River Stud

Game Mechanics & Rules

River Stud is a five-card poker variant in which there is no dealer hand. The player receives two hole cards and three community cards are revealed sequentially across three betting streets. The player places the Ante before cards are dealt and may wager 1x-3x the Ante on each of the three streets (3rd Street, 4th Street, 5th Street). Winning hands require a pair of Jacks or better, with payouts scaling to Royal Flush at 500:1.

1. Place your Ante bet. The player receives two face-down hole cards; three community cards are placed face down.
2. The hole cards are revealed. Based on your two-card starting hand, place a 3rd Street bet of 1x-3x the Ante, or fold.
3. The first community card (3rd Street) is turned over. Based on your three-card hand, place a 4th Street bet of 1x-3x the Ante, or fold.
4. The second community card (4th Street) is turned over. Based on your four-card hand, place a 5th Street bet of 1x-3x the Ante, or fold.
5. The final community card (5th Street) is revealed, completing the five-card hand.
6. Hands of a pair of Jacks or better are paid according to the pay table; all other hands lose all bets. There is no dealer hand to beat - the pay table determines all outcomes.

Optimal Strategy & Analysis

The game's three betting streets create a complex multi-decision tree. Optimal strategy is defined by expected value calculations at each street given the cards visible. Key thresholds: always raise 3x with a pair of Jacks or better at any street; always raise 3x with a pair of sixes through tens at 3rd Street; fold all hands lower than a low pair and no straight/flush draw components at 3rd Street when the two hole cards offer no draw potential.

Draw classification is critical. A hand is a "premium draw" if it contains three or more cards to a straight flush, four cards to a straight, or four cards to a flush. Premium draws warrant 3x raises. "Marginal draws" - two to a straight flush with gaps, or three low-card straights - warrant 1x bets to maintain pot participation without over-investing. Pure high-card hands with no connected components are fold candidates at 3rd Street.

Street-by-street EV shifts rapidly. At 3rd Street with two hole cards only, the player has seen 38.5% of their final hand; decision variance is high. By 5th Street with four cards visible, EV precision is near-complete and bet sizing should align tightly with the final hand completion probability. Players who over-bet at 3rd Street on marginal draws lose proportionally more to missing four- and five-card runouts.

Bankroll requirements in River Stud are substantially higher than single-round games. Maximum commitment per hand is 10x Ante (1 Ante + 3x 3rd Street + 3x 4th Street + 3x 5th Street). A losing hand at maximum bet is a 10-unit loss. A session bankroll of 100-150x Ante is recommended for players intending to use 3x bets on premium draws across all streets.

Provably Fair Verification

River Stud hand generation uses SHA-256(server_seed + ':' + client_seed + ':' + nonce) to generate a unique deck shuffle for each hand. The hex output maps to card indices across the 52-card deck, with the first two indices assigned to player hole cards and the next three to community cards in street order (3rd, 4th, 5th). All five cards are determined before the hand begins; sequential reveal of community cards does not involve additional randomness draws.

Post-session verification: the player inputs the revealed server seed, client seed, and nonce into a SHA-256 tool and applies WickedBet's published index-mapping algorithm to reconstruct the complete card sequence. The player's two hole cards and all three community cards can be confirmed from the single hash output. Nonce increments per hand maintain uniqueness across sessions using the same seed pair.

Millionaire Mode is a paid $1 Royal Spades side bet that runs alongside the round; it does not reduce your main River Stud payouts. Whatever the seeded deck sequence produces in those positions is exactly what the check sees.

Millionaire Mode Technical Details

Millionaire Mode is a paid $1 Royal Spades side bet added to every round. Main-table payouts are NOT reduced. Main bets must total at least $1 USD for the side bet to attach.

Each round, the cards dealt for the side bet are checked. The Royal Spades are the six top spades - 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of spades. Every distinct Royal Spade among the dealt cards counts as one hit; a repeated rank does not count twice and the Joker never counts.

Paytable per $1 side bet: 6 hits = $1,000,000; 5 hits = $5,000; 4 hits = $325; 3 hits = $20; 2 hits = $2; 0 or 1 hits pay nothing.

The $1,000,000 prize is pre-funded and paid in a single transaction on six hits. Lower tiers pay alongside the round settlement. The Royal Spades result is independent of the main-game outcome.