System and method for playing community hand poker games utilizing dealer qualifying criteria

A method for electronically providing a card game, comprising:

• displaying a player starting hand and a dealer starting hand to the player, wherein each starting hand includes one or more cards representing a potential portion of a resulting poker hand;
• facilitating placement of a bet by the player;
• determining whether the dealer starting hand meets qualifying criteria;
• placing a bet by a virtual dealer in response to the player's bet, and displaying a multi-card community hand, if the dealer starting hand meets the qualifying criteria;
• providing the player with an award if the dealer starting hand does not meet the qualifying criteria;
• and
• determining resulting poker hands for the player and the dealer using the player starting hand, the dealer starting hand, and the multi-card community hand.

A computer-implemented poker apparatus for allowing player participation in a card game, the poker apparatus comprising:

• a display device to display a player starting hand and a dealer starting hand each including one or more cards representing a potential portion of a resulting poker hand;
• a user interface to accept an ante bet by the player, and to accept a second bet placed by the player if the player chooses to continue in the card game based on the player starting hand;
• and
• a processing system configured to determine whether the dealer starting hand meets qualifying criteria, and if so, to call the player's second bet and cause the display device to display a community hand, the processing system being further configured to determine a player poker rank for the player's resulting poker hand derived from the player starting hand and the community hand, to determine a dealer poker rank for the virtual dealer's resulting poker hand derived from the dealer starting hand and the community hand, and to identify a winning poker hand between the player's resulting poker hand and the virtual dealer's resulting poker hand.