Let it Ride poker is a casino table game where the player tries to make the best possible five card poker hand, by combining their three card hand with two community cards. Let it Ride can sometimes be a frustrating game, since the player loses most hands; it takes a pair of tens or better to win, so you’ll lose about 75% of the time.
But Let it Ride is actually not such a bad game for the player. There’s a surprising amount of strategy involved in figuring out when you should take a bet back, or when you should “let it ride.” And since the payoffs for very strong hands are huge, there’s the potential to win huge jackpots, which adds a lot of excitement to the game.
Let it Ride Poker Pay Table
The first thing that you need to take into account before even worrying any Let it Ride strategy is the pay table being used at your casino. If you want to play Let it Ride, you want to play with the best payoffs (and lowest house edge) possible. If you want to play Let it Ride poker with the best possible odds, here’s the pay table to look for:
Royal Flush: 250-1
Straight Flush: 50-1
Four of a Kind: 25-1
Full House: 12-1
Flush: 10-1
Straight: 8-1
Three of a Kind: 3-1
Two Pair: 2-1
Pair (10s or Better): 1-1
This pay table results in a house edge of just under 3%. If you can’t find this pay table though, don’t worry about it too much; almost all Let it Ride poker pay tables result in a house edge of 3.5% or less.
When to Let it Ride
Let it Ride poker strategy comes down to one important decision: when do you take a bet back, and when do you let it ride? If you’re playing some online versions of Let it Ride, you may have the cosmetically different choice of whether to add an extra bet or not; in the end, this makes no difference to how the game plays out. If the Let it Ride strategy below says to “let it ride,” you can take that to mean you should raise if you have that option.
When you see your first three cards, the optimal Let it Ride poker strategy is to let it ride with any hand that’s already a winner – in other words, a high pair or three of a kind. You should also let it ride with any three cards that could make a royal flush, or any three consecutive suited cards of 3-4-5 or higher. You should also let it ride if you have three cards to a straight flush with one gap if you have at least one card that’s a ten or higher, or three cards to a straight flush with two gaps and two cards of ten or higher.
After you see the first community card, proper Let it Ride strategy is even simpler. Again, you should let it ride with any paying hand; obviously, you want to maximize your profits when you’re already a winner. You should also let it ride with any four cards to a flush, or any four cards that make an open-ended straight draw.