garbage

1. The “muck”.
2. A worthless hand.

going south

To sneak a portion of your chips from the table while the game is underway. Normally prohibited in public card rooms.

grinder

A player who earns a living by making small profits over a long period of consistent, conservative play.

guts, guts to open

1. A game with no opening hand requirement; that is, where the only requirement to open the betting is “guts”, or courage.
2. Any of several poker variants where pots accumulate over several hands until a single player wins.

gutshot

An inside straight draw. Ted has a gutshot draw.

gypsy

To enter the pot cheaply by just calling the blind rather than raising.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Anaconda is a variety of the card game Poker, also called “Pass The Trash Poker.”

Simple Play

This version of the game is also called “3-2-1 Anaconda” or “3-2-1 Left.”

Each player is dealt 6 cards. They then each select 3 cards to be passed to the player on their left. These cards are simply set on the table near their left-most opponent. No players get to see their new 3 cards until everyone has made a pass. Afterward, the players repeat the process, only with 2 cards, then again with 1 card. Players then discard 1 card to make their best 5-card Poker hand.

In this version of the game, up to 8 people can play, passing out a total of 48 cards and having 4 left over. A 9th person can be added with the use of both Jokers as Wild cards.

Betting

Betting can be included in the simple version of the game. Set up general Poker staples such as the dealer button, blinds, and/or antes. Have a round of betting occur before the first pass of 3 cards, then again after every card pass is made, and ending with a showdown if necessary. If a player folds at anytime, then they are no longer involved in card passing.

Variations

Anaconda can be changed in many possible ways, such as:

• Altering the amount of starting cards (7 cards is common).
• Altering the amount of cards passed.
• Altering who the cards are passed to, possibly per round.
• Incorporating Joker cards.
• Including only one betting round & showdown after all passing rounds.
• Removing all betting rounds and playing without money/chips.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

In poker, a bad beat occurs when a hand, which was at one time a big favourite to win, loses. Typically the term is only applied in this way when the player holding the eventual winning hand misplayed it spectacularly.Alternatively, the term is also applied when a particularly strong hand loses to an even stronger one. In some casinos there is a “bad beat jackpot” awarded whenever a player suffers a particular beat.

A typical example of the first type of bad beat, in No Limit Texas hold ‘em:

• Alice (the hero) holds A♦ A♣ – pocket aces, the strongest possible starting hand.
• Bob (the villain) holds Q♣ 8♥ – a weak hand.

The players have the same amount of chips. Before the flop, Alice raises to 15 times the big blind, placing a fifth of her stack in the pot, and only Bob calls. The flop comes A♥ 8♠ 7♠. Although Alice has the nuts at this point, making 3 aces, she is concerned about possible draws to a straight or flush, and goes all-in with a bet that is twice the size of the pot. Bizarrely, Bob, who has only middle-pair, calls.

At this point, Bob’s chances of winning are precisely 1 in 990. [1] He can only win if both the turn card and the river card are eights. Since this is a bad beat story, the turn and river naturally bring precisely that, and Bob scoops the pot, leaving Alice cursing Bob’s appalling play – he should not have called such a big bet before the flop, nor on the flop.

Reacting to bad beats

Bad beats can be infuriating, but mathematically “Alice” actually wants “Bob” to play in this manner. Bob took a gamble that should not have worked; his odds were 989-to-1 against. It worked this time, but if he continues to play in such a careless manner, he will almost certainly lose more than he wins. He is essentially giving away his money—and if Alice is careful, it will all go to her. Thus, the more stoic poker players accept bad beats as an unpleasant but necessary drawback to a tactic that works the vast majority of the time (989 of 990 instances, in this case). Nevertheless, a bad beat is often a profound psychological blow, and can easily lead to a player going on tilt. Professional player Phil Hellmuth, among others, is notorious for his pronounced reactions to bad beats.

In online poker rooms, bad beats often lead to accusations that the random number generator is “rigged”, even though such beats occur in offline games.

Bad beat jackpot

A bad beat jackpot is a prize that is paid when a sufficiently strong hand is shown down and loses to an even stronger hand held by another player. Not all poker games offer bad beat jackpots, and those that do have specific requirements for how strong a losing hand must be to qualify for the jackpot. For example, the losing hand may be required to be four-of-a-kind or better. There may be additional requirements as well. For example, in Texas hold ‘em there is usually a requirement that both hole cards play in both the losing and winning hands. These rules vary from one cardroom to the next.

Bad beat jackpots are usually progressive, often with a small rake being taken out of each pot to fund the jackpot (in addition to the regular rake). When the jackpot is won, it is usually split among all players sitting at the table at the time of the bad beat, including players that folded their hands (usually a 25% share), with the largest shares of the jackpot going to the players holding the winning (usually 25%) and losing hand (usually 50%). Because such bad beats are rare, jackpots can grow to be quite large, sometimes reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Links

• How to Write Bad Beat Stories
• BadBeatBoards.com forum

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

family pot

A deal in which every (or almost every) seated player called the first opening bet.

fast

Aggressive play. I was afraid of too many chasers, so I played my trips fast.

feeder

In a casino setting, a second or third table playing the same game as a “main” table, and from which players move to the main game as players there leave. Also called a “must-move table.”

fifth street

1. The last card dealt to the board in community card games.
2. The fifth card dealt to each player in stud poker.

fill, fill up

To successfully draw to a hand that needs one card to complete it, by getting the last card of a straight, flush, or full house. Jerry made his flush when I was betting my kings up, but I filled on seventh street to catch up.

final table

In a multi-table tournament: to remain in the game long enough as to make it to the last round of players that can fit at one standard tournament table (usually 9 or 10 players).

fire

To make the opening bet of a round, following the same analogy by which chips are called “ammo”. I called Ken’s bet on fourth with a draw, but I bricked, and when he fired again I had to fold. or I think Randy suspected my earlier bet was a bluff, but when I fired a second shot he let it go.

fish

1. An unskilled player, or an otherwise skilled player playing carelessly.
2. To risk money on a long-shot bet

five of a kind

A hand possible only in games with wild cards, defeating all other hands, comprising five cards of equal rank.

flash

1. To show the bottom card of the deck while shuffling.
2. To show one or more downcards from one’s hand. After everyone folded, Ted flashed his bluff to the other players.

flat call

A call, in a situation where one might be expected to raise. Normally I raise with jacks, but with three limpers ahead of me I decided to flat call.

float

To call a bet with an inferior hand, with the intention of bluffing on a later betting round.

floorman, floorperson

A casino employee whose duties include adjudicating player disputes, keeping games filled and balanced, and managing dealers and other personnel. Players may shout “floor!” to call for a floorperson to resolve a dispute, to ask for a table or seat change, or to ask for some other casino service.

flop game

A community card game.

flush

A hand comprising five cards of the same suit.

forced-move

In a casino where more than one table is playing the same game with the same betting structure, one of the tables may be designated the “main” table,and will be kept full by requiring a player to move from one of the feeder tables to fill any vacancies. Players will generally be informed that their table is a “forced-move” table to be used in this way before they agree to play there. Also “must-move”.

forward motion

A house rule of some casinos states that if a player in turn picks up chips from his stack and moves his hand toward the pot (“forward motion with chips in hand”), this constitutes a commitment to bet (or call), and the player may not withdraw his hand to check or fold. Such a player still has the choice of whether to call or raise.

fouled hand

A hand that is ruled unplayable because of an irregularity, such as being found with too many or two few cards, having been mixed with cards of other players or the muck, having fallen off the table, etc.

four-flush

Four cards of the same suit. A non-standard poker hand in some games, an incomplete drawing hand in most.

four of a kind

A hand containing four cards of equal rank. Also “quads”.

four-straight

Four cards in rank sequence; either an open-ender or one-ender. A non-standard poker hand in some games, an incomplete drawing hand in most. Sometimes “four to a straight”.

fourth street

1. The fourth card dealt to the board in community card games. Also “turn”.
2. The fourth card dealt to each player in stud.

free card

A card dealt to one’s hand (or to the board of community cards) after a betting round in which no player opened. One is thereby being given a chance to improve one’s hand without having to pay anything. I wasn’t sure my hand was good, but I bet so I wouldn’t give a free card to Bill’s flush draw.

freezeout

A winner-take-all tournament. That is, a game in which play continues until one player has all the chips.

full, full boat, full hand, full house

A hand with three cards of one rank and two of a second rank. Also “boat”, “tight”.

full bet rule

In some casinos, the rule that a player must wager the full amount required in order for his action to constitute a raise. For example, in a game with a $4 fixed limit, a player facing an opening bet of $4 who wagers $7 is deemed to have flat called, because $8 is required to raise.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Blind man’s bluff is a version of poker which is unconventional in that each person sees the cards of all players except his own.The standard version (also called Indian poker) is simply high card. Each player is dealt one card which he places on his forehead facing outwards, and a round of betting occurs, as players attempt to guess if they have the highest card based on what they see around them.

Other versions (forehead stud) are variations on stud poker, in which one or more of the hole cards is hidden from its owner, but shown to all other players, as above.

During its coverage of the 2004 World Series of Poker, ESPN showed a Blind Man’s Bluff version of Texas hold’em.

Indian Poker is also an adapted drinking game, where the loser has to “chug” a beer for X seconds, where X equals the difference between the high card and the loser. If both players tie, they both drink for the amount of seconds on the card.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

equity

One’s mathematical expected value from the current deal, calculated by multiplying the amount of money in the pot by one’s probability of winning. For example, if the pot currently contains $100, and you estimate that you have a one in four chance of winning it, then your equity in the pot in $25.

expectation, expected value, EV

See expected value. Often used in poker to mean “profitability in the long run”.

exposed card

A card whose face has been deliberately or accidentally revealed to players normally not entitled to that information during the play of the game. Various games have different rules about how to handle this irregularity.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Starting hand terminology and notation

There are (52 × 51)/2 = 1,326 distinct possible combinations of two hole cards from a standard 52-card deck. However, since suits are only relevant for flushes, many of these hands are indistinguishable from the point of view of pre-flop strategy. In fact, considering suits to be equivalent unless both cards are the same suit, there are precisely 169 distinct possible starting hands in hold ‘em.

As an example, although J♥ J♣ and J♦ J♠ are distinct combinations of hole cards, they are indistinguishable as starting hands. Any starting hand comprising two Jacks is called pocket jacks and is denoted JJ. Similarly, any starting hand comprised of two Aces is called pocket Aces and is denoted AA, and any starting hand comprised of two 7′s is called pocket sevens and is denoted 77. Each of these starting hands is called a pocket pair or a wired pair.

The starting hands which are not pocket pairs fall into two classes – the suited hands and the unsuited hands. An example of a suited hand is 8♠ 7♠. Any starting hand comprised of an 8 and a 7 of the same suit is called 8-7 suited and is denoted 87s, where “s” is an abbreviation for “suited”. An example of an unsuited hands is Q♣ 9♦. Any starting hand comprised of a Queen and a 9 of different suits is called queen-nine offsuit and is denoted Q9 (or sometimes Q9o, where “o” is an abbreviation for “offsuit”). Remember, an “s” always denotes a suited starting hand, while the absence of an “s” always denotes an offsuit starting hand.

In almost all poker writing, the rank of 10 is abbreviated with the letter “T”, so that all the ranks can be written with a single character, unless cards are featured pictorially when “10″ is often used.

Consecutive cards of the same suit are called suited connectors. Many starting hands have colloquial names.

Strategy

Most poker authors recommend a tight-aggressive approach to playing Texas hold ‘em. This strategy involves playing relatively few hands (tight), but betting and raising often with those that one does play (aggressive). Although this strategy is often recommended, some professional players successfully employ other strategies as well. While most poker authors focus on playing primarily premium starting hands, some authors claim that the importance of starting hands is overstated.

Almost all authors agree that position is an important element of Texas hold ‘em strategy. Players who act later have more information than players who act earlier. As a result, players typically play fewer hands from early positions than later positions.

The no-limit and fixed limit versions of hold ‘em are strategically very different. Doyle Brunson states, “In fact, the games are so different that there are not many players who rank with the best in both types of hold ‘em. Many no-limit players have difficulty gearing down for limit, while limit players often lack the courage and ‘feel’ necessary to excel at no-limit.” Because the size of bets are restricted in limit games, the ability to bluff is somewhat curtailed. Since one is not (usually) risking all of one’s chips in limit poker, players are sometimes advised to take more chances.

Lower stakes limit games also exhibit different properties than higher stakes games. Small stakes games often involve more players in each hand and can vary from extremely passive (little raising and betting) to extremely aggressive (many raises). The difference of small stakes games have resulted in several books dedicated to only those games.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) is a series of poker tournaments featuring most of the world’s professional players. It was started by attorney/television producer Stephen Lipscomb who now serves as CEO of WPT Enterprises (WPTE), the firm that controls the World Poker Tour.

The tour had its debut season in the latter part of 2002 and early part of 2003, climaxing with the WPT Championship in April 2003 at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first season aired on the Travel Channel on American cable television in the spring of 2003. The show made its network debut on February 1, 2004 on NBC with a special “Battle Of Champions” tournament, which aired against CBS coverage of the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show. The Travel Channel aired the first five seasons of the Tour. In April 2007, WPTE announced that the series would move to GSN for its sixth season in the spring of 2008. The first WPT tournament to air on GSN, the Mirage Poker Showdown, debuted on March 24, 2008.

The World Poker Tour is a collection of Texas hold ‘em poker tournaments held internationally, but mainly in the United States. The television show has led to a boom in the table game across American homes, local casinos and poker rooms, and online. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the key sponsors of the tour are casinos and online poker sites. The show, which is syndicated internationally, is co-hosted by World Series of Poker winner Mike Sexton, and actor Vince Van Patten. Former model Shana Hiatt served as the show host and sideline reporter in its first three seasons. Former newscaster Courtney Friel took over the host role for the fourth season, and Sabina Gadecki for the fifth.

While both Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten give the impression that their commentary is “live” as events happen, most of the audio for the show is recorded in post-production, so the commentators can remark about the players’ hole cards. This is due to the fact that many (but not all) of the WPT venues are prohibited by state regulations to allow camera feeds inside a gaming area. Consquently, the audio heard on the show broadcasts is a mix of audio recorded live, and audio commentary recorded in post-production.

First exemplified by the long-running World Series of Poker main event, a poker tournament gives each player an equal amount of chips to start, with colors representing different values. Play continues, typically over several days until one player has acquired all of the chips. When that occurs, that player has won the game and captures the grand prize, approximately 30-35% of the total prize pool. The resulting winner’s check can exceed one million dollars. All other competitors finish with no chips, but win a portion of the prize pool according to the order in which they left the tournament. The last player to lose all of his chip-stack finishes in 2nd position, typically worth approximately 20% of the prize pool.

The drawing power of the WPT, like any poker tournament, is that anyone who can pay the “buy-in” (an amount ranging from $5,000 to $25,000) or win a “satellite” tournament is able to compete against the top professional players, such as Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, or the top 2004 tournament money and multi-WPT tournament winner, Daniel Negreanu.

Fans of the show find it interesting due to technical innovations such as the ability to see the players’ hole cards through a small camera in front of them on the poker table (an innovation first seen on the UK programme Late Night Poker). Due to the success of the show, special programs, such as the “Hollywood Home Game”, featuring celebrities playing for charity, and “Ladies Night”, where six of the top women played against each other, were developed.

In 2004 the World Poker Tour created a Walk of Fame, inducting poker legends Doyle Brunson and Gus Hansen as well as actor James Garner.

Now in its sixth season of broadcast, it still remains among the highest rated television programs on cable. It airs Mondays on Game Show Network. The first three seasons of WPT are also available on NTSC DVD. (The second season DVD set features audio commentary by several of the players. The third season is only available in a “Best Of” format, featuring just half of the episodes.) CITY TV airs the WPT on Sundays at 4pm PST in Canada with a rebroadcast at Midnight (or shortly after depending on the length of their Sunday Night Movie. The series moved to Monday nights since the move to GSN in 2008. Beginning with the 2008 season, host Mike Sexton no longer toasts the winner of the Tournament with an “official beer of the World Poker Tour” (sponsored in years past by Anheuser-Busch). They now provide champagne glasses for their salute.

A series of spin-off tournaments, titled the Professional Poker Tour, began filming in 2004. No episodes have as yet been broadcast, partly due to a dispute with the Travel Channel over rights. In the fall of 2005, WPTE announced that “a cable channel” (believed to be ESPN) had withdrawn from bidding for the PPT series, and that WPTE was negotiating with the Travel Channel to air the series. On January 30, 2006, WPTE and the Travel Channel announced that they had dismissed all open lawsuits and agreed to air as many as 44 new WPT and PPT events in 2006. The series began regular broadcast July 5, 2006, but was suspended after one season as WPTE couldn’t find a television home for a second season.

Sherman Act lawsuit

In July 2006, seven poker professionals sued WPTE, alleging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the California Cartwright Act, and intentional interference with contract (Complaint and Response). The professionals (Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Joe Hachem, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, and Greg Raymer) allege that WPTE’s standard release forms, required for participation in WPTE events, are anti-competitive and designed to interfere with their contractual obligations to other companies. The anti-competition claim is based on the fact that WPTE’s contracts with the casinos that host its tournaments bar those casinos (and other casinos owned by the same parent companies) from hosting non-WPTE poker events. The claim of interference with contract is based on the releases’ claim to perpetual rights to the players’ likenesses for any use WPTE wishes. The players claim that this would put them in violation of other contracts (such as Ferguson’s Activision Games contract or several players’ contracts with online poker sites). Hachem and Raymer dropped out of the lawsuit before its eventual settlement.

Settlement

In April 2008, WPT Enterprises, Inc. settled with the five remaining players of the lawsuit that was brought against them, Chris Ferguson, said about the settlement, “We are happy to have come to an agreement that is fair to all players, and to have put in place a new release that clears up ambiguities in how players’ images may be used. We are especially happy that this new release will apply to all poker players who wish to participate in WPT tournaments and events.”

WPT Ladies

In January 2008, the WPT announced a set of tournaments for women, known as WPT Ladies. The first season will have five events, with buy-ins ranging from $300 to $1,500. The final table of the final event will be televised.

Player of the Year

Points are awarded for all Open events as follows:

• Winner: 1000 points
• Runner-up: 700 points
• 3rd place: 600 points
• 4th place: 500 points
• 5th place: 400 points
• 6th place: 300 points
• 7th place (TV bubble): 200 points

This award is given out to one player per season. The winners so far are:

• Season 1: Howard Lederer
• Season 2: Erick Lindgren
• Season 3: Daniel Negreanu
• Season 4: Gavin Smith
• Season 5: J. C. Tran
• Season 6: Jonathan Little

Record winnings

Regular Events

WPT Championships

Deal

A fictional WPT championship match is the setting for the 2007 feature film Deal. Sexton, Van Patten, and Friel are slated to play themselves and a number of other poker professionals and poker-playing celebrities are reportedly in the cast. The WPT set was shipped to New Orleans for filming following the season 4 championship.

Links

• Official site
• WPT Online
• WPT on GSN site
• World Poker Tour event reports

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

dark

Describing an action taken before receiving information to which the player would normally be entitled. I’m drawing three, and I check in the dark. Compare to “blind”.

dead blind

A blind that is not “live”, in that the player posting it does not have the option to raise if other players just call. Usually refers to a small blind posted by a player entering, or returning to, a game (in a position other than the big blind) that is posted in addition to a live blind equal to the big blind.

dead hand

A player’s hand that is not entitled to participate in the deal for some reason, such as having been fouled by touching another player’s cards, being found to contain the wrong number of cards, being dealt to a player who did not make the appropriate forced bets, etc.

deadwood

The muck.

deal

1. To distribute cards to players in accordance with the rules of the game being played.
2. A single instance of a game of poker, begun by shuffling the cards and ending with the award of a pot. Also called a “hand” (though both terms are ambiguous).
3. An agreement to split tournament prize money differently from the announced payouts.

deal twice

In a cash game, when two players are involved in a large pot and one is all-in, they might agree to deal the remaining cards twice. If one player wins both times he wins the whole pot, but if both players win one hand they split the pot.

dealer

1. The person dealing the cards. Give Alice the cards, she’s dealing.
2. The person who assumes that role for the purposes of betting order in a game, even though someone else might be physically dealing.

dealer’s choice

A version of poker in which the deal passes each game and each dealer can choose, or invent, a new poker game each hand.

declare

To verbally indicate an action or intention.

decloak

To raise after having slow playing for a time (making it clear that you were, in fact, slow playing).

deep

Describing a large amount of money, either in play or having been lost. How deep are you? (meaning “How much money do you have”, in anticipation of making a very large bet). I won that large pot, but I’m in much deeper than that.

deuce

1. A 2-spot card.
2. Any of various related uses of the number two, such as a $2 limit game, a $2 chip, etc.

deuce-to-seven

A method of evaluating low hands.

discard

To take a previously dealt card out of play. The set of all discards for a deal is called the “muck” or the “deadwood”.

dog

Underdog; that is, a player with a smaller chance to win than another specified player. Frequently used when the exact odds are expressed. Harry might have been bluffing, but if he really had the king, my hand was a 4-to-1 dog, so I folded.

dominated hand

A hand that is extremely unlikely to win against another specific hand, even though it may not be a poor hand in its own right. Most commonly used in Texas hold ‘em. A hand like A-Q, for example, is a good hand in general but is dominated by A-K, because whenever the former makes a good hand, the latter is likely to make a better one. A hand like 7-8 is a poor hand in general, but is not dominated by A-K because it makes different kinds of hands.

donation

A call made by a player who fully expects to lose; made either out of boredom or irrational optimism.

donk, donkey

Epithet for an inexperienced, unskilled, or foolish poker player. I played that hand like a donkey.

donk (verb)

To play a hand poorly. I donked off 15 bucks on that last hand.

door card

In a stud game, a player’s first face-up card. Patty paired her door card on fifth street and raised, so I put her on trips.

double-ace flush

Under unconventional rules, a flush with one or more wild cards in which they play as aces, even if an ace is already present.

double-board, double-flop

Any of several community card game variants (usually Texas hold ‘em) in which two separate boards of community cards are dealt simultaneously, with the pot split between the winning hands using each board.

double-draw

Any of several Draw poker games in which the draw phase and subsequent betting round are repeated twice.

double through, double up

In a big bet game, to bet all of one’s chips on one hand against a single opponent (who has an equal or larger stack) and win, thereby doubling your stack. I was losing a bit, but then I doubled through Sarah to put me in good shape.

downcard

A card that is dealt facedown.

down to the felt

All in, or having lost all of one’s money. Refers to the green felt surface of a poker table no longer obscured by chips.

drag light

To pull chips away from the pot to indicate that you don’t have enough money to cover the bet. If you win, the amount is ignored. If you lose, you must cover the amount from your pocket.

drawing dead

Playing a drawing hand that will lose even if successful (a state of affairs usually only discovered after the fact or in a tounament when two or more players are “all in” and they show their cards). I caught the jack to make my straight, but Rob had a full house all along, so I was drawing dead.

drawing live

Not drawing dead; that is, drawing to a hand that will win if successful.

drawing thin

Not drawing completely dead, but chasing a draw in the face of poor odds. Example: a player who will only win by catching 1 or 2 specific cards is said to be drawing thin.

drop

1. To fold.
2. Money charged by the casino for providing its services, often dropped through a slot in the table into a strong box.
3. To drop ones cards to the felt to indicate that one is in or out of a game.

dry pot

A side pot with no money. Created when a player goes all in and is called by more than one opponent, but not raised. Bluffing into a dry pot is a play that cannot possibly earn a profit, so doing so is considered foolish. It may also be unethical, because it serves to protect the all-in player at the expense of the bettor and the other players, and so is a form of collusion.

dump, dumped

To lose a large quantity of ones stack to another player on a particular hand or set of hands in short succession. I dumped half my stack to John after he cracked my Kings.

duplicate

To counterfeit, especially when the counterfeiting card matches one already present in the one’s hand.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The descriptions below assume a familiarity with the general game play of poker, and with poker hands.

Objective

Like most variants of poker, the objective of Texas hold ‘em is to win pots, where a pot is the sum of the money bet by oneself and other players in a hand. A pot is won either at the showdown by forming the best five card poker hand out of the seven cards available, or by betting to cause other players to fold and abandon their claim to the pot.

Betting structures

Hold ‘em is normally played using small and big blind bets. Antes may be used in addition to blinds, particularly in later stages of tournament play. A dealer button is used to represent the player in the dealer position; the dealer button rotates clockwise after each hand, changing the position of the dealer and blinds. The small blind is posted by the player to the left of the dealer and is usually equal to half of the big blind. The big blind, posted by the player to the left of the small blind, is equal to the minimum bet. In tournament poker, the blind/ante structure periodically increases as the tournament progresses. (In some cases, the small blind is some other fraction of a small bet, e.g. $10 is a common small blind when the big blind is $15. The double-blind structure described above is relatively recent; until the 1980s, a single-blind structure was most common.)

The three most common variations of hold ‘em are limit hold ‘em, no-limit hold ‘em and pot-limit hold ‘em. Limit hold ‘em has historically been the most popular form of hold ‘em found in casino live action games in the United States. In limit hold ‘em, bets and raises during the first two rounds of betting (pre-flop and flop) must be equal to the big blind; this amount is called the small bet. In the next two rounds of betting (turn and river), bets and raises must be equal to twice the big blind; this amount is called the big bet. No-limit hold ‘em is the form most commonly found in televised tournament poker and is the game played in the main event of the World Series of Poker. In no-limit hold ‘em, players may bet or raise any amount over the minimum raise up to all of chips the player has at the table (called an all-in bet). In pot-limit hold ‘em, the maximum raise is the current size of the pot.

Play of the hand

Play begins with each player being dealt two cards face down. These cards are the player’s hole or pocket cards. These are the only cards each player will receive individually, and they will only (possibly) be revealed at the showdown, making Texas hold ‘em a closed poker game. The hand begins with a “pre-flop” betting round, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind (or the player to the left of the dealer, if no blinds are used) and continuing clockwise.

After the pre-flop betting round, assuming there remains at least two players taking part in the hand, the dealer deals a flop, three face-up community cards. The flop is followed by a second betting round. This and all subsequent betting rounds begin with the player to the dealer’s left and continue clockwise.

After the flop betting round ends a single community card (called the turn or fourth street) is dealt, followed by a third betting round. A single community card (called the river or fifth street) is dealt, followed by a fourth betting round and the showdown, if necessary.

The showdown

If a player bets and all other players fold, then the remaining player is awarded the pot and is not required to show his hole cards. If two or more players remain after the final betting round, a showdown occurs. On the showdown, each player plays the best five-card hand he can make from the seven cards comprising his two hole cards and the board (the five community cards). A player may use both of his own two hole cards, only one, or none at all, to form his final five-card hand. If the five community cards form the player’s best hand, then the player is said to be playing the board and can only hope to split the pot, since the other player can also use the same five cards to construct the same hand.

If the best hand is shared by more than one player (e.g. if no player is able to beat the board), then the pot is split equally amongst all remaining players, with any extra chips going to the person closest to the button in clockwise order. However, it is common for players to have closely-valued, but not identically ranked hands. In particular, kickers are often needed to break ties. Nevertheless, one must be careful in determining the best hand. The goal is to make the best five-card hand; if the hand involves fewer than five cards, such as two pair or three of a kind, then kickers are used to settle ties (see the second example below.) Straights sometimes split the pot.

The best possible hand given the five community cards is referred to as the nuts. The lowest possible nuts is three Queens (this occurs with 2 3 7 8 Q on the board with no more than two cards of any one suit).

Examples

Sample showdown

Here’s a sample showdown:

Each player plays the best 5 card hand they can make with the 7 cards available. They have:

In this case, Ted’s full house is the best hand.

Sample hand

The blinds for this example hand

Here’s a sample deal involving our four players. The players’ individual hands will not be revealed until the showdown, to give a better sense of what happens during play:

Compulsory bets: Alice is the dealer. Bob, to Alice’s left, posts a small blind of $1, and Carol posts a big blind of $2.

Pre-flop: Alice deals two hole cards face down to each player, beginning with Bob and ending with herself. Ted must act first because he is the first player after the big blind. He cannot check, since the $2 big blind plays as a bet, so he folds. Alice calls the $2. Bob adds an additional $1 to his $1 small blind to call the $2 total. Carol’s blind is “live”, so she has the option to raise here, but she checks instead, ending the first betting round. The pot now contains $6, $2 from each of three players.

Flop: Alice now deals the flop of three face-up community cards, 9♣ K♣ 3♥. On this round, as on all subsequent rounds, the player on the dealer’s left begins the betting. In this case it is Bob who checks. Carol opens for $2, Ted has already folded and Alice raises another $2, making the total bet now facing Bob $4. He calls (puts in $4, $2 to match Carol’s initial bet and $2 to match Alice’s raise). Carol calls as well, putting in her $2. The pot now contains $18, $6 from the last round and $4 from three players this round.

Turn: Alice now deals the turn card face up. It is the 5♠. Bob checks, Carol checks, and Alice checks; the turn has been checked around. The pot still contains $18.

River: Alice deals the final river card, the 9♦, making the final board 9♣ K♣ 3♥ 5♠ 9♦. Bob bets $4, Carol calls, and Alice folds (Alice’s holding was A♣ 7♣; she was hoping the river card would be a club to make her a flush).

Showdown: Bob shows his hand of Q♠ 9♥, so the best five-card hand he can make is 9♣ 9♦ 9♥ K♣ Q♠, for three 9′s, with a King and a Queen as kickers. Carol shows her cards of K♠ J♥, making her final hand K♣ K♠ 9♣ 9♦ J♥ for two pair, Kings and 9′s, with a Jack kicker. Bob wins the showdown and the $26 pot.

Kickers and ranks

The following is another situation which illustrates the importance of breaking ties with kickers and card ranks, as well as the use of the five-card rule. After the turn, the board and players’ hole cards are as follows (though none of the players know each other’s hole cards):

At the moment, Bob is in the lead with a hand of Q♠ Q♣ 8♠ 8♥ K♥, making two pair, Queens and 8′s, with King kicker. This beats Carol’s hand of Q♥ Q♣ 8♠ 8♥ 10♦ by virtue of his King kicker. Both Alice and Ted are hoping the final card is a club, which will make them both a flush, but in that case, Ted would have the higher flush and win the showdown. For example, if the final card was the 7♣, Ted’s flush would be Q-J-7-4-2, while Alice’s would be Q-10-9-7-4. Alice could still win, though, if the final card were the J♦, as that would give her a Queen-high straight. On this deal, however, the final card was the A♠, which didn’t help either of them. Bob and Carol still each have two pair, but notice what happened: both of them are now entitled to play the final Ace as their fifth card, making their hands both two pair, Queens and 8′s, with an Ace kicker. Bob’s King no longer plays, because the Ace on the board plays as the fifth card in both hands, and a hand is only composed of five cards. They therefore split the pot.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

calling station

A weak player who frequently checks and calls, but rarely raises.

cap

A limit on the number of raises allowed in a betting round. Typically three or four (in addition the opening bet). In most casinos, the cap is removed if there are only two players remaining either (1) at the beginning of the betting round, or (2) at the time that what would have otherwise been the last raise is made.

Also, term for the chip, token, or object placed atop one’s cards to show continued involvement with a hand.

case card

The last available card of a certain description (typically a rank). The only way I can win is to catch the case king., meaning the only king remaining in the deck.

cash plays

An announcement, usually by a dealer, that a player requested to buy chips and can bet the cash he has on the table in lieu of chips until he receives his chips.

catch

To receive needed cards on a draw. I’m down 300–I can’t catch anything today. or Joe caught his flush early, but I caught the boat on seventh street to beat him. Often used with an adjective to further specify, for example “catch perfect”, “catch inside”, “catch smooth”.

catch up

To successfully complete a draw, thus defeating a player who previously had a better hand. I was sure I had Alice beat, but she caught up when that spade fell.

catch perfect

To catch the only two possible cards that will complete a hand and win the pot, usually those leading to a straight flush. Usually used in Texas Hold ‘Em.

center pot

The main pot in a table stakes game where one or more players are all in.

chase

1. To call a bet to see the next card when holding a drawing hand when the pot odds do not merit it.
2. To continue to play a drawing hand over multiple betting rounds, especially one unlikely to succeed. Bob knew I made three nines on fourth street, but he chased that flush draw all the way to the river.
3. To continue playing with a hand that is not likely the best because one has already invested money in the pot.

check

1. To bet nothing.
2. A casino chip.

check out

To fold, in turn, even though there is no bet facing the player. In some games this is considered a breach of etiquette equivalent to folding out of turn. In others it is permitted, but frowned upon.

cheese

A poor hand. Throw that piece of cheese in the muck and move on to the next hand.

chip along

To bet or call the minimum required to stay in, often done with little or no thought.

chip declare

A method of declaring intent to play high or low in a split-pot game with declaration.

chip dumping

A form of collusion that happens during tournaments, especially in the early rounds. Two or more players decide to go all-in early. The winner gets a large amount of chips, which increases the player’s chance of cashing. The winnings are then split among the colluders.

chip up

To exchange lower-denomination chips for higher-denomination chips. In tournament play, the term means to remove all the small chips from play by rounding up any odd small chips to the nearest large denomination, rather than using a chip race.

chop

1. To split a pot because of a tie, split-pot game, or player agreement.
2. To play a game for a short time and cash out. Also “hit and run”.
3. A request made by a player to a dealer after toking a large-denomination chip that he wishes the dealer to make change.
4. To chop blinds.

coffeehouse

To make annoying smalltalk during a game, to make comments about a hand in progress, or to make deceptive comments about one’s own play.

cold

1. Consecutive. I caught three cold spades for the flush.
2. Unlucky. I’ve been cold all week.

cold call

To call an amount that represents a sum of bets or raises by more than one player. Alice opened for $10, Bob raised another $20, and Carol cold called the $30.

cold deck

A deck previously arranged to produce a specific outcome, then surreptitiously switched into the game. Called “cold” because such a deck switched in during play will not have been warmed by the dealer’s hands. I can’t believe David got those four kings the same time I got four sixes–it was like being cold-decked. Also “ice”.

collusion

A form of cheating involving cooperation among two or more players.

color change, color up

To exchange small-denomination chips for larger ones.

combo, combination game

A casino table at which multiple forms of poker are played in rotation.

come bet, on the come

A bet or raise made with a drawing hand, building the pot in anticipation of filling the draw. Usually a weak “gambler’s” play, but occasionally correct with a very good draw and large pot or as a semi-bluff.

completion

To raise a small bet up to the amount of what would be a normal-sized bet. For example, in a $2/$4 stud game with $1 bring-in, a player after the bring-in may raise it to $2, completing what would otherwise be a sub-minimum bet up to the normal minimum. Also in limit games, if one player raises all in for less than the normally required minimum, a later player might complete the raise to the normal minimum (depending on house rules).

connectors

Two or more cards of consecutive rank.

continuation bet

A bet made after the flop by the player who took the lead in betting before the flop (Hold ‘em and Omaha).

countdown

1. Especially in lowball, two hands very nearly tied that must be compared in detail to determine a winner, for example, 8-6-5-3-2 versus 8-6-5-3-A.
2. The act of counting the cards that remain in the stub after all cards have been dealt, done by a dealer to ensure that a complete deck is being used.

cow

A player with whom one is sharing a buy-in, with the intent to split the result after play. To “go cow” is to make such an arrangement.

crack

To beat a better hand, mostly heard in reference to the best Hold em hole cards, AA. eg “My aces were cracked again”

crossfire

When a player is caught in the middle between two raisers and is induced to call each bet because of the pot odds.

crying call

A call made reluctantly on the last betting round with the expectation of losing (but with some remote hope of catching a bluff).

cutoff

The seat immediately to the right of the dealer button. Also “pone”.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Texas hold ‘em (also hold’em, holdem) is the most popular of the community card poker games. It is also the most popular poker variant played in most casinos in the United States. Its no-limit betting form is used in the main event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), as seen on ESPN, and the World Poker Tour, seen on The Travel Channel, and is widely regarded as the premier poker game.

Although it can theoretically be played by up to 22 players (or 23 if burn cards are not used), it is generally played with between 2 and 10 people. It is one of the most positional of all poker variants, since the order of betting is fixed throughout all betting rounds. Hold ‘em is commonly played outside of the United States, but seven-card stud, Omaha hold ‘em and other games may be more popular in some places.

Origins

There is no precise information on where or when Texas hold ‘em Poker was first played. According to legend, the earliest game played was in Robstown, Texas, in the early 1900s and it first came to Dallas, Texas in 1925. Texas hold ‘em was introduced to Las Vegas by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim. The game was later introduced to Europe by bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam “The Gentleman” Flood.

In popular culture

In 1998, the movie Rounders starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton gave moviegoers a romantic view of poker as a way of life. Texas hold ‘em was the main game played during the movie and the no-limit variety was described, following Doyle Brunson, as the “Cadillac of Poker”. There was also a clip of the classic showdown between Johnny Chan and Erik Seidel from the 1988 World Series of Poker incorporated into the film.

CommanderBond.net reports that the centerpiece card game in the next James Bond film, Casino Royale, will be no-limit Texas hold ‘em instead of Baccarat as in the original Ian Fleming novel.

Spectator sport

Joe Hachem, winner of 2005 World Series of Poker main event

Hold ‘em first caught the public eye as a spectator sport in the United Kingdom with the Late Night Poker TV show in 1999. The popularity of the show led to lipstick cameras also being used for American poker programs.

In 2003, hold ‘em exploded in popularity as a spectator sport in the United States. This was due to several factors, including the introduction of lipstick cameras that allowed the television audience to see the players’ hidden cards. ESPN’s coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker featured the unexpected victory of Internet player Chris Moneymaker, an amateur player who gained admission to the tournament by winning a series of online tournaments. Moneymaker’s victory initiated a sudden surge of interest in the WSOP, based on the egalitarian idea that anyone – even a rank novice – can become a world champion.

In 2003, there were 839 entrants in the WSOP Main Event. In 2004, that number tripled. The crowning of the 2004 WSOP champion, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, a patent attorney from Connecticut whose trademark holographic sunglasses have become legendary, further fueled the popularity of the event among amateur (and particularly internet) players. In the 2005 Main Event, an unprecedented 5,619 entrants vied for a first prize of $7,500,000. The winner, Joseph Hachem of Australia, was a semi-professional player. The runner-up, Steve Dannenmann, an amateur from Maryland, opined that he was only “the fourth or fifth best player” in his regular home game.

Two additional hold ‘em series debuted in 2003, the World Poker Tour and Celebrity Poker Showdown. All three of these shows are still currently in production and garner a large and loyal viewership.

With the ability to edit a tournament that lasts days into just a few hours, ESPN’s World Series of Poker focuses on showing how various star players fared in each event. Key hands from throughout the many days of each event are shown, and similar, highly edited coverage of final tables is also provided.

The World Poker Tour does not offer general coverage of the multi-day poker tournaments. Instead, WPT covers only the action at the final table of each event. With aggressive play and increasing blinds and antes, the important action from a single table can easily be edited into a two hour episode. Although the tournament fate of fewer stars are chronicled this way, it allows the drama to build more naturally toward the final heads up showdown.

Celebrity Poker Showdown coverage is a single table like World Poker Tour, however, the players are much less skilled and are invited to participate instead of winning their way on.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Stud poker is any of a number of poker variants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round (it is usually the player whose face-up cards make the best hand for the game being played). The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards (which gave rise to the common English expression ace in the hole, which suggests that one has something valuable that is hidden from view).

Five-card stud first appeared during the American Civil War, and became very popular. In recent years, Seven-card stud has become more common, both in casinos and in home games. These two games form the basis of most modern stud poker variations.

The number of betting rounds in a game influences how well the game plays with different betting structures. Games with four or fewer betting rounds, such as five-card stud and Mississippi stud (described below), play well with any structure, and are especially well suited to no limit and pot limit play. Games with more betting rounds are more suited to fixed limit or spread limit. It is common (and recommended) for later betting rounds to have higher limits than earlier ones. For example, a “$5/$10 Seven-card Stud” game in a Nevada casino allows $5 bets for the first two rounds and $10 bets for subsequent rounds. Also common is to make the final round even higher: a “$5/$10/$20″ game would allow $20 bets on the last round only. Another common rule is to allow the larger bet on the second round if there is an “open pair” (that is, at least one player’s upcards make a pair). Some casinos (typically in California) use the smaller limit on the first three rounds rather than just the first two.

It is a common convention in stud poker to name the betting rounds after the number of cards each player holds when that betting round begins. So the bet that occurs when each player has three cards is called “third card” or “third street”, while the bet that occurs when each player has five cards is “fifth street”. The final round, regardless of the number of betting rounds, is commonly called the “river” or simply the “end”.

The variations described below assume that you are already familiar with five-card stud and seven-card stud, and with the game play of poker in general.

General variations

Some rule variations can be applied to almost any game, and combinations of these variations can be used to create ad-hoc games. These include roll your own, rollouts, blind stud, and twist rounds.

Any game can also be changed by adding one or more jokers to the deck to act as wild cards, or by designating certain other cards as wild. Some specific common variations include Low hole card wild, in which each player’s lowest-ranking downcard (and all other cards of that same rank) are wild in that player’s hand only, and Follow the queen, in which each time a Q is dealt face up to anyone, the next face up card (and all others of that rank) become wild. The usual practice in the latter case is that if a second Q appears among the upcards, the previous wild card loses its status to the new one.

One can also vary any stud game by dealing extra downcards and requiring either that one or more hole cards be discarded at some point in the game or adding a restriction on how many of those hole cards may be played in the final hand. For example, five-card stud can be modified by dealing each player an extra downcard at the start of the game, adding the restriction that each player may only use one of his two downcards in his final hand. This game is called Crocodile stud. Likewise, seven-card stud can be modified by dealing each player three downcards instead of two on the first round, but adding the restriction that a player may use no more than two of those cards in his final hand (called Buffalo stud; if the extra hole card must be discarded after the first betting round, then it is Australian stud). If playing one of these games without the requirement to discard the extra hole card at some time during play, it is recommended as a practical matter to ensure compliance that each player physically discard one hole card immediately before showdown, before revealing the “live” hole cards (so that there can be no confusion about which cards were down).

Variations can be made by eliminating betting rounds, dealing more than one upcard at a time for one or more rounds. For example, Mississippi stud (see below) is basically seven-card stud with the second betting round removed, and the last card dealt face up instead of face down. Further adding an extra hole card as above makes it Murrumbidgee stud.

Games that mix stud-like rounds with community cards are discussed on the Community card poker page. In general, one can mix upcard rounds with community card rounds in many ways. See in particular Oxford stud on the community card game page.

Specific variants

As mentioned above, seven-card stud is probably the most common form of the game, with most other games being variants of that, although five-card stud is also a basic pattern upon which many variations are built. These games are described on their own page. Most of the games described below started as ad-hoc variants, but they have either become popular enough to have a common name, or else have some unique feature to merit including them here.

Six-card stud

Six-card stud is usually played as identical to seven-card stud, except that the last face-up round is removed (Thus it is two down, three up, one down). It can also be played as 1-4-1, where the first betting round occurs after only two cards are dealt (one down and one up). This latter form more closely resembles five-card stud with an extra downcard.

A variation called Alligator stud starts with one hole card and one upcard, followed by a first betting round; then two upcards are dealt to each player followed by a second betting round; then a fourth upcard and betting round, and finally a fifth upcard and betting round. This game plays well at no limit and pot limit. The same game, but with each player initially dealt two downcards and one upcard, and restricted to using only one of his downcards in his final hand, is called Zanetti stud.

Razz (and London lowball)

Razz is seven-card stud played with ace-to-five low hand values. It is usually played with a bring-in, paid by the player with the highest-ranking upcard on the initial deal (aces are always low cards in Razz, even for the purpose of assigning the bring-in). On the second and subsequent rounds, the player with the lowest exposed hand starts the betting.

London lowball is seven-card stud played with ace-to-six low hand values. It is usually played at pot limit or no limit, and is otherwise identical to Razz.

Here’s a sample Razz deal (suits are omitted here because they are never of consequence in Razz; in London lowball, a flush cannot play as a low hand but otherwise they don’t generally matter either). Alice deals each player two downcards and then one upcard: Bob’s upcard is a J, Carol is dealt a , David an A, and Alice a

, Carol another , David a

, and Alice a . The best low hand showing is now David’s

-A, just beating Alice’s

-2. David bets $1, Alice calls. Bob folds his J-9, and Carol calls (her pair of s is the worst hand showing, but there are still many cards to come). Alice now deals Carol an A, David a K, and herself an

. The low hand showing is now Alice’s

-4-2, so she bets $2. Carol raises $2, and David folds. Alice calls, ending the round. Carol is now dealt a

, and Alice another

. Now the lowest hand showing is Carol’s -3-6-A, a pair of s being lower than Alice’s pair of

s. She bets $2 and Alice calls. A final downcard is dealt, Carol again best $2, and Alice calls. Alice reveals that her downcards are

-J-A, making her lowest five-card hand an

-7-4-2-A. Carol reveals her downcards to be a

-6-7, making her lowest five-card hand a

-6-4-3-A, which wins the pot.

Eight-or-better high-low stud

Also known as “seven eight” or “stud eight”, eight or better is the most common form of high-low split stud. Played as seven-card stud, but the pot is split between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand (using the ace-to-five low values). An 8-high hand or lower is required to win low. Betting takes place as if playing standard high-hand stud; that is, low card pays the bring-in, if any, on the first round, and subsequent rounds start the betting with the highest showing poker hand. The showdown is cards speak, that is, there is no declaration for high and low. Each player may choose a different subset of five cards to play for high and low. For example, a player with A-A-8-6-6-4-3 can play a high hand of A-A-6-6-8, and a low hand of

-high straight for his high hand, and

-7-6-5-4 for low (which is the worst possible qualifying low, but it does qualify). A player with K-9-8-7-7-6-5 can play the

-high straight for high, but cannot play any low hand, because he cannot make an

-high or lower. If there is no qualifying low hand, high hand takes the entire pot.

This game plays well with a bug or two in the deck.

Mississippi stud

Mississippi stud was created to make seven-card stud play better at no limit and pot limit, and is slowly becoming popular for that reason. It is also often played with a betting structure more typical of Texas hold ‘em: fixed limit with the last two rounds double the limit of the first two. The bring-in should be less than the first-round limit.

Initial deal as in standard seven-card stud. After the first betting round, two upcards are dealt to each player, so each now has two down and three up (so unlike standard stud there is no betting on “fourth street”). A second betting round is followed by one more upcard and a third betting round. Finally, the last card is dealt face up, so that each player ends with two downcards and five upcards. Because each player has five upcards on the last round, straights, flushes, and full houses count as “high hand exposed” for the purpose of determining who must bet first. After the seventh street bet there is a normal showdown.

Can also be played with low hands, or high-low split. If three downcards are dealt initially instead of two, with the restriction that no more than two of them can be used in the final hand, this variation is called Murrumbidgee stud.

Mexican stud

Various forms of roll your own five-card stud, often with a stripped deck and wild cards, are called Mexican stud, Mexican poker, or Stud loco. One such variant played by the Casino San Pablo in northern California has these rules:

s, and 0s are stripped from the deck, and a single joker is added (the deck therefore contains 41 cards). The

-spot and the J become consecutive, so that

-6-7-J-Q is a straight. A flush beats a full house (with fewer cards of each suit, they are harder to get). The joker plays as a bug if it is face up, and fully wild if it is face down. The game is played as five-card stud choose-before roll your own. It is usually played with a very high ante, and the high card on the first round pays the bring-in.

The game of Shifting sands is Mexican stud in which each player’s hole card (and all others of that rank) are wild for that player only.

Blind stud

Blind stud is is a variant of stud poker in which all cards are dealt face down. Any stud poker game can be played “blind” by having all cards dealt face down.

Blind stud poker was commonly played in California cardrooms until 1985. The California gambling law makes specific games named by the law illegal, including twenty-one, faro, fantan, and “stud-horse poker”. Until 1985, the California attorney general’s office interpreted this to mean that draw poker was legal and all forms of stud poker were not, so California cardrooms played exclusively draw poker (mostly lowball). Blind stud was considered a form of draw poker, because like in draw all cards are hidden. Unlike draw, players do not discard cards they intend to replace. In 1985, cardroom owners convinced the state that “stud-horse poker” was an obsolete house-banked game, and that all forms of modern poker were legal. Today, the most popular game in the state is Texas hold ‘em.

Not constrained by obscure California law, home games generally do not play blind stud, though some of the forms of blind stud are challenging and well-balanced, including some of those previously offered by California cardrooms. Some of cardrooms got very creative with blind stud games so they could offer players some variety. For example, a club in the Sacramento suburbs used to offer a seven-card high-low split blind stud game which was played 3-2-1-1 (four rounds; three cards dealt on the first, two on the second, then one and one), with two jokers in the deck acting as bugs, and with the double-ace flush rule.

Miscellaneous

• Five-card stud played high-low split with an added twist round is called Option alley or five-card option. The game Canadian stud or Sökö is five-card stud with two new hand values added: a four-card straight beats one pair, a four-card flush beats a four-card straight, and two pair beats both of the above.
• The term English stud is used ambiguously to refer to several games, including six-card stud played 1-4-1 with a twist (also called six-card option), London lowball, and a seven-card stud game where both sixth street and seventh street are twist rounds.
• In the game of seven-card flip, each player is dealt four cards face down, and chooses two of them to turn up. All cards are turned up simultaneously after everyone has chosen. As this point, the game proceeds as if it were standard seven-card stud starting on fourth street.
• Kentrel, or “48″, is a seven-card stud variation which starts with each player being dealt four downcards. Each player must then discard one, choose one of the remaining three to turn face up (leaving two down and one up as normal), and then proceed as with eight-or-better high-low stud.
• The game of Chicago is seven-card stud in which the high hand splits the pot with the player who has the highest-ranking spade “in the hole” (among his downcards). There is also Little Chicago, in which the lowest ranking spade in the hole splits the pot; players who play Little Chicago call the high spade variant Big Chicago.
• The Bitch is a variant on Chicago above, played with a combination of up and down cards, usually two down, four up, and one down. The twist is that the Queen of Spades is designated as the highest ranking Spade, followed by the Ace, King, Jack, and so on. Also, if the Queen of Spades is ever dealt as an upcard to any player, all players turn in their cards, re-ante, and replay the game. This can lead to quickly increasing pots, especially if the re-ante amount is increased on each iteration. The high hand splits the pot with the high spade.
• Several different games played only in low-stakes home games are called Baseball, and generally involve many wild cards (often s and

  s), paying the pot for wild cards, being dealt an extra upcard upon receiving a

  , and many other ad-hoc rules (for example, the appearance of the queen of spades is called a “rainout” and ends the hand). These same rules can be applied to no peek, in which case the game is called “night baseball”.

• Cowpie poker is played as seven-card stud until after the seventh-street bet. All remaining players then split their hands into a five-card hand and a two-card hand. The five-card hand must outrank the two-card hand, and the latter must contain at least one downcard. After the split there is one more betting round and showdown. Upon showdown, the highest five-card hand and the highest two-card hand split the pot. The name of the game is a pun on Pai Gow.
• Number Nine is a variant of seven-card stud in which 9s are wild, and any two number cards that add up to 9 may make one wild card, at the player’s option. Aces count as 1 for wild card purposes. The player is not obliged to make any wild cards, and can play cards that could make 9s at face value or as wild cards, at his option. Cards used to make wild cards may not figure in the resulting hand twice. The player cannot add three or more cards. Sometimes, 9s themselves are not wild, and wild cards can be made only by addition.
• Dr Pepper is a stud variant where 10′s, 2′s, and 4′s are wild (the name comes from one of the original Dr Pepper advertisements of the 1920s: “Drink a Bite to Eat at 10, 2, and 4 o’clock”).
• Draft (or “socialist poker”) is usually a variant of seven-card stud in which the second and subsequent upcard rounds are dealt this way: for each player remaining, one upcard is dealt to the center of the table (not to any specific player). The player with the worst showing hand gets to choose which of them he will take for his next upcard, then the player with the second-worst showing hand chooses his upcard from those left, and so on, until the player who previously had the best showing hand takes the remaining card. Then betting occurs as normal. In seven-card stud, this makes for three “draft” rounds (the first three cards are dealt normally, as is the final downcard).
• Auction is a similar variation in which each upcard round (or possibly just those after the first) begins with an “auction” phase. Instead of dealing each player one upcard, the first card is dealt to the center and all players bid on it; the player who bids the highest amount places that amount into the pot, and then has the right to either keep the auction card as his own upcard, or designate another player who is required to take it as his. After the first card is auctioned off and placed, the remaining players are dealt a random upcard as usual, and betting proceeds as usual. This variation is commonly played as high-low split, so it is common for a player to “purchase” a high card to force it upon an opponent seeking low, for example.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Draw poker is any poker variant in which each player is dealt a complete hand before the first betting round, and then develops the hand for later rounds by replacing cards.

The descriptions below assume that you are familiar with the general game play of poker, and with hand values (both high and low variations). They also make no assumptions about what betting structure is used. In home games, it is typical to use an ante, and betting always begins with the player to the dealer’s left. In casino play, it is more common to use blinds; the first betting round thus begins with the player to the left of the big blind, and subsequent rounds begin with the player to the dealer’s left, thus draw games are very positional.

Some sample deals below will assume that a game is being played by four players: Alice, who is dealing in the examples, Bob, who is sitting to her left, Carol to his left, and David to Carol’s left.

Standard five-card draw

This is often the first poker variant learned by most players, and is very common in home games although it is now quite rare in casino and tournament play. Two to eight players can play.

Other draw games

Gardena jackpots (“Jacks to open” or simply “Jackpots”)

Played as above, with standard hand values, and with a single joker in the deck acting as a bug. Always played with an ante and no blinds. On the first betting round, no player is allowed to open the betting unless his hand already contains a pair of jacks or a better hand. Other players who checked on the first round may subsequently call or raise if someone else opens. If no player opens, a new deal begins and everyone antes again into the same pot. The player who opened the betting keeps his discarded cards near him on the table so that he can prove, if necessary, that he had a sufficient opening hand. For example, a player with the K, J, , and

of clubs and the J of hearts has a pair of jacks and may open. He may wish to “break openers” in this case by discarding the jack of hearts in an attempt to make the club flush, so he keeps the discarded jack to prove that he was entitled to open.

The game is named after the city of Gardena, California, where this game was especially popular from the 1930s to 1970s (though it was always secondary to lowball). At that time, there were more public poker tables in that small city than in all the rest of the United States. Public poker rooms are still a big industry there, though Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other locations now have many more poker rooms than they did at that time. Because “Jacks to open” was the primary form of high-hand draw poker played there, traditional draw poker was often described by the retronym “Guts to open”.

In home games, it is common that when a deal is “passed out” (that is, when no one opens), the players re-ante, and the qualifier to open is raised to a pair of queens. If that deal is passed out, the qualifier is raised to kings, and finally to aces. This is called “progressive” jackpots.

California lowball

This was the primary poker game played in California during the heyday of Gardena in the 1970s. It is still played today, though its popularity has somewhat lessened since the introduction of stud poker and community card poker to the state.

Played as above, using ace-to-five low hand values, with a single joker in the deck. Always played with blinds rather than antes, so players may not check on the first betting round (but may on the second round). A player with a

-high hand or better who checks after the draw forfeits his right to win any money placed in the pot after the draw. (In other words, you may not check a “seven” unless you intend to fold when someone else bets). Another common rule in low-limit games is that a player who checks on the second betting round may not subsequently raise on that round. This latter rule is never used in games with a pot limit or no limit betting structure.

Badugi

Also sometimes known as Padooki or Badougi, Badugi is a four card ace-to-five low lowball variant where traditional poker hand rankings are changed. A Badougi is a four card hand where all the cards are of different ranks and suits. Any cards which match another card in rank or suit does not play and the first criteria for evaluating hands is the number of cards which are playing. The following is the ranking of several example of hands from best to worst:

1. Ace of spades, 2 of clubs, 3 of hearts, 4 of diamonds: 4 card 4 high best possible Badougi
2. 4 of spades, 6 of hearts, 8 of diamonds, J of clubs: 4 card J high Badougi
3. Ten of clubs, J of hearts, Q of Diamonds, K of hearts: 4 card worst possible Badougi
4. Ace of hearts, Ace of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 5 of spades: 3 card hand, 5 high
5. Ace of clubs, Ace of spades, 4 of spades, 6 of spades: 2 card hand, 4 high

Badougi is usually played triple-draw, with a 1-1-2-2 betting structure, although it also plays well at no limit.

Other forms of lowball

Five-card draw, with no joker, and deuce-to-seven low hand values is called “Kansas City” or “Low Poker” or even “Billy Baxter” draw in honor of the player who dominated the world championship in the event for many years. The 7-high rule and the no check-and-raise rule do not apply. In the eastern United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, ace-to-six low hand values are common.

California high/low split

Played as above, with a single joker, used as a bug. High hand and low hand (using the ace-to-five low values) split the pot. An 8-high or better low is required to win low. If no hand qualifies low, high hand takes the whole pot. Played cards speak, that is, players do not declare whether they intend to win the high or low half of the pot (or both); they simply show their cards and the best hands win. Because ace-to-five low values are used, a hand such as a low straight or flush can win both high and low, called “scooping” or “hogging” the pot.

High/low with declare

This is common in home games but is rarely found in casinos today. Played as are other versions of five-card draw, but after the second betting round and before the showdown, there is a simultaneous declaration phase. Each player takes two chips from his stack and takes them under the table, bringing up a closed fist that contains either no chips (indicating that the player intends to win the low half of the pot), one chip (indicating that the player intends to win the high half), or two chips (indicating that he intends to scoop). When everyone has brought up the closed fist, the players all open their hands simultaneously to reveal their choices. If any player shows two chips, and his hand is the best low and the best high, he scoops the pot. Otherwise, half of the pot goes to the player with the highest hand who declared high, and the other half to the player with the lowest hand of those who declared low. There is no qualifying hand to win either high or low, and if no one declares in one direction, the full pot is awarded in the other (for example, if all players declare low, the low hand wins the whole pot rather than half). A player who declares for a scoop must win both ends outright, with no ties. For example, if a player declares scoop, has the lowest hand clearly but ties for high, he wins nothing. The other player with the same high hand wins the high half of the pot and the next-lowest hand wins low (assuming he declared low–if no other player declared low, the high hand who declared high wins the whole pot).

This game can be played with deuce-to-seven low or ace-to-six low hand values, but in that case it is nearly impossible to scoop (though you can still win the whole pot if everyone declares the same direction).

Double-draw and Triple-draw

Any game above can be played with two or three draw phases and therefore three or four betting rounds. Double-draw California lowball is a particularly good game. Triple draw lowball, either ace-to-five or deuce-to-seven, has gained some popularity among serious players. The 2004 World Series of Poker included a deuce-to-seven triple-draw lowball event.

Four-before

Another variation that can be applied to any game above, but that is especially suited to lowball. On the initial deal, only four cards are dealt to each player. A betting round follows, then each player draws one more card than he discards, completing his hand to five cards. Then the final betting round and showdown. Note that it is impossible to be dealt a “pat” hand, that is, a hand (such as a straight or flush) that is complete before the draw.

Johnson (and “Jacks back”)

Played with one joker which acts as a bug. Must be played with antes and no blinds. Each player is dealt five cards. The first betting round begins with the player to the dealer’s left, who may check or open with anything. If any player opens, the game continues as traditional five-card draw poker. If the first round is passed out (that is, no one opens), then the player to the dealer’s left may now open if he chooses, but the game has switched to California lowball. On the rare occasion that the deal is passed out yet again, players re-ante and deal again. This game plays well head-up (that is, with only two players). When the game is played that a pair of jacks or better is required to open on the first high-hand round, the game is called “Jacks back”.

Some examples might help clarify: On the first deal, players ante and Alice deals five cards around. Bob sees that he has a

-high straight, which is a very good hand for both high and low. He also wants to be deceptive about the value of his hand, so he checks. Carol opens for $1, David folds, Alice raises to $2, and Bob (who now realizes that Carol and Alice want to play high hands) reraises to $3, which is called by Carol and Alice. Bob announces that he “stands pat” (draws no cards). Carol draws three cards, and Alice draws two. Bob bets $2, Carol folds, Alice raises, and Bob calls. Bob shows his straight, but Alice has made a full house and wins the pot.

On the second deal, Bob has the same hand: a

-high straight, and makes the same play, checking. This time, Carol also checks, as does David, and finally Alice. Now it is Bob’s turn again, but now they are playing lowball. He opens for $1. Carol folds, and David raises to $2. Alice folds, and Bob reraises to $3 (a
-high is a very good low hand; much better, in fact, than a 6-high straight would be for high). David calls. Bob stands pat, and David draws one card. Bob bets $2 (he is required to bet under California lowball rules since he has a hand better than
-high), and David calls. Bob shows his
-5-4-3-2 low, and David shows
-5-4-3-A low, and Bob wins with his
-high.

Q-Ball

This is a lowball game designed by Michael Wiesenberg that combines some of the variations mentioned above. It is generally played with three blinds–one unit from the dealer, one unit to his left, and two units for the second player to the dealer’s left. The deck contains one joker. Each player is dealt three cards, followed by a round of betting beginning with the player immediately after the big blind who may call the big blind, raise, or fold (there is no checking on the first round). Next, each player is dealt a fourth card, followed by a second round of betting starting with the still-active player to the dealer’s left. No checking is allowed on this round either, despite the fact that there is no bet facing the first player; the first player must open or fold. Each player is then dealt a fifth card, followed by a third betting round beginning on the dealer’s left. At this point, checking is allowed. Finally, each player draws as in normal draw poker, followed by a fourth betting round and showdown. Ace-to-five low values are used.

Played at fixed limit, it is recommended that the betting structure be 1-2-2-4; that is, the second and third betting rounds should allow a bet of twice the amount of the first round, and the final bet should allow four times the amount of the first round.

“Home” games

These are somewhat less-serious games that are typically played only in home games at small stakes. This does not necessarily mean that there is less opportunity for skillful play, just that the games are seen as more social than competitive.

To help grow the betting pot in a home game, one can add a variant known as the “kill card” to the rules. Kill cards work best with stud games or shared card games as no one player can control when the “kill card” is played.

One popular “kill card” game is called Chernobyl Cowboy. The “Chernobyl Cowboy” is the King of Hearts. Whenever the King of Hearts appears face up in a stud or shared card game the game is dead. All bets remain in the pot and the game begins again with a new ante and a new deal. Anyone who has folded is out until the game concludes. For example: In a seven card stud game each player gets two cards down, then four cards up, then one final card down. In a seven card stud game with a “Chernobyl Cowboy”, if the King of Hearts comes up during the time the four up cards are dealt, the game is killed and everyone who is still in antes again for a new round.

Shotgun (“Roll ‘em out” and “Skinny Minnie”)

This is a draw game that plays much like a stud game. First five cards are dealt to each player, followed by a betting round, and a draw. Now, in place of a second round and showdown, there is a rollout phase, which begins with the players arranging their five cards in any chosen order, placing them face down in front of themselves. Each player’s top card is now revealed, followed by a betting round. Then each player reveals his next card, followed by a betting round. Then a third card is revealed, followed by a betting round, a fourth card, a betting round, and finally a showdown. Players may not change the order of their cards at any time during the rollout phase.

This game can be played for high or low, but plays best at high-low split, in which case it is called “Skinny Minnie”.

Spit in the ocean

This might be classified as a hybrid draw/Community card game, but it is placed here because it plays mostly as a draw game. On the initial deal, each player is dealt four cards, and then a single card is dealt to the center of the table face up. This card plays as if it were the fifth card in every player’s hand. It is also a wild card, and every other card of its rank is also wild. The first betting round is then played, followed by a draw in which each player replaces cards from his hand with an equal number, so that each player still has only four cards in hand. A final betting round is followed by a showdown. High-hand values are used.

Here’s a sample deal: Alice deals four cards to each player, then deals the next card face up to the center of the table. it is the

of diamonds, and this makes all
-spot cards wild. Bob opens for $1, Carol raises to $2, David folds, Alice and Bob call. Bob discards two cards, and receives two replacements. Carol draws one card, and Alice draws one. Bob checks, Carol bets $2, Alice raises to $4, Bob folds, Carol reraises to $6, and Alice calls. The cards in Carol’s hand are Q-Q-6-4. Because the
in her hand and the one on the board are wild, her hand is four queens. Alice’s hand contains K-J-9-7, all spades. With the shared wild card, this gives her a flush, which loses to Carol’s four queens.

Anaconda (“Pass the trash”)

Seven cards are dealt to each player. Before the first betting round, each player examines his hand, and removes exactly three cards from his hand and places them on the table to his left. After each person has thus discarded, he picks up the cards discarded by his right-hand neighbor and places them in his hand (thus, each player will have given three cards to his left-hand neighbor). It is important that each player discard before looking at the cards he is to receive. After the first pass, there is a betting round. Then a second pass occurs, each player passing two cards to his right. A second betting round is followed by a third pass, each player passing one card to his left. Finally, a fourth betting round and a showdown, in which the player with the best five-card high hand he can make out of the seven in his hand wins the pot.

In some casual games, the showdown is replaced by a rollout phase, as described above in “Shotgun”. This makes a total of eight betting rounds in the game, which generally destroys any chance for skillful play in the later rounds.

Ad hoc variants

Any of the above games can be modified in many ways upon player whim, by designating additional wild cards, betting rounds, more or fewer cards, altered hand values, and any other change agreed upon by all players prior to each deal. You can announce such a game by using the name of an existing game and specifying the variations, for example “Three-card Triple-draw California lowball, Kings wild” (a surprisingly good game heads up). Many times this will result in a game that does not play well, but occasionally will produce a game that is well-suited to a particular group of players. Even if it doesn’t, such games can be used sparingly to enliven an otherwise serious game.

Here are some general guidelines:

• If you want to designate some normal suited cards as wild, choose cards that would otherwise be bad for the game being played. For example, deuces wild for high-hand games, kings wild for lowball,
-spots wild for high-low split (where an
• -high or lower is necessary to win low).
• High-low split games play best with more than four players.
• When playing high-low split, it is necessary to have either a declaration phase or a qualifier (but not both). The most common form is
• -high or better to qualify low, but also common is any pair/no pair (that is, a pair or better is required to win high, and no pair or better low is required to win low), and
-high for low.
• Designating more than four wild cards (or possibly six) will result in considerable confusion and many ties.
• Two to five betting rounds makes a good game. One round or more than five rounds reduces the amount of skill involved.
• Sometimes there is no betting round before the draw; players pick up their cards, discard and draw, and then the betting starts.
• Giving each player more than eight or nine cards usually makes a bad game. (Note that in Anaconda, each player will have seen up to thirteen cards!)

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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Posted on: July 1st, 2008

A satellite tournament is either a minor tournament or event on a competitive sporting tour or one of a group of such tournaments that form a series played in the same country or region. The term is most commonly used in reference to minor professional or competitive junior tennis.In professional tennis, satellite tournaments are typically organised by a country’s national tennis association and overseen by the International Tennis Federation. They are played by players who are ranked outside the top few hundred by the Association of Tennis Professionals with a high enough national ranking. Prize money ranges from £1000 – £15000 for winning the tournament. Players successful at this level of pro tennis move on to play ATP Challenger Series or even top-flight ATP Tour events.

A satellite tournament in poker is a qualifying event. Winners of these satellites usually win the buy-in fee to a larger, more prestigious tournament like the World Series of Poker Main Event.

baby

A low-ranked card, usually used in lowball games. Also “spoke” when between ace and five.

backdoor

1. A draw requiring two or more rounds to fill. For example, catching two consecutive cards in two rounds of seven-card stud or Texas hold ‘em to fill a straight or flush.
2. A hand made other than the hand the player intended to make. I started with four hearts hoping for a flush, but I backdoored two more kings and my trips won.

back in

1. To enter a pot by checking and then calling someone else’s open on the first betting round. Usually used in games like Jackpots, meaning to enter without openers.
2. To enter a pot cheaply or for free because of having posted a blind.

back into

To win a pot with a hand that would have folded to any bet. For example, two players enter a pot of draw poker, both drawing to flushes. Both miss, and check after the draw. The player with the ace-high draw “backs into” winning the pot against the player with only a king-high draw. Also to make a backdoor draw, for example, a player who starts a hand with three of a kind, but makes a runner-runner flush, can be said to back into the flush.

bank

Also called the house, the person responsible for distributing chips, keeping track of the buy-ins, and paying winners at the end of the game.

bankroll

The amount of money that a player has to wager for the duration of his or her poker career.

behind

1. Not currently having the best hand. I’m pretty sure my pair of jacks was behind Lou’s kings, but I had other draws, so I kept playing.
2. Describing money in play but not visible as chips in front a player. For example, a player may announce “I’ve got $100 behind” while handing money to a casino employee, meaning that he intends those chips to be in play as soon as they are brought to him.

berry patch

A game with many unskilled or “live” players; a lucrative opportunity for profit.

bet

1. Any money wagered during the play of a hand.
2. More specifically, the opening bet of a betting round.
3. In a fixed limit game, the standard betting amount. There were six bets in the pot when I called.

big bet game

A game played with a no limit or pot limit betting structure.

big blind

See blind.

big blind special

A situation in which (assuming no raising) the player in the big blind is dealt weak hole cards, but ends up making the best hand because he or she was able to see the flop for free, often two pair with unusual cards such as 3-9 or 10-2.

blank

A card, frequently a community card, of no apparent value. I suspected Margaret had a good draw, but the river card was a blank, so I bet again.

blaze

A hand of five face cards that used to outrank a flush.

bleed

To lose small amounts continually, so as to add up to a large loss. I won that large pot with my kings, but then I bled it all off over the next hour.

blind

1. A type of forced bet.
2. In the “dark”.

blind stud

A stud poker game in which all cards are dealt face down. Was popular in California before legal rulings made traditional stud legal there.

blind off, blinded

1. To “ante off”.
2. To have one’s stack reduced by paying ever increasing blinds in tournaments. Ted had to make a move soon or he would be blinded away in three more rounds.

bluff-catcher

On the last betting round, a hand that cannot win if the opponent is making a legitimate value bet, but that might win if the opponent’s bet was a pure bluff. It looked like Jim and I were both drawing for a flush. I missed and he bet, but I figured the pair of nines I caught along the way made a bluff-catcher, so I called.

board

1. The set of community cards in a community card game. If another spade hits the board, I’ll have to fold.
2. The set of face-up cards of a particular player in a stud game. Zack’s board didn’t look too scary, so I bet into him again.
3. The set of all face-up cards in a stud game. I started with a flush draw, but there were already four other diamonds showing on the board, so I folded.

bomb

A “brick”.

bone

A chip, often of small denomination.

both ways

Both halves of a split pot, often declared by a player who thinks he or she will win both low and high.

bottom end

The lowest of several possible straights, especially in a community card game. For example, in Texas hold’em with the cards 5-6-7 on the board, a player holding 3-4 has the bottom end straight, while a player holding 4-8 or 8-9 has a higher straight.

bottom pair, bottom set

In a community card game, a pair (or set) made by matching the lowest-ranking board card with one (or two) in one’s private hand.

box

The chip tray in front of a house dealer, and by extension, the house dealer’s position at the table. You’ve been in the box for an hour now; don’t you get a break?

boxed card

A card encountered face-up in the assembled deck during the deal, as opposed to one overturned in the act of dealing. Most house rules treat a boxed card as if it didn’t exist; that is, it is placed aside and not used. Different rules cover cards exposed during the deal.

break

1. In a draw poker game, to discard cards that make a made hand in the hope of making a much better one. For example, a player with J-J-10-9-8 may wish to break his pair of jacks to draw for the straight, and a lowball player may break his 9-high 9-5-4-2-A to draw for the wheel.
2. To end a session of play. The game broke at about 3:00.

brick

A “blank”, though more often used in the derogatory sense of a card that is undesirable rather than merely inconsequential, such as a card of high rank or one that makes a pair in a low-hand game.

bring in

1. To open a betting round. Alice brought it in for $5, and Bob raised $10.
2. A kind of forced bet. Ted posted the bring-in.

brush

1. A casino employee whose job it is to greet players entering the poker room, maintain the list of persons waiting to play, announce open seats, and various other duties (including brushing off tables to prepare them for new games, hence the name).
2. To recruit players into a game. Dave is brushing up some players for tonight’s game.

bubble

The last finishing position in a poker tournament before entering the payout structure. He was very frustrated after getting eliminated on the bubble. Also can be applied to other situations like if six players will make a televised final table the player finishing seventh will go out on the “TV bubble”.

bullet

1. An ace.
2. A chip.

bully

To bluff repeatedly at all opportunities, or a player who does so. Compare to “run over”.

bum deal

A mis-deal

bump

To raise. Alice bet $5 and Bob bumped it to $20.

busted

1. Not complete, such as four cards to a straight that never gets the fifth card to complete it.
2. Out of chips. To “bust out” is to lose all of one’s chips.

buy-in

The minimum required amount of chips to become involved in a game (or tournament). For example, a $4-$8 fixed limit game might require a player to buy at least $40 worth of chips to play. This is typically far less than an average player would expect to play with for any amount of time, but large enough that the player can play a number of hands without buying more, so the game isn’t slowed down by constant chip-buying.

buy short

To buy into a game for an amount smaller than the normal buy-in. Some casinos allow this under certain circumstances, such as after having lost a full buy-in, or if all players agree to allow it.

buy the button

A rule originating in northern California casinos in games played with blinds, in which a new player sitting down with the button to his right (who would normally be required to sit out a hand as the button passed him, then post to come in) may choose to pay the amount of both blinds for this one hand (the amount of the large blind playing as a live blind, and the amount of the small blind as dead money), play this hand, and then receive the button on the next hand as if he had been playing all along.

buy the pot

Making a bet when no one else is betting so as to force the other players to fold in order to win the pot uncontested.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A-B-C, A-B-C-D

1. A sequence of the lowest cards in a lowball game. For example, the hand 8-6-3-2-A might be called an eight-six-a-b-c.
2. Uncreative or predictable play. He’s an a-b-c player.

ace-to-five, ace-to-six

Methods of evaluating low hands.

act

To make a play (bet, call, raise, or fold) at the required time. It is Ted’s turn to act. Compare to “in turn”.

action

1. A player’s turn to act. The action is on you.
2. A willingness to gamble. I’ll give you action or There’s plenty of action in this game
3. A bet, along with all the calls of that bet. For example, if one player makes a $5 bet and three other players call, he is said to have $5 “in action”, and to have received $15 worth of action on his bet. Usually this term comes into play when figuring side pots when one or more players is all in.

action button

A marker similar to a kill button, on which a player places an extra forced bet. In a seven-card stud high-low game, the action button is awarded to the winner of a scoop pot above a certain size, signifying that in the next pot, they player will be required to post an amount representing a completion of the bring-in to a full bet. For example, in a stud game with $2 and $4 betting limits and a $1 bring-in, a player with the action button must post $2; after the cards are dealt, the player with the low card must still pay the $1 bring-in, then when the betting reaches the player who posted the $2, he is required to leave it in as a raise of the bring-in (and has the option to raise further). Players in between the bring-in and the action button can just call the bring-in, but they know ahead of time that they will be raised by the action button.

action only

In many cardrooms, with respect to an all-in bet, only a full (or half) bet can be reraised. Anything less than a full (or half) bet is considered to be action only, that is, other players can call the bet but not raise it. For example, Alice bets $100. Bob calls. Carol goes all in for $119. When the action returns to Alice and Bob, they may only to call the extra $19; they cannot raise it. Carol’s raise is called action only.

add-on

In a live game, to buy more chips before you have busted. In tournament play, a single rebuy for which all players are eligible regardless of their stack size. This is usually allowed only once, at the end of the rebuy period.

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To make an obvious play or expose cards in such a way as to deliberately convey an impression to your opponents about your style of play. For example, to make a bad play or bluff to give the impression that you bluff frequently (hoping opponents will then call your legitimate bets) or to show only good hands to give the impression that you rarely bluff (hoping opponents will then fold when you do).

air

In a lowball game, “giving air” is letting an opponent who might otherwise fold know that you intend to draw one or more cards to induce him to call.

all day

The total current posted bet. Used to indicate that the speaker is referring to the total bet, versus the difference the acting player would need to post. Action is on Alice; twenty all day.

altogether

The total current posted bet. Used to indicate that the speaker is referring to the total bet, versus the difference the acting player would need to post. Action is on Alice; twenty dollars altogether.

ammo, ammunition

Chips in play. I’m going to need more ammo for this game.

angle

A technically legal, but borderline unethical, play. For example, deliberately miscalling one’s own hand to induce a fold, or placing odd amounts of chips in the pot to confuse opponents about whether you mean to call or raise. A player employing such tactics is called an “angle shooter”.

ante off

In tournament play, to force an absent player to continue paying antes, blinds, bring-ins, or other forced bets so that the contest remains fair to the other players. Go ahead and take that phone call. We’ll ante you off until you get back.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

HTML clipboardOnline poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide. For the year of 2005, revenues from online poker were estimated at US$200 million per month.

Online poker adverts on the London Underground

Overview

Traditional (or “brick and mortar”, B&M) venues for playing poker, such as casinos and poker rooms, may be intimidating for novice players and are located in geographically disparate locations. Brick and mortar casinos are also reluctant to promote poker because it is very difficult for them to profit from it. Though the rake, or time charge, of traditional casinos is often very high, the opportunity costs of running a poker room are even higher. Brick and mortar casinos often make much more money by removing poker rooms and adding more slot machines.

Online venues, by contrast, are dramatically cheaper because they have much smaller overhead costs. For example, adding another table does not take up valuable space like it would for a brick and mortar casino. Online poker rooms tend to be viewed as more player-friendly. For example, the software may prompt the player when it is his or her turn to act. Online poker rooms also allow the players to play for very low stakes (as low as 1¢) and often offer poker freerolls (where there is no entry fee), attracting beginners.

Online venues may be more vulnerable to certain types of fraud, especially collusion between players. However, they also have collusion detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. For example, online poker room security employees can look at the “hand history” of the cards previously played by any player on the site, making patterns of behavior easier to detect than in a casino where colluding players can simply fold their hands without anyone ever knowing the strength of their holding. Online poker rooms also check player’s IP addresses in order to prevent players at the same household or at known open proxy servers from playing on the same tables.

The major online poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. One common feature is to offer tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain entry to real-life poker tournaments. It was through one such tournament that Chris Moneymaker won his entry to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went on to win the main event causing shock in the poker world. The 2004 World Series featured triple the number of players over the 2003 turnout. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry through an online cardroom. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg “Fossilman” Raymer also won his entry at the PokerStars online cardroom.

In October 2004, Sportingbet Plc, at the time the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company (SBT.L), announced the acquisition of ParadisePoker.com, one of the online poker industry’s first and largest cardrooms. The $340 million dollar acquisition marked the first time an online cardroom was owned by a public company. Since then, several other cardroom parent companies have gone public.

In June 2005, PartyGaming, the parent company of the largest online cardroom, PartyPoker, went public on the London Stock Exchange, achieving an initial public offering market value in excess of $8 billion dollars. At the time of the IPO, ninety-two percent of Party Gaming’s income came from poker operations.

In early 2006, PartyGaming moved to acquire EmpirePoker.com from Empire Online. UltimateBet’s parent company also listed on the London Stock Exchange and other poker rooms such as PokerStars & Poker.com are rumored to be exploring initial public offerings.

Legality

From a legal perspective, online poker may differ in some ways from online casino gambling, but many of the same issues do apply. For a discussion of the legality of online gambling in general.

Online poker is legal and regulated in many countries including several nations in and around the Caribbean Sea, and most notably the United Kingdom.

In February 2005 the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize and regulate online poker and online poker cardroom operators in the state. The legislation required that online poker operations would have to physically locate their entire operations in the state. Testifying before the state Senate Judiciary committee, Nigel Payne, CEO of Sportingbet, the owner of Paradise Poker, pledged to relocate to the state if the bill became law.

The measure, however, was defeated by the State Senate in March 2005 after the U. S. Department of Justice sent a letter to North Dakota attorney general Wayne Stenehjem stating that online gaming “may” be illegal, and that the pending legislation “might” violate the federal Wire Act. However, many legal experts dispute the DOJ’s claim.

North Dakota Rep. Jim Kasper (R-Fargo), the author of the legalization bill, has vowed to continue his efforts, stating that he is “not putting away the idea of getting into Internet gaming licenses in North Dakota” and that the “revenue we missed is too great to pass up.” Kasper has also stated that he will introduce the legislation in the 2007 session of the North Dakota legislature.

In response to this and other claims by the DOJ regarding the legality of online poker, many of the major online poker sites stopped advertising their “dot-com” sites in American media. Instead, they created “dot-net” sites that are virtually identical but offer no real money wagering. The ads feature words to the effect of “this is not a gambling website”. Televised ads still feature the dot-net conceit but print ads have been trending back toward advertising the dot-coms directly.

HTML clipboardIn July 2006, United States federal agents, citing the Wire Act, arrested BetOnSports CEO David Carruthers in Dallas, Texas while he was changing planes. He was traveling between Costa Rica and the United Kingdom; in both jurisdictions online gaming and poker are legal and regulated.

Later in the year a similar event happened in France, where Norbert Teufelberger and Manfred Bodner, the CEO’s of bwin, were giving a press conference. The arrest was made due to offenses against the French gambling laws.

Since many banks and credit card companies will not allow direct money transfers to online poker sites, electronic money transfer businesses provide online “e-wallets” that players can load from a bank account, then transfer the funds directly to the poker site. The advantage of these services is that it makes it easy for people to transfer money between different poker sites without the money going back to their bank accounts. Prepaid debit cards and virtual credit cards (cards issued for online use, as a card number, expiration date and CVC code) have also emerged as a method of payment for poker sites. These function much in the same way as an “e-wallet” since money deposited into the card account is not connected to the user’s bank account.

On October 13, 2006, President Bush officially signed into law the Safe Port Act, a bill aimed at enhancing security at U.S. ports. Attached to the Safe Port Act was a provision known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). According to the UIGEA, “unlawful internet gambling” means to place, receive, or otherwise knowingly transmit a bet or wager by means of the internet where such bet is unlawful under any law in the State in which the bet is initiated, received, or otherwise made. Thus, the UIGEA prohibits online gambling sites from performing transactions with American financial institutions. As a result of the bill, several large publicly traded poker gaming sites such as PartyPoker.com, PacificPoker.com and bwin closed down their US facing operations. Some operations have not closed and it is still possible for some American players to play online for real money and even sign up for new accounts. The UIGEA has had a devastating effect on the stock value of these companies.

Following passage of UIGEA, former U.S. Senator Al D’Amato joined the Poker Players Alliance (PPA). Part of the PPA’s mission is to protect and to advocate for the right of poker players to play online. Sen. D’Amato’s responsibilities include Congressional lobbying. The PPA has over 900,000 members as of March 2008.

On April 26, 2007, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced HR 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA). IGREA would modify the UIGEA by providing a provision for licensing of Internet gambling facilities by the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. On June 8, 2007, the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Frank, held a hearing entitled, “Can Internet Gambling Be Effectively Regulated to Protect Consumers and the Payments System?”. Details of the meeting, including the archived webcast, are available on the House Financial Services Committee website. Expert witnesses at the hearing testified that Internet gambling can be effectively regulated for age verification, money laundering issues, facilitation of state and federal tax collection, and for issues relating to compulsive gambling. As of March 2008, IGREA has 47 cosponsors.

On May 3, 2007 Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) introduced HR 2140, the Internet Gambling Study Act. This bill “provide(s) for a study by the National Academy of Sciences to identify the proper response of the United States to the growth of Internet gambling.” As of December 2007, IGSA has 68 cosponsors.

On June 7, 2007, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) introduced HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act. This act would legalize Internet poker, bridge, chess, and other games of skill. Also on June 7, 2007, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced H.R. 2607, the Internet Gambling Tax Act. The IGTA would legislate Internet gambling tax collection requirements.

Integrity and fairness

As with other forms of online gambling, many critics question whether the operators of such games – especially those located in jurisdictions separate from most of their players – might be engaging in fraud themselves.

Internet discussion forums are rife with unproven allegations of non-random card dealing, possibly to favour house-employed players or “bots” (poker playing software disguised as a human opponent), or to give multiple players good hands thus increasing the bets and the rake, or simply to prevent new players from losing so quickly that they become discouraged. However, there is little more than anecdotal evidence to support such claims, and others argue that the rake is sufficiently large that such abuses would be unnecessary and foolish. Many claim to see lots of “bad beats” with large hands pitted against others all too often at a rate that seems to be a lot more common than in live games. This might actually be caused by the fact that online cardrooms deal more hands per hour: online players get to see more hands, so their likelihood of seeing more improbable bad beats or randomly large pots is also increased.

However, to date there has been at least one site, ProPoker.com, that has been found to use serverside bots that play with the knowledge of players’ cards and the cards yet to be dealt. It has since been shut down, with many players losing the funds they had on the site.

Many online poker sites are certified by bodies such as the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and major auditing firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers review the fairness of the random_number_generator[5], shuffle, and payouts for some sites.

Differences with conventional poker

There are substantial differences between online poker gaming and conventional, in-person gaming.

One obvious difference is that players do not sit right across from each other, removing any ability to observe others’ reactions and body language. Instead, online poker players learn to focus more keenly on betting patterns, reaction time and other behavior tells that are not physical in nature. Since poker is a game that requires adaptability, successful online players learn to master the new frontiers of their surroundings.

Another less obvious difference is the rate of play. In brick and mortar casinos the dealer has to collect the cards, then shuffle and deal them after every hand. Due to this and other delays common in offline casinos, the average rate of play is around thirty hands per hour. Online casinos, however, do not have these delays; the dealing and shuffling are instant, there are no delays relating to counting chips (for a split pot), and on average the play is faster due to “auto-action” buttons (where the player selects his action before his turn). It is not uncommon for an online poker table to average sixty to eighty hands per hour.

This large difference in rate of play has created another effect among online poker players. In the brick and mortar casino, the only real way to increase your earnings is to increase your limit. In the online world players have another option, play more tables. Unlike a physical casino where it would be nearly impossible to play multiple tables at once, most online poker rooms allow this. Depending on the site, a player might play from 4 to 10 tables at the same time, viewing them each in a separate window on the computer display. For example, a player may make around $10 per 100 hands at a lower limit game. In a casino, this would earn them under $4 an hour, which minus dealer tips would probably barely break even. In an online poker room, the same player with the same win rate could play four tables at once, which at 60 hands per hour each would result in an earning of $24/hour, which is a modest salary for somebody playing online poker. Some online players even play eight or more tables at once, in an effort to increase their winnings.

Another important change results from the fact that online poker rooms, in some cases, offer online poker schools that teach the basics and significantly speed up the learning curve for novices. Many online poker rooms also provide free money play so that players may practice these skills in various poker games and limits without the risk of losing real money. People who previously had no way to learn and improve because they had no one to play with now have the ability to learn the game much more quickly and gain invaluable experience from free money play.

Tracking play

Tracking poker play in a B&M casino is very difficult. You can easily monitor your winnings, but tracking any detailed statistics about your game requires a player to take notes after each hand, which is cumbersome and distracting.

Conversely, tracking poker play online is easy. Most online poker rooms support “Hand Histories” text files which track every action both you and your opponents made during each hand. The ability to specifically track every single played hand has many advantages. Many third-party software applications process hand history files and return detailed summaries of poker play. These not only include exact tallies of rake and winnings, which are useful for tax purposes, but also offer detailed statistics about the person’s poker play. Serious players use these statistics to check for weaknesses or “leaks” (mistakes that leak money from their winnings) in their game. Such detailed analysis of poker play was never available in the past, but with the growth of online poker play, it is now commonplace among nearly all serious and professional online poker players.

Bonuses

While the practice of comping players with free meals, hotel rooms, and merchandise is quite common in B&M casinos, online poker rooms have needed to develop new ways to reward faithful customers. The most common way of doing this is through deposit bonuses, where the player is given a bonus code to enter when placing money into an account. The bonus code adds either a percentage, or a set amount of chips to the value of the deposit. Besides this, several online cardrooms employ VIP Managers to develop VIP programs to reward regular players.

Compatibility

Most online poker rooms offer downloadable Microsoft Windows programs that require an emulator program to run on Apple Macintosh or Linux computers. However, several rooms do have clients that run natively on Mac or Linux.

Online poker portal

An online poker portal is a website offering poker-related content. Examples of such content could be news, tournament results, strategy articles or reviews of online poker cardrooms.

Some portals have a considerable amount of content, while others attempt to act as mere conduits to other sites, normally where actual gambling games are offered.

Links

• Open Directory Project’s online cardroom listings and poker strategy sites
• Yahoo’s directory of Poker sites
• Statutory gambling laws for each US state

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The card game of poker has many variations, most of them created in the United States in the mid-1900s. The standard order of play applies to most of these games, but to fully specify a poker game requires details about which hand values are used, the number of betting rounds, and exactly what cards are dealt and what other actions are taken between rounds.

Popular poker variants

The most populate poker variants can be divided into the following groups:

• Draw poker: Games in which players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. The most common of these is Five-card draw.
• Stud poker: Games in which each player receives a combination of face-up cards and face-down cards in multiple betting rounds. The most common of these are Seven-card stud and Five-card stud.
• Community card poker: Games in which each player’s incomplete hidden hand is combined with shared face-up cards. The most common of these are Texas hold ‘em and Omaha hold’em.

Other poker variants

Some poker games just don’t fit neatly into the above categories, and some have features of more than one of these categories.

Stud Horse poker

Stud Horse poker is mentioned in the California law books as one of the gambling games prohibited in California’s card rooms. There is no definition for it under the law, however. It appears not to be Stud poker, which is not prohibited and is offered in several variations in California card rooms.

Oxford stud

Though called “stud”, this is a combination stud/community card game that was popular at MIT in the 1960s, in which players receive individual downcards, individual upcards, and community cards. Many variations on this are possible by changing what kinds of cards and how many are dealt in various rounds.

One difficulty with such a combination is deciding the betting order: in stud games, the player with the best upcards showing bets first in each round (except sometimes the first, where the worst upcard is forced to begin the betting with a Bring-in). In community card games, each betting round begins with the same player (because there generally are no upcards), making it more positional. Oxford stud chooses to use the players’ individual upcards for determining order, which makes it play more like stud.

First, each player is dealt two downcards and one upcard as in seven-card stud, followed by a first betting round. Like stud, the game is usually played with a Bring-in, the lowest upcard being forced to pay it, and betting follows after that. After the first round is complete, two community cards are dealt to the table, followed by a second betting round, beginning with the player with the highest-ranking incomplete poker hand (as in stud) made from his upcard plus the two community cards. For example, if one player has a K upcard, and a second player has a upcard, and the community cards are T-7 (T = 10), the second player bets first (since he has a pair of s, and the other player only has K-high). Then a second upcard is dealt to each player, followed by a third betting round, again beginning with the player who can make the best partial hand with his two upcards and the board. Finally, a third community card is dealt to table, followed by a fourth betting round and showdown. Note that as with Mississippi stud, each player has five cards of his hand exposed at this point (two of his own plus three on the board), so it is possible for a flush or straight to be the high hand for the purpose of first bet. At showdown each player makes the best five-card hand he can from the four cards he is dealt plus the three community cards, in any combination. This game is usually played High-low split.

Billabong (and Shanghai)

Just as Oxford stud is a mixed stud/community card version of Texas hold ‘em, Billabong is a mixed version of Manila. Each player is dealt two downcards and one upcard. Low upcard starts the betting with a Bring-in if you are playing with one, otherwise high card starts the betting. Next, two community cards are dealt, followed by a second betting round, beginning with the player with the best exposed partial poker hand (counting the community cards, as in Oxford stud). Then a third community card is dealt, followed by a third betting round. Finally a fourth community card is dealt, followed by a fourth betting round and showdown. Each player plays the best five-card hand he can make from the three in his hand plus the four on the board in any combination.

Shanghai is the same game with an extra hole card, but no more than two hole cards play. That is, the game begins with each player being dealt three downcards and one upcard; each player must discard one of his hole cards at some point during the game as determined ahead of time. The most common variation is to discard immediately as in Pineapple; the second most common is to discard just before showdown as in Tahoe.

Guts

Rather than the customary rounds of betting followed by a single showdown, guts features multiple rounds, each of which consist of the decision to be “in” or “out”, and each of which contains a showdown. Only the players who stay “in” participate in the showdown. In the most common version, the player who stays in with the best hand receives the current pot, while all other players who stayed in must match the pot to form the next pot. For example, if the pot is $5 and three people stay in, then one player will receive the $5 pot and two players will be forced to add $5 each to the next pot, escalating the size of the pot for the next deal. Then the hand is re-dealt, and all players (even those who were “out” in the last round) can participate again. The game ends when only a single player has the guts to stay “in”, and thus the pot is taken without replenishment.

Each player’s hand usually consists of a reduced poker hand of either 2 or 3 cards. The cards are ranked as in regular 5-card poker, but in some variations straights and flushes count and in some they do not.

Another variation is for three-card guts. The hands are ranked as follows: Three of a kind, straight flush, straight, flush, pair. Each player receives two cards face down. In turn, each player declares whether they’re in or out. If they’re in, they receive their third card face up. The dealer declares last; if no other player has stayed in, then the dealer must have a pair or better to win the pot. Another variation is for the other players to have another chance to declare and challenge the dealer. With this variation, there is no requirement for the dealer’s hand; if no one challenges him, the dealer wins.

Declaring “in” or “out” is similar to declaring high or low in high-low games. Each player takes a chip, places their hands under the table, and either places the chip in one fist or not. Each player then holds their closed fist above the table, and the players simultaneously open their hands to reveal their decision (a chip represents “in”, an empty hand represents “out”).

Because the pot can double (or more) each round, the stakes can grow exponentially, and pots of 50 or 100 times the original ante are possible.

There are many variations. Sometimes only the single player with the worst hand (who stayed in) must add to the pot, but they must double the pot rather than match it. In an especially vicious variation, nobody wins the pot unless nobody else stays in. This can degenerate quickly, when one player must add a large amount to the pot, and decides to stay in until he wins it back. Thus the game continues indefinitely, with one player continually adding larger and larger amounts to the pot. The pot may grow so big that no player has enough cash to match it, leading to arguments about how to end the game. (This variation is not recommended when playing among friends. Often this variation is abandoned after the first really big pot leads to conflict.)

One solution to the exponentially growing pots is to cap them at 50x or 100x the ante. That is, if there are 5 players with an ante of $1, the pot started at $5. If there were 3 doublings, the pot is now at $40. Suppose the “cap the pot at $50″ rule were in force. Then, if another doubling occurred, each loser would pay $40, but the pot would now be at $50 and the extra $30 would be set aside as the ante once there’s a hand with a winner and no loser.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A poker tournament is a tournament at which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker.

Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time.

Entry fees and prizes

In a typical tournament, a player pays a fixed entry fee (called a buy-in) and receives, in return, a certain quantity of in-game currency, called play money, invariably represented in the form of poker chips. Typically, the amount of play money given each player is an integer multiple of the buy-in. Only this in-game “play” money can be used in the game, real money cannot. Additionally, real and play money cannot be interchanged at any time. Some tournaments, however, offer the option of a re-buy or buy-back; this gives players the option of purchasing more chips. In some cases, re-buys are conditional (for example, offered only to players low on or out of chips) but in others they are unconditional, or offered to all players. When a player has no chips remaining (and has exhausted or declined all re-buy options, if any are available) he or she is eliminated from the tournament.

In most tournaments, the number of players at each table is kept even by moving players, either by switching one player or (as the field shrinks) taking an entire table out of play and distributing its players amongst the remaining tables. A few tournaments, called shoot-outs, do not do this; instead, the last player (sometimes the last two or more players) at a table moves on to a second or third round, akin to a single-elimination tournament found in other games.

The prizes for winning are usually derived from the entry fees, though outside funds may be entered as well. For example, some invitational tournaments do not have entry fees and fund their prize pools with sponsorship revenue and/or gate receipts from spectators. (These tournaments are referred to as freerolls.) Play continues, in most tournaments, until all but one player is eliminated, though in some tournament situations, especially informal ones, players have the option of ending by consensus.

Players are ranked in reverse chronological order — the last person in the game earns 1st place, the second-to-last earns 2nd, and so on. This ranking of players by elimination is unique amongst games, and also precludes the possibility of a tie for first place, since one player alone must have all the chips to end the tournament. (Ties are possible for all other places, though they are rare since the sole tiebreaker is the number of chips one has at the start of the hand in which one is eliminated.)

Sometimes tournaments end by mutual consensus of the remaining players. For example, in a ten-person, $5 game, there may be two players remaining with $29 and $21, respectively, worth of chips. Rather than risk losing their winning, as one of them would if the game were continued, these two players may be allowed to split the prize proportional to their in-game currency (or however they agree).

Prizes are awarded to the winning players in one of three ways:

• Fixed: Each placing corresponds to a certain payoff. For example, a ten-person, $20 buy-in tournament might award $100 to the first-place player, $60 for second-place, $40 for third, and nothing for lower places.

• Proportional: Payouts are determined according to a percentage-based scale. The percentages are determined based upon the number of participants and will increase payout positions as participation increases. As a rule, roughly one player in ten will ‘cash’, or make a high enough place to earn money. These scales are very top-heavy, with the top three players usually winning more than the rest of the paid players combined.

Tournaments can be open or invitational. The World Series of Poker, whose final event (a $10,000 buy-in no limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament) is considered the most prestigious of all poker tournaments, is open.

Multi-table tournaments are involve players playing simultaneously at dozens or even hundreds of tables. Satellite tournaments to high-profile, expensive poker tournaments are the means of entering a major event without posting a significant sum of cash. These have significantly smaller buy-ins, usually on the order of one-tenth to one-fiftieth the main tournament’s buy-in, and can be held at various venues across the country and, more recently, on the Internet. Top players in this event, in lieu of a cash prize, are awarded seats to the main tourney, with the number of places dependent on participation. Chris Moneymaker, who won the 2003 World Series of Poker, was able to afford his seat at this event by winning an Internet tournament with a $39 buy-in. Greg Raymer, 2004 World Series of Poker champion, acquired his seat via a $165 Internet tournament.

Betting format

Betting, in tournaments, can take one of three forms:

• In a structured (fixed limit) betting system, bets and raises are restricted to specific amounts, though these amounts typically increase throughout the tournament. For example, for a seven-card stud tournament with the stakes at 10/20, raises would be $10 in the first three rounds of betting, and $20 in the latter rounds.

• Semi-structured betting provides ranges for allowed raises. Usually, in this format, one may not raise less than a previous player has raised. For example, if one player raises $20, it would be illegal for another player to raise an additional $5. Pot limit is a semi-structured format in which raises cannot exceed the current size of the pot.

• Unstructured betting, usually called no limit. While blinds, antes, or bring-ins are fixed, players are free to bet as much as they wish, even early in a round of betting. To bet all of one’s chips (risking one’s tournament life, in the event of losing the hand) is to go all-in. In no-limit tournaments, players will sometimes take this risk even early in the betting; for example, in some no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments, it is not uncommon for players to bet “all-in” before the flop.

The betting structure is one of the most defining elements of the game; even if other aspects are equivalent, a fixed-limit version and its no-limit counterpart are considered to be very different games, because the strategies and play styles are very different. For instance, it is much easier to bluff in a no-limit game, which allows aggressive betting, than in a fixed-limit game. No-limit games also vary widely according to the proclivities of the players; an informal, emergent, betting structure is developed by the players’ personal strategies and personalities.

The stakes of each round, as well as blinds, bring-ins, and antes as appropriate per game, typically escalate according either to the time elapsed or the number of hands played.

Types of poker

While some tournaments offer a mix of games, like H.O.R.S.E. events which combine Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Stud Eight or Better and Dealer’s Choice events, at which one may choose from a similar menu of games, most tournaments feature one form of stud or community card poker, such as seven-card stud, seven card high-low stud, Omaha Hold ‘em or Texas Hold ‘em. Both Omaha and Texas Hold’em tournaments are commonly offered in fixed-limit, pot limit, and no limit forms.

Tournament venues

Informal tournaments can be organized by a group of friends; for example, most colleges feature poker tournaments. Casinos and online gaming sites often offer daily tournaments.

However, these are not the only venues. Poker cruises offer tournaments at sea. The 2005 World Series of Poker primarily took place in the conference hall of the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Major tournaments

The two largest and most well-known tournaments are the World Poker Tour championship event and the World Series of Poker, both held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The World Series has traditionally been featured on ESPN.

The 2005 World Series of Poker was the first held outside of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, though the final few days of the main event were held in the legendary Benny’s Bullpen. Future tournaments will be held at one of the Harrah’s Entertainment properties; 2005 saw the Rio as primary venue.

Arguably the most publicised European tournament is the Poker Million, which began in 2000 on Sky Sports, following on from the success of the Late Night Poker television show.

In addition to these events, there are other major tournaments throughout the year. The World Poker Tour broadcasts a series of open tournaments throughout the U.S. and Caribbean with buy-ins from $5,000 to $15,000, as well as a European event with a €10,000 buy-in. Some of these events are stand alone tournaments like the Caribbean Poker Adventure, but most are held in conjunction with a tournament series being held at the host casino, like the Commerce Casino’s LA Poker Classic, the Reno Hilton’s World Poker Challenge and the Bicycle Casino’s Legends of Poker.

Atlantic City hosts The United States Poker Championship at the Trump Taj Mahal casino. The Plaza casino in Las Vegas hosts the Ultimate Poker Challenge, a series of regular tournaments that culminates in a $10,000 buy-in event.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.