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Poker is a family of card games that combines gambling, strategy and different skills. All poker variants involve betting as an intrinsic part of play, and determine the winner of each hand according to the combinations of players' cards, at least some of which remain hidden until the end of the hand. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or 'community' cards, the number of cards that remain hidden, and the betting procedures.
In most modern poker games the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some form of a forced bet (the blind or ante). In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in turn must either match (or 'call') the maximum previous bet, or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further involvement in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also 'raise' (increase) the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the remaining player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed, and the player with the winning hand takes the pot.
With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who either believes the bet has positive expected value or who is trying to bluff other players for various strategic reasons. Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.
Poker online has increased in popularity since the beginning of the 20th century and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small groups of enthusiasts to a widely popular activity, both for participants and spectators, including online, with many professional players and multimillion-dollar tournament prizes.
History[edit]
Poker was developed sometime during the early 19th century in the United States. Since those early beginnings, the game has grown to become an extremely popular pastime worldwide.
In the 1937 edition of Foster's Complete Hoyle, R. F. Foster wrote: 'the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas.' By the 1990s some gaming historians including David Parlett started to challenge the notion that poker is a direct derivative of As-Nas. Developments in the 1970s led to poker becoming far more popular than it was before. Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.[1]
Gameplay[edit]
In casual play, the right to deal a hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a dealer button (or buck). In a casino, a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, but the button (typically a white plastic disk) is rotated clockwise among the players to indicate a nominal dealer to determine the order of betting. The cards are dealt clockwise around the poker table, one at a time.
One or more players are usually required to make forced bets, usually either an ante or a blind bet (sometimes both). The dealer shuffles the cards, the player on the chair to his or her right cuts, and the dealer deals the appropriate number of cards to the players one at a time, beginning with the player to his or her left. Cards may be dealt either face-up or face-down, depending on the variant of poker being played. After the initial deal, the first of what may be several betting rounds begins. Between rounds, the players' hands develop in some way, often by being dealt additional cards or replacing cards previously dealt. At the end of each round, all bets are gathered into the central pot.
At any time during a betting round, if one player bets, no opponents choose to call (match) the bet, and all opponents instead fold, the hand ends immediately, the bettor is awarded the pot, no cards are required to be shown, and the next hand begins. This is what makes bluffing possible. Bluffing is a primary feature of poker, one that distinguishes it from other vying games and from other games that make use of poker hand rankings.
At the end of the last betting round, if more than one player remains, there is a showdown, in which the players reveal their previously hidden cards and evaluate their hands. The player with the best hand according to the poker variant being played wins the pot. A poker hand comprises five cards; in variants where a player has more than five cards available to them, only the best five-card combination counts.
Variants[edit]
Poker variations are played where a 'high hand' or a 'low hand' may be the best desired hand. In other words, when playing a poker variant with 'low poker' the best hand is one that contains the lowest cards (and it can get further complicated by including or not including flushes and straights etc. from 'high hand poker'). So while the 'majority' of poker game variations are played 'high hand', where the best high 'straight, flush etc.' wins, there are poker variations where the 'worst hand' wins, such as 'low ball, acey-ducey, high-lo split etc. game variations'. To summarize, there can be variations that are 'high poker', 'low poker', and 'high low split'. In the case of 'high low split' the pot is divided among the best high hand and low hand.
Poker has many variations,[2][3] all following a similar pattern of play[4] and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are four main families of variants, largely grouped by the protocol of card-dealing and betting:
- Straight
- A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as now played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, a very popular gentleman's game around the time of the American Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is almost always played in a more complex form to allow for additional strategy.
- Stud poker
- Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.
- Draw poker
- A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.
- Community card poker
- Also known as 'flop poker', community card poker is a variation of stud poker. Players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make a 5-card hand. Texas hold 'em and Omaha are two well-known variants of the community card family.
There are several methods for defining the structure of betting during a hand of poker. The three most common structures are known as 'fixed-limit', 'pot-limit', and 'no-limit'. In fixed-limit poker, betting and raising must be done by standardized amounts. For instance, if the required bet is X, an initial bettor may only bet X; if a player wishes to raise a bet, they may only raise by X. In pot-limit poker, a player may bet or raise any amount up to the size of the pot. When calculating the maximum raise allowed, all previous bets and calls, including the intending raiser's call, are first added to the pot. The raiser may then raise the previous bet by the full amount of the pot. In no-limit poker, a player may wager their entire betting stack at any point that they are allowed to make a bet. In all games, if a player does not have enough betting chips to fully match a bet, they may go 'all-in', allowing them to show down their hand for the amount of chips they have remaining.
Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as poker. Video poker is a single-player video game that functions much like a slot machine; most video poker machines play draw poker, where the player bets, a hand is dealt, and the player can discard and replace cards. Payout is dependent on the hand resulting after the draw and the player's initial bet.
Strip poker is a traditional poker variation where players remove clothing when they lose bets. Since it depends only on the basic mechanic of betting in rounds, strip poker can be played with any form of poker; however, it is usually based on simple variants with few betting rounds, like five card draw.
Another game with the poker name, but with a vastly different mode of play, is called Acey-Deucey or Red Dog poker. This game is more similar to Blackjack in its layout and betting; each player bets against the house, and then is dealt two cards. For the player to win, the third card dealt (after an opportunity to raise the bet) must have a value in-between the first two. Payout is based on the odds that this is possible, based on the difference in values of the first two cards. Other poker-like games played at casinos against the house include three card poker and pai gow poker.
Computer programs[edit]
A variety of computer poker players have been developed by researchers at the University of Alberta, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Auckland amongst others.
In a January 2015 article[5] published in Science, a group of researchers mostly from the University of Alberta announced that they 'essentially weakly solved' heads-up limit Texas Hold 'em with their development of their Cepheus poker bot. The authors claimed that Cepheus would lose at most 0.001 big blinds per game on average against its worst-case opponent, and the strategy is thus so 'close to optimal' that 'it can't be beaten with statistical significance within a lifetime of human poker playing'.[6]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'World Series of Poker Retrospective: Horseshoe History'. gaming.unlv.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-13.
- ^Richard D. Harroch, Lou Krieger. Poker for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 2010
- ^Reuben, Stewart 2001. Starting out in Poker. London: Everyman/Mind Sports. ISBN1-85744-272-5
- ^Sklansky, David. The Theory of Poker. Two Plus Two Pub, 1999.
- ^Bowling, M.; Burch, N.; Johanson, M.; Tammelin, O. (2015). 'Heads-up limit hold'em poker is solved'(PDF). Science. 347 (6218): 145–149. CiteSeerX10.1.1.697.72. doi:10.1126/science.1259433. PMID25574016.
- ^Computer program 'perfect at poker' (2015-01-08), BBC
External links[edit]
| Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: poker |
| Wikiquote has quotations related to: Poker |
| Look up poker in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Poker. |
Helping Hands Around The World
- Poker at Curlie
| Alternative names | Up the River, Down the River, Ride the Bus |
|---|---|
| Type | Drinking |
| Players | 2+ |
| Skills required | Card Counting |
| Cards | 52 |
| Deck | French |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Card rank (highest first) | Ace (A) - Deuce (2) |
| Playing time | 8 min. |
| Random chance | High |
| Related games | |
| Bloody Knuckles | |
Around the World is a card based drinking game, similar to President, but more complex and at the same time quicker. The game requires one standard (52-card) deck of playing cards. More decks can be added to accommodate additional players and increase difficulty.
The game is also known as Irish Poker, Chico High Low, Monkey Balls, Foam Game, North Carolina, Up and Down the River, Canon Ball, Charleston Special, Death Valley and Unlucky 'Sevens' Seven.[citation needed]
- 1Rules
- 1.1Round One
Rules[edit]
The game is divided into two rounds. The first is a guessing or probabilistic round where players must make predictions about the card to be drawn, while the second is completely chance based.
Round One[edit]
In the first phase of the game, each player must make a prediction about the card to be drawn on their turn.
The dealer deals each player 4 cards face up but before dealing each card, the dealer asks the player a question about the card. If the player guesses correctly, they may 'give' a drink (i.e. select a rival player who must drink). If their guess is incorrect they must instead 'take' a drink. The players keep the cards that are dealt to them as they are required for the later queries and are the basis of the second round; The questions are:
Card One[edit]
For the first card, the player must predict the color of the card draw, 'red' (hearts and diamonds) or 'black' (clubs and spades).
Card Two[edit]
For the second card, the player must predict whether the value of the card drawn will be higher or lower than the first card they were dealt. A third, legitimate, but rarely chosen option is 'same', where the card is predicted to be of the same value as the first card.
Values are usually ordered deuce through ace, but other sequences, (such as ace low) are possible.
Card Three[edit]
For the third card, the player predicts whether the value of the card drawn will be between the values of the first two cards, 'in', or outside of those values, 'out'. As with card two, there is a third option of 'same', which is a prediction that the value will match one of the two cards already present.
Card Four[edit]
Unlike the second and third questions, the fourth card's question is not (directly) related to the cards drawn before it. Rather, the player simply predicts which suit the card will be. Depending on rules agreed upon before the game, the player will guess one suit, or simply guess 'same' or 'different' with regard to the suit drawn as to whether it is the same as the original three cards dealt or different from them.
Round Two[edit]
Unlike the first round, the second phase of the game is entirely chance based and all players participate at the same time, rather than taking turns as in round one.
The dealer deals eight cards, face down, from the deck, placing them in two columns, the 'give' column and the 'take' column.
The dealer then flips each card over in sequence, starting with a 'take' card, then proceeding to the 'give' card, and then moving to the next position in the column. If any of a player's cards (dealt to them in the first part) match the value of the revealed card, they must take or give drinks. If multiple cards in a player's possession match the revealed value, they are each counted separately.
The quantity of drinks each card is worth increases as the cards are revealed. The values are traditionally, 'one drink', 'two drinks', 'four drinks', and 'half a beer'. If mixed drinks are being used, 'half a beer' is considered to be the same as half a glass. If shots are being used (not recommended), there is no established value of 'half a beer', but the implication is that a large quantity should be consumed.
Holding Hands Around The World
When a player is giving multiple drinks, they may, at their option, split them up amongst multiple players. Splitting up a 'half a beer' can sometimes be contentious as the precise relationship of this abstract quantity to an integer number of drinks is undefined within the rules of the game, however, 'eight drinks' is commonly used in lieu of 'half a beer'.
Variations[edit]
Around The World
- The increasing drink value of each card in the second round may also be applied to the first round. This option serves to increase the quantity of alcohol consumed.
- The values of the cards in the second round may be reduced to a linear sequence of 1-2-3-4. This reduces the drinks consumed and allows for more rounds to be played.
- A face card may be considered to count for twice the standard number of drinks it would otherwise have granted.
- The increasing value of the cards in the second round (and/or the first round if that variation is used) can be increased to one, two, 'half a beer', and 'a whole beer'.
- A fifth card may be dealt in the first round, usually between the 3rd and final card. The question here is 'Odd, even or picture card?'
- This results in players ending with a 5-card hand, and allows for the player with the winning poker hand to overrule any drinks applied in the second round of that game.
- A card may be added to both ends of round two's columns, one being indicated as a 'give' and the other as a 'take', and following the same rules as round two's columns with each end card being worth 'twelve drinks' or a 'full beer'.
- A different game of the same name features a circle of players each flipping a card in turn, with a different drinking scenario associated with each card (twos allow the player to force another player to drink, sixes make all males drink, etc.) Some cards have a quick game, with the loser drinking. After the card is flipped it is placed under the tab of a beer can until the stack of cards forces the tab open, at which point the player has to drink the entire can.