How to play
Flush Rush throws out almost all of poker’s hand rankings. Pairs, straights and full houses mean nothing. You and the dealer each get seven cards, and the only thing that counts is your longest flush: the most cards you hold in a single suit.
- Put chips on Ante (10 to 200 credits). If you like, add a Flush Bonus bet of 10 to 200 as well. The game asks you to keep up to three times the Ante free for a possible Raise.
- Press Deal. Your seven cards arrive with the best flush grouped first, and a label reads it out, for example “4-card flush in hearts, king high”. The dealer’s seven stay face down.
- Choose Raise or Fold. Press Hint if you’d like the game’s suggestion first.
- The dealer’s cards flip and the hands are compared.
Every seven-card hand has a flush of at least two cards, so every hand plays. Three-card flushes are the most common by far.
Raise size and comparing flushes
The Raise isn’t a fixed amount. It grows with the length of your flush:
| Your flush | Raise |
|---|---|
| 2, 3 or 4 cards | 1 × Ante |
| 5 cards | 2 × Ante |
| 6 or 7 cards | 3 × Ante |
When the hands meet, the longer flush wins outright; a 4-card flush of low cards beats a 3-card flush of A-K-Q. With equal lengths, the highest card in each flush decides, then the next highest, and so on. Aces are high. If every card in both flushes matches in rank, it’s a push. When you have two suits of the same length, the game picks the stronger one for you.
The dealer qualifies with a 3-card flush headed by a 9 or better, or with any flush of four or more cards.
| Result | Ante | Raise |
|---|---|---|
| Dealer doesn’t qualify | pays 1 to 1 | returned |
| Your flush is better | pays 1 to 1 | pays 1 to 1 |
| Dealer’s flush is better | lost | lost |
| Identical flushes | returned | returned |
Folding gives up the Ante straight away, with no look at the dealer’s hand needed.
Flush Bonus odds
The Flush Bonus looks only at your own seven cards. It pays whether you raise, fold, win or lose:
| Your flush | Pays | How often |
|---|---|---|
| 4 cards | 2 to 1 | 19.5% |
| 5 cards | 9 to 1 | 2.85% |
| 6 cards | 30 to 1 | 0.20% (1 in 500) |
| 7 cards | 500 to 1 | 1 in 19,491 |
Anything shorter than four cards loses the bonus. We counted all 133,784,560 seven-card hands to get these figures, and the bet returns exactly 95.90%, a house edge of 4.10%. It wins about 22.6% of the time, so expect it to miss in roughly three hands out of four.
Strategy
Because folding loses one Ante and a lost raise costs two to four, the question on every hand is whether raising loses less than folding. Hint answers it by playing out the dealer’s possible seven cards from the 45 that remain thousands of times and comparing the two options.
Some patterns are worth learning so you don’t need it every time:
- Any 4-card flush or longer: raise. The dealer rarely beats four cards, and five or more carry a bigger raise because they’re strong.
- A 3-card flush with high cards: raise. Something like A-J-6 in one suit holds up well, since a dealer’s three-card flush must contain a 9 or better just to qualify.
- A 3-card flush with low cards, or a 2-card flush: usually fold. A 7-5-2 flush can’t beat any qualifying dealer hand; it only gets paid when the dealer fails to qualify.
Following the hint over 400,000 simulated hands, the main game kept 2.93% of the Ante (give or take 0.26%), and the player raised on 68% of hands. That’s the best this game can be played; no rule set beats the house edge.
The Flush Bonus doesn’t change the decision. It’s settled on your cards alone, so it’s a separate side bet with its own fixed 4.10% edge.
For a dealer game with full poker hands, try Flop Hold’em.
If you enjoy Flush Rush, try Fortune Wheel Slot or Four Card Bonus next.
