The Middle Bet: Why You Should Rarely Skip It
It is the most misplayed wager in Criss Cross Poker. It costs no ante, it is made with four of the five community cards already face up, and it pays on whichever of your two hands finishes higher. Players skip it anyway.
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What the Middle Bet Actually Is
The Middle is the third and last betting decision of the hand. It is optional, it is worth 1x, 2x or 3x an ante, and (the part that trips people up) it has no ante of its own. The Across and Down lines each carry a mandatory ante that you forfeit when you fold them. The Middle carries nothing. Skipping it saves you the bet and costs you nothing else, which is exactly why it feels like the safe option and exactly why so many players get it wrong.
The timing is what makes it valuable. The dealer has already turned over the left and right cards, then the top and bottom cards. Four of the five community cards are face up. Only the centre card is still down when the Middle decision comes to you.
This is the board when you decide.
Two hole cards and four community cards visible. One face-down centre card between you and a finished hand. Every other decision in the game is made with less than this.
One house rule to know
If you folded both the Across and the Down bets, the Middle is not offered at all. Only the Five Card Bonus can still pay. Full settlement rules.
The Two Things That Make It Different
Neither of them applies to any other wager on the felt.
First, it is the best-informed bet at the table. The Across decision is made blind to the board. The Down decision is made with two cards showing. The Middle is made with four showing and one card to come. You are not guessing at a hand; you are pricing a single unknown card.
Second, it is graded on whichever of your two hands finishes higher. The Across bet is settled on the Across hand and the Down bet on the Down hand, each on its own. The Middle is not tied to a line. It looks at both hands and takes the better one, so a single wager gets two chances at a paying hand.
Same two hole cards, same centre card, two completely different results. The Down bet loses here. The Middle is graded on the Across hand and pays 500 to 1.
What the Middle pays
Two hands, one wager.
The Middle shares the main pay table with the Across and Down bets, but it is the only one of the three that gets to pick which hand it is measured against. That is the whole argument for making it. All the pay tables.
Why Skipping Is Usually the Wrong Answer
The instinct to skip comes from the right place. You are in for two antes and at least one raise, the board has not helped, and here is the house asking for more money. Passing feels like damage control.
It is not, and the reason is that the money you are protecting is already gone. Both antes were committed before you saw a single community card. Whatever you did on Across and Down is settled. Skipping the Middle does not claw any of that back. It simply declines the one bet in the hand you get to make with almost all of the information in front of you. You are turning down the cheapest look at the board precisely because the earlier, blinder bets did not work out.
Roughly 4.5% of hands are a genuine Middle fold. That is how often you reach this decision with nothing made and nothing worth drawing at. The other nineteen times out of twenty, a bet belongs out there. If you took 3x on either earlier decision, the answer here is always 3x.
Be clear about what this does and does not achieve. Criss Cross Poker runs at a 4.33% house edge against the ante and a 1.48% element of risk across everything you put on the felt. Playing the Middle correctly moves your results towards those numbers rather than away from them. It does not turn the bet, or the game, into a winning proposition. Nothing does.
When to Raise, When to Bet, When to Skip
Three buckets. Work down them in order.
Raise 3x
Either hand already holds a pair of 6s or better, or you are one card away from a straight or a flush. At worst you push; at best a single card pays 5 to 1 or 8 to 1.
Bet 1x
Two high cards and nothing made yet. You have live outs to a paying high pair, but not enough in hand to press for the maximum.
Skip
Nothing made and nothing to draw at. Genuinely rare, about 4.5% of hands, and worth checking twice before you pass.
The override that comes before all three.
If you already made a 3x bet on Across or Down this hand, do not fold the Middle. The hand was worth the maximum when you knew less than you know now, and two more community cards have turned over since.
The full chart, including the Across and Down decisions, is on the printable strategy chart.
A Hand Worth Walking Through
Ordinary cards, and the Middle still earns its keep.
You hold the jack of clubs and the nine of diamonds. The board has come top jack of spades, left six of spades, right eight of diamonds and bottom eight of hearts. The centre is still face down.
Read the two lines before you decide anything. Across you have the jack, the nine, the six and the eight of diamonds: nothing yet. Down you have your jack alongside the jack of spades, which is already a pair of Jacks, and a pair of Jacks is a paying high pair. The board is also showing two eights.
A made high pair in one hand puts this squarely in the raise bucket. You are not hoping for the centre card. You are betting a hand that already pays and letting the centre card try to improve it.
Say the centre lands the eight of clubs. Now look at what that one card has done to each line.
The Across hand is a pair of Eights, a low pair, which returns the Across bet and no more. The Down hand is two pair, Jacks and Eights. The Middle takes the higher of the two, so it is graded on the Down hand and paid at 2 to 1, on a hand where the Across line gave you nothing back but your stake.
Middle Bet Questions
Is the Middle bet mandatory?
No. It is the only optional main wager in the game. You can pass on it every hand if you want to, and the rest of the hand is settled exactly as normal. Passing every hand is simply a losing way to play it.
Does the Middle bet have its own ante?
It does not. There is an Ante Across and an Ante Down, and no Ante Middle. That is why skipping it forfeits nothing and why making it puts no extra flat money at risk: you are staking 1x, 2x or 3x an ante and nothing more.
Which hand is the Middle bet graded on?
Whichever of your Across and Down hands finishes higher. It is not tied to either line, so a strong hand in one direction pays the Middle even when the other direction misses completely.
What if I folded one of my lines?
Folding one line does not stop you making the Middle bet, and the folded hand is still read when the Middle is graded. It takes the higher of the two hands either way. If you folded both the Across and the Down bets, the Middle is not offered at all and only the Five Card Bonus can still pay.
Criss Cross Poker is a table game from AGS, developed by Ron LaDuca and In Bet Gaming. House-edge figures follow the published analysis at Wizard of Odds. See also the full rules, the strategy guide, hand rankings and the FAQ.