Three Card Brag Rules

Three Card Brag is the classic British gambling card game, played in pubs and at kitchen tables for more than two hundred years. Each player gets three cards, and the betting goes round the table until everyone but one has folded, or the last two players pay to compare hands. It is older than poker, with its own hand names (a prial, a running flush, a run) and its own way of betting, and it is almost the same game as India’s Teen Patti. This guide covers the 3 card brag rules, the hand ranking with the exact odds of each hand, playing blind, and the casino version you can find online.

Three Card Brag Rules at a Glance

Three Card Brag Hands, Best to Worst

1. Prial (short for “pair royal”): three cards of the same rank. Three threes are the best hand in the game, followed by A-A-A, K-K-K and so on down to 2-2-2.
2. Running flush: three cards in sequence in the same suit. A-2-3 is the highest, then A-K-Q, K-Q-J and so on down to 4-3-2.
3. Run: three cards in sequence in mixed suits, ranked the same way: A-2-3 at the top, 4-3-2 at the bottom. 2-A-K is not a run.
4. Flush: three cards of the same suit that are not in sequence.
5. Pair: two cards of the same rank and one odd card.
6. High card: anything else, ranked by its highest card.

When two hands are the same type

• Flushes and high cards are compared by the highest card, then the middle card, then the lowest: K-9-2 beats Q-10-5, which beats Q-10-3.
• Pairs are compared by the pair first, then the odd card: 9-9-3 beats 8-8-K, which beats 8-8-J.
• Any running flush beats any run, so the lowest running flush, 4-3-2 of one suit, beats an A-2-3 in mixed suits.
• There is no ranking of suits. If two hands are exactly equal, the player who paid to see loses.

3 Card Brag odds

A 52-card pack makes 22,100 different three-card hands. This is how many of each there are, and how often you can expect to be dealt one:

Three hands in four are only high card, so a pair is already a better-than-average hand. These figures assume a freshly shuffled pack; in the home game the cards are usually not shuffled between deals.

How to Play Three Card Brag

1. Agree the stakes. Before the first deal, settle the ante, the minimum and maximum first bet, any limit on raises, and house rules such as wild cards or blind play.
2. Ante and deal. Everyone puts the ante in the pot. The dealer deals three cards each, one at a time, face down. The deal passes to the left after every hand.
3. The first bet. The player on the dealer’s left either folds (throws in their cards) or bets any amount between the agreed minimum and maximum.
4. Bet at least as much as the last player. Going round to the left, each player folds or puts in at least as much as the previous bet, and may raise it. There is no equalising as in poker: to stay in, you put in at least the last bet again, whatever you have already paid.
5. Keep going round. The betting goes round the table as many times as it takes. If everyone but one folds, that player takes the pot without showing their cards.
6. See. When only two players are left, either one can see the other by paying double the last bet. The other player shows their hand first; if yours is better, you show it and win the pot. If it is equal or worse, you lose and do not have to show it.

A betting example

Four players, A to D. A bets 2, B folds, C bets 4 and D folds. Only A and C are left, so A can now see C for 8 (twice C’s bet), stay in by betting at least 4, or fold and let C take the pot. If A stays in with 4, C has the same three choices. Because each bet only has to match the last one, a pot can grow large even when every single bet is small.

Playing blind

Experienced players usually allow betting blind: you leave your cards face down without looking at them, and every bet you make counts double, so you only put in half what an open player would. At your turn you may look at your cards and then fold or carry on, but from then on you bet the full amount like everyone else. Blind play gives you extra power in the betting:

• An open player cannot see a blind player; they can only keep betting or fold.
• A blind player can see an open opponent for twice the blind stake, which is the same as the open player’s last bet.
• If both players left are blind, either can pay twice the blind stake to compare hands.
• If every other player folds against a blind hand, the pot is not won: it carries over to the next deal, and the blind player may keep the unseen hand alongside the new one.

Table rules every brag player knows

• Never show your cards to anyone, and say nothing about your hand.
• Never fold, or look at a blind hand, out of turn: it changes the decision of the players still to act.
• The cards are only shuffled after a hand that was seen and won with a prial. Otherwise the used cards go to the bottom of the pack and the next hand is dealt from the top.

Four Card Brag, Five Card Brag and wild cards

In Four Card Brag everyone gets four cards and discards one to make the best three-card hand; the discarded card breaks a tie. Five Card Brag works the same way with two discards. Some groups play with wild cards (all twos, the black twos, the one-eyed jacks or a joker); a hand without wild cards beats an otherwise equal hand with them. Games called 7-card, 9-card and 13-card brag also exist, but they are separate games with their own rules.

Three Card Brag vs Three Card Poker vs Teen Patti

Teen Patti and brag share their betting, blind play and the “show” at the end; the main differences are the names and the order inside the runs. See our guides to Three Card Poker and Teen Patti for those rules in full.

3 Card Brag at Online Casinos

Online casinos offer a banked version of brag in which you play against the dealer, not other players. It works like Three Card Poker with brag’s hand order:

1. Place an Ante bet, and an optional Pair Bonus bet.
2. You and the dealer get three cards each. Look at yours, then fold (losing the Ante) or play by adding a bet equal to the Ante.
3. The dealer needs queen-high or better to qualify. If not, the Ante pays even money and the Play bet is returned.
4. If the dealer qualifies, the better hand wins: Ante and Play each pay even money, or both lose. Equal hands push.
5. The Ante Bonus is paid on a run or better whatever the dealer holds, and the Pair Bonus pays on a pair or better whatever happens in the main game.

Strategy: play every hand of queen-6-4 or better and fold anything lower. With that strategy the house edge is 3.35% on the Ante and 2.14% on the Pair Bonus, slightly lower than Three Card Poker’s (3.37% and 2.32% on the same pay tables), because brag ranks the prial above the running flush and pays it more. Pay tables vary between casinos, so check the game’s help screen before you play.

Three Card Brag Tips

• Know the odds. Three hands in four are high card and only about 1 in 6 is a pair, so a pair is a good hand at most tables.
• Keep bets small. Because players only need to match the last bet, the betting can go round many times and the pot builds quickly.
• Bluff now and then. Players who only bet strong hands are easy to read and rarely win a big pot.
• Play blind with care. Blind betting is cheap and stops open players from seeing you, but it takes practice to judge when to look.
• Agree house rules first, especially raise limits, blind play and what happens when someone runs out of money.

Where to Play 3 Card Brag Online

Search the table-games or poker section of the lobby; availability depends on the casino and your country. These casinos run large table-game lobbies:

More three-card and poker games: Three Card Poker, Teen Patti, poker hand rankings and the British card game Pontoon.

Set a budget before you play for real money and stick to it. Free, confidential support is available at BeGambleAware.org. 18+ only.

Also worth a look: another British pub classic, the dice game Shut the Box.

Also worth a look: another pub card game played for a small pot, Chase the Ace.

Like the bluff? Try liar’s dice, the dice game of bidding and calling “liar”.

Another British card-table classic: Shithead (also called Palace or Shed).

Another classic card game: Spades, the trick-taking game for four players in two teams.

The other great pub card game: Cribbage, first to 121 on the board.

Another game of three-card hands: 31 (Scat), where you draw and discard to collect one suit worth 31.

Three Card Brag: frequently asked questions