A straight flush pays 50 to 1 on the raise only if the dealer qualifies — otherwise the raise pushes and you collect the ante alone.
What is different about this version
The royal flush is detected as a distinct case rather than being paid as an ordinary straight flush. The engine checks whether the straight flush is ace-high and applies the hundred-to-one rate specifically, which is a distinction several simplified implementations skip entirely.
The non-qualification push is applied to the raise while the ante still wins, exactly as a live table settles it. That asymmetry is central to the game’s strategy, and flattening it — paying both or pushing both — would make the correct decisions materially different from the ones described above.
Common questions about Island Stud Poker
Should I raise or fold a weak hand?
Raise more often than feels natural. Folding forfeits the ante with certainty, while raising still collects the ante whenever the dealer fails to qualify — a path that pays regardless of how weak your hand was.
Why does the raise cost twice the ante?
It is the price of the escalating raise paytable, which runs up to a hundred to one on a royal flush. A flat-paying raise would cost less; this one buys access to much larger returns on strong hands.
What happens when the dealer does not qualify?
Your ante wins even money and your raise is returned untouched. That means even a very strong hand collects only the ante on those deals — the trade-off for the generous raise scale.
How much does the dealer’s upcard matter?
It is the only information you have about their hand, so on marginal decisions it is the deciding input. Whether your high cards beat that exposed rank is the main thing to check before folding.
Written by the Silverweb Games team from this game’s own implementation. Last reviewed July 31, 2026.
