Poker
Poker is a card game in which players bet on the value of the card combination, (the hand), using a predefined hierarchy. There are two ways of winning:- the first way is simply to hold the most powerful hand, with respect to a hand ranking- the second way is to remain the sole player after all the other players have fold (the player then makes an un-called bet)
History of Poker
German origins? French origins?....The birth of Poker is not exactly a settled issue..
It is said that the game was played in New Orleans in 1829, using a 20-cards deck of card, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable.
The full 52-card English deck was then used, adding the flush as a new combination. During the American Civil War, many changes were added, with the inclusion of draw poker, stud poker (the five-card variant) & the straight variant. Some American developments followed, with the wild card, lowball & split-pot poker, and community card
In the seventies, with the World Series of Poker, tournament plays became popular in American casinos; during this period, book dedicated to strategy began to flourish.
Owing to online games, Poker's popularity has experienced a huge spike in recent years, and numerous broadcasts of poker tournaments now exist and have brought in huge audiences for cable and satellite TV distributors.
Influencing the Anglo-Saxon Culture...
Many phrases come from the Poker jargon, among them "ace up one's sleeve", "blue chip", "call one's bluff", "cash in", "pass the buck", "wild card" etc....
Variants & GamePlay
- Stud Poker: One or more cards are dealt face down; follows one upcard with a betting round, and more up cards, each time followed by a betting round (and in a seven-card stud, a final downcard). The most famous forms are five-card stud and seven-card stud.
Of course, those additional cards received can completely change the rank of player's hands.... and once the new cards are received, the player has another chance to bet.
- Seven Card Stud: There are three variations: high, low and high-low. In seven-card high, the highest ranking hand takes the pot, in seven-card low, the lowest hand wins and in seven-card high-low, the players vie for both extremes with the highest hand and the lowest hand each claiming half the pot.
In each variation, players receive seven cards. After the first three cards are dealt (two face down, one up) there is a betting round. The next three are dealt open with a betting round after each. The remaining players, who haven't folded, therefore have four open and three closed cards from which they choose their best hand.
- Texas Hold' Em: (maybe the most popular..): Similar to seven-card stud, the key difference being that all the players get just two cards face-down of their own and five cards face up in the middle of the table for everyone's use (called "community cards"). Each player has seven cards to make up the best poker hand possible - just that the five community cards are used by all the other players as well. Up to nine players may play simultaneously. Texas hold'em has only four rounds of betting opposed to five like seven-card stud
- Chicago: Two cards are down, one up to each player. The same proceeds as in the seven-card stud, but the player who has the highest spade face down "in the hole" gains half the pot.
Strategies
- Sklanksky Vs Morton: According to the first one, every time you play your hand the way you would if you could see your opponent's cards, you gain, and every time your opponent plays his cards differently from the way he would play them if he could see your cards, you gain (example, the use of bluff). Morton stated that in multi-way pots, a player's expectation can be maximized by an opponent making a correct decision.
- Bluff: a form of deception used to induce opponents to fold superior hands; its user hopes to have his opponents to act differently than what they would do if they could see his cards
- Reasons for Raising: in order to drive out opponents, to gain information, to gain a free card, to get more money in the pot....
- Reasons for Calling: in order to set up a bluff, toi see more cards, to prevent an opponent from re-raising ...
Useful Links
For playing online:
A strategy useful when playing roulette:
What Andrew Robl does to prepare for a final table
