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Dice poker in The Witcher

Dice poker is an addictive game played throughout the world of The Witcher, and it is very popular in Temeria. If you are good enough, it is a great way of making money.

After finding a starter box of dice, Geralt is given the quest A Game of Dice. Opponents can be found far and wide as it seems mercenaries took it with them to the farthest reaches of the the kingdoms as they scattered after the war. A clever witcher could finance many little extras with the proceeds of a few games.

For the specifics of dice poker in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, see this article.

1 Basics
2 Ranking of Hands
3 Playing Dice Poker
4 Glossary Entry
5 Notes
6 Playing the Odds
7 Associated quests
8 Players

Basics Edit

Each player has a box of five traditional dice, and the amount of money bet depends on the experience of the players. The goal of the game is to roll the strongest hand and win two out of three hands.

Earn money by playing dice poker.
Place your bet and left-click "roll dice". Raise your bet and select the dice to roll again. The player with the best poker rank wins.
Tip: Some characters require you to play extra rounds.

Ranking of Hands Edit

From the lowest to the highest:

Nothing — five mismatched dice forming no sequence longer than four.

Pair — two dice showing the same value.

Two Pairs — two pairs of dice, each showing the same value.

Three-of-a-Kind — three dice showing the same value.

Five High Straight — dice showing values from 1 through 5, inclusive.

Six High Straight — dice showing values from 2 through 6, inclusive.

Full House — one pair, plus three-of-a-kind.

Four-of-a-Kind — four dice showing the same value.

Five-of-a-Kind — all five dice showing the same value.

In the case of hands of the same kind, the highest dice face values in use prevail, e.g. if you have two threes and your opponent has two fours, he wins. Other dice can be counted when both players have the exactly the same base hand, e.g. you both have four sixes, but you have a three as your fifth dice and your opponent has a one — you win. Thus, draws only occur in the rare event that both players have five identical dice. These situations force an additional round.

Playing Dice Poker Edit

Each game has two rounds and each round has two rolls. Geralt is always the first to start the round and roll his five dice. Between rounds, based on the initial bet, and if you and your opponent can afford it, you can raise the bet. This effectively puts more money in the pot for the winner at the end of this game. After Geralt decides to raise or not, the opponent can surrender, accept or raise (re-raise) as well. The rules for raising are the same as Poker betting rounds. Surrendering this betting is effectively giving up the round. Draws are possible and have no consequence except as an occasion to raise the bet. The Winner is the player with a better hand of two rounds and is awarded the pot.

Glossary Entry Edit

Dice Poker

"In his diary, the dice collector claims that dice poker became popular in the village of Murky Waters during the war with Nilfgaard. There should be loads of enthusiasts in the area."
— Diary of a Dice Collector

Notes Edit

AI players in the game have been vastly improved in the Enhanced Edition of the game. Previously, they would often make absurd mistakes, especially the novices. This has been fixed.
Playing conservatively no longer works quite as reliably as in the original game, but it is still an adequate strategy, i.e. only roll the dice that are not part of a pair or three-of-a-kind for your second roll and always roll those dice. But hey, it is a game of chance, nothing is assured.
In the Enhanced Edition, three or four of a kind rolls are still much more common than in real life. One popular strategy to win these matches is to always discard the second pair when two pair are rolled because it is relatively common to get three of a kind or four of a kind.
The use of the quicksave key (F5) before starting the match allows you to accumulate winnings by always betting the maximum and hitting the quickload key (F9) if you lose a match.
This may be a 'game of chance' in theory, but in reality some players are inherently 'luckier' than others, including yourself. What this means is that as Geralt moves on to progressively more advanced players, the system that calculates the dice values is modified to favour the NPC, with the NPC having a greater probability of getting a better hand than the player. At higher levels this can be particularly frustrating, with Geralt's opponent easily cranking out great hands with each throw when he himself has trouble getting three-of-a-kind.
The fact that Geralt always rolls first would appear to put him at an automatic disadvantage because only the NPC has the luxury of knowing what he has to beat on the second roll. So if the NPC has a higher hand after your throw, he will only throw the dice he doesn't need.
Alas only the NPC can re-raise a bet. This happens when e.g. Geralt has a pair of fours and the opponent has three fours. Now even if Geralt was able to roll another four he would only get a draw. The AI understands this, and re-raises.
Since you are in this to win, it usually is a waste of time to not bet the maximum amount of orens at any stage of the dice poker game. Should you lose, simply reload the game.
The initial bet seems to determine the overall 'luck' of the game. A low first bet dramatically improving the chances that you will beat your opponent. This is unconfirmed mathematically, but has been anecdotally observed many times. (This is as close to being confirmed as is possible without empirical evidence, having played twenty games of poker dice, ten where the initial bet was the largest possible one, and ten where it was the lowest, the statistics speak for themselves: Of the ten first games, eight were lost and only two won. The remaining ten (where the initial bet was the smallest one), resulted in nine wins and only one loss. Furthermore, the chance of getting an initial combination of matching dice seems to improve drastically when opting for the smaller initial bet. Naturally, this does not guarantee a win, as mentioned above, the game is still about chance, this little trick does however seem to improve your chances of monetary gain. This was tested on the Enhanced edition of 'The Witcher'.)

Playing the Odds Edit

Start your first match with the lowest ante and bet conservatively. If you win, quit here. Otherwise, up the ante and play again, betting more aggressively. Repeat once more if needed. If you still haven't won after three tries, you need to study the odds! By this method, assuming you can win half your matches, you will usually come away with at least a small monetary gain. The chance of losing three matches in a row is 12.5% if you are evenly matched.

Here are the odds rolling five fair six-sided dice:

Five of a Kind = 0.08%
Four of a Kind = 1.92%
Full House = 3.87%
Straight = 3.08%
Three of a Kind = 15.4%
Two Pairs = 23.1%
A Pair = 46.3%
Nothing = 6.15%

If your hand is worse than your opponent's, call. If it is much worse and the opponent raises, fold unless it's the third hand; by that time the pot is usually rich enough that it's worth your while to call unless your opponent has an unbeatable hand. If your hand is better than the opponent's, raise. If it's much better, raise the limit... it's always possible to see a good hand fall to a better one, but usually you will win if you're starting with a straight or better, so you should make your opponent pay for his chance to beat you. A smart opponent will often fold to you if you make him pay too much to stay in with his bad hand.

Below are the odds for improving your hand:

Rolling four or five dice is not normally recommended because your best chance with "nothing" comes from rolling for the straight (16.7%)
Rolling three dice: Your most common situation - you have a pair and end up with
Five of a Kind = 0.46%
Four of a Kind = 6.95%
Full House = 9.29%
Three of a Kind = 27.7%
Two Pairs = 27.8%
One Pair = 27.8%

Rolling two dice: You have three of a kind and end up with:

Five of a Kind = 2.76%
Four of a Kind = 27.8%
Full House = 13.9%
Three of a Kind = 55.5%

Rolling one die: You have four of a kind, in which case your game is won, or you are rolling for a straight (16.7%) or trying to improve two pairs (33.3%). If you instead throw away the lower of your two pairs and roll three dice, your odds are worse.

Associated quests Edit

Dice poker-related quests (all technically optional):

A Game of Dice
Dice Poker: The Novice
Dice Poker: The Professional
Dice Poker: The Sharper
Dice Poker: The Legend (not technically a quest, but the goal)

Players Edit

Non-quest Players Edit

Gambler at the Inn in the Outskirts.
Gambler at The Hairy Bear.
Gambling woman in the Country Inn in Murky Waters.

Novices Edit

Zoltan Chivay, at the Outskirts Inn, possibly a special case.
Odo, can be found at his house, south of the Inn in the Outskirts.
Mikul, can be found guarding either the Merchants' Gate or the Miller's Gate.
Haren Brogg, can be found at his house in the fishing village in the Outskirts.
Elven prisoner in the Dungeon.
Carmen, can be found usually outside the Eager Thighs brothel, or just inside.
Gardener, can be found in the garden of St. Lebioda's Hospital.
Vaska, can be found in or near her house in the Brickmakers' village in the swamp.

Professionals Edit

Thaler, only plays at his house in the Temple Quarter in Chapter II.
Munro Bruys, can be found at The Hairy Bear.
Roderick de Wett, can be found upstairs in the guard tower in the Trade Quarter (after A Posh Reception).
Velerad, can be found downstairs in the guard tower in the Trade Quarter (after Gold Rush).
The Hierophant, can be found in the Druids' grove in the swamp in Chapter III.
The Hermit, can be found at his compound in the Fields.
Julian, in permanent residence at the Country Inn.
Tobias Hoffman, can be found at his house in the village of Murky Waters during the day.

Sharpers Edit

Koster, can be found at the Gamblers' den in the Trade Quarter, he typically arrives around 13h30.
Gambling Ghost, can be found near the fairytale ruins outside Murky Waters village.
Dandelion, shows up here and there from Chapter II onward but is only counted as a sharper in Chapter IV.
Chireadan, can be found in the elven cave by the Lakeside.