Playing Ultimate Poker late at a casino in Canada

When traveling, to get a sense of local culture, some people like to visit markets, cafes or even barbers. I enjoy all those pursuits, but my go-to places to connect with locals are casinos.

I’ve played poker in Peru, got into an after-hours game at a Welsh pub, and peered into the pit of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, where you can watch the action from a perch four stories above the gaming floor.

So when I found myself with some free time in western Canada, I thought I’d hit the poker tables at the Nanaimo Casino on Vancouver Island. Located about 70 miles north of Victoria, Nanaimo, known as the Harbour City, is a coastal hub of an estimated 90,000 people.

By the time I got to the casino, at about 11 p.m. on a Sunday, the last poker game was just breaking up. If I wanted to play poker, my only option was a table game called Ultimate Poker, where players play against a dealer, not one another. It’s set up like a blackjack table. I’d never played Ultimate Poker and wasn’t sure about the house edge, but since I had some Canadian currency and was going home the next day, I thought: “Why not?”

Ultimate Poker is available at Graton Resort in Rohnert Park, Lucky Chances in Colma and many other casinos throughout Northern California. The game is played with a standard 52card deck. Players start with equal bets on the ante and blind, and can make an optional Trips bet.

Two cards are dealt facedown to each player and to the dealer. The player can bet three or four times the ante after looking at his or her hand.

Next, the dealer turns over three of the five community cards. If a player checked previously, the player can bet double the ante. The last two community cards are flipped — now players who haven’t previously bet can either make a bet equal to the blind or fold, and checking is not an option.

If still in the game, each player makes the best five-card hand from the seven available cards; if the player’s hand is better than the dealer’s, that player wins.

The wild card is the Trips bet. At Nanaimo, the table minimum was $5 on the ante and blind, but only $1 on Trips. If you get three of a kind or better (straight, flush, etc.) these bets can pay off handsomely.

The house edge on Ultimate Poker is 2.2 percent, according to www.888casino.com, which isn’t bad.

In the end, I met a couple of locals who looked intimidating but weren’t (one guy with a cowboy hat and scruffy beard coached me to make sure I knew the rules). I won $55 (Canadian), exactly what I’d spent the day before on a bottle of Unruly Gin, made from honey by the Wayward Distillation House, also on Vancouver Island.

It was a sweet way to end a rewarding trip.