YOU GOTTA KNOW WHEN TO .. .

The most popular form of poker today is Texas Hold 'Em. In this game you make the best five-card hand you can with two cards dealt to you face down and five community cards (called the board). Only the five cards you use matter. If two players tie, their sixth and seventh cards are irrelevant; they just split the pot.

To begin a hand of Texas Hold 'Em, each player is dealt two cards face down. These are called pocket cards or hole cards. There is a round of betting. If at least two players are left in the hand (if there is only one player left in any poker game at any time, she wins, and that hand is over immediately), the dealer burns a card (moves the top card in the deck to the bottom without revealing it) and deals three cards face down. Burning the top card prevents players from learning one of the flop cards from a possible scratch or smudge on the back of the top card; the top card is burned before all turns.

These three cards are called the flop and are turned up simultaneously. The reason for revealing the cards simultaneously, rather than simply dealing them face up, is to prevent players from observing any tell (facial expression or other sign giving a clue about a player's cards or strategy) from players' reactions to individual cards.

Another betting round follows, then a fourth "turn," or "fourth street" card, is dealt face up. After a third betting round, the "river" or "fifth street" card, is dealt face up. There is one final betting round. If two or more players remain in the hand, the last player to raise reveals his hole cards, with the other players going around in turn revealing their cards.

The usual rule in poker is that the cards speak for themselves. If you have a straight but don't see it, and you announce "pair of jacks," your hand is still a straight and beats three of a kind. Still, it's a good idea to be sure of your hand and announce it clearly, especially if there is no professional dealer to watch out for your interests.

This phase is called the showdown. Many players are sloppy about the showdown and reveal cards in any order, or throw their cards away without revealing them (conceding after seeing a better hand). These are considered minor violations in home games. Most commercial establishments allow them unless any player objects. It is legal to reveal your hand even if there is no showdown, but traditionalists frown on the practice. Players are supposed to pay money to see your hand. It is a major violation to look at someone else's discarded cards-this could get you kicked out of a card room or tournament. It is even worse to reveal your cards during play or make any statement at all that could give information to a player. The exceptions are when you and one other player are left in a hand, you can reveal whatever you want, or when everyone is all-in so no more betting action is possible. Another important rule is one player to a hand; you are not supposed to get advice from anyone while you are playing a poker hand.

Texas Hold 'Em is among the easiest poker variants to learn, especially for players with experience at other games of strategy. It is the best for spectators because you can follow the action intelligently without seeing the hole cards. (I think watching poker while seeing the hole cards, as it is usually shown on television, is as boring as watching a taped football game when you know the outcome, but obviously lots of people disagree with me on both counts.) Texas Hold 'Em is also one of the few variants that play equally well for small limits, high limits, and no limit. Its popularity is also due to its prominence in the World Series of Poker, the oldest and most prestigious annual championship.

AND HE ANSWERS: "OMAHA"

The other popular community card game is Omaha. The rules are the same as in Texas Hold 'Em except you get four pocket cards and must use exactly two of them in your final hand. As an added twist, it is often played high-low, meaning the best and the worst poker hands split the pot (in most Omaha games, the low hand must be an eight low or worse by rule, but straights and flushes do not count).

There are several different ways of deciding the pot in high-low games. Omaha usually lets the cards speak. That means at the end of the hand, each player shows his or her hand. The highest hand that can be made wins half the pot and the lowest hand that can be made wins the other half. A player can win both, either by using different cards for high and low or with a wheel:

which is the best possible low hand and also a straight. An example of an Omaha hand that might win both high and low using different cards is you holding:

with:

on the board. You have three kings for high and eight/five/four/ three/ace for low. Only a pair of aces (for three aces) or a jack/ten (for a straight) can beat your high, and only a four/two or five/two can beat your low.

Other high-low games make you declare, usually by taking two chips below the table and bringing up some in a fist. When everyone's fist (everyone remaining in the hand, that is) is above the table, fists are opened. A high-denomination chip means you are going high, a low-denomination chip means you are going low, and both means high and low. Another system is no chips for low, one for high, and two for high-low. In this case the usual rule is that if you go high-low and lose either way, you are out of the pot and it is divided among the remaining players as if you had folded. If all the players go high-low and no one wins both high and low among all the hands, the pot is divided among all the players.

These games can get complicated. You have to guess whether other people are going high or low. With luck, you can pick up half the pot without beating any hand. Or you could have the best high hand at the table, but go low because you're not confident of it, and lose to a better low hand.

STUD

Another popular poker variant today is stud poker games. Five-Card Stud came first and may have been the first poker variant. It was played by modern rules in the 1850s, and references to the name date to the early 1800s (possibly even before the game was called poker). In it, one card is dealt face down to each player, followed by one card face up. There is a round of betting, then a second face-up card is dealt to each player, and so on until each player remaining in the hand has five cards (one down, four up). This is a memory-intensive game, since cards are revealed early in hands that fold quickly. It is not apparent until later in the hand which of those cards were important.

Most of the time, players will fold unless their hand can beat at least all the exposed cards on the table. That means on their first two cards they need a pair or a card equal to or higher than all exposed cards. Paying careful attention to the cards with this rule in mind gives you quite a bit of information about the likely hole cards of other players, and about your chance of improving.

For example, suppose you are playing at a table of 10 people. Everyone antes one chip and the following hands are dealt:

You:

Player 1:

Player 2:

Of course, your four is hidden to the other players. You bet one chip, and two players call. Everyone else folds, showing low cards. Player 1 should have an ace, king, or seven; player 2 should have an ace, king, or queen. You're not sure, of course, but that's the most likely guess. On the next round:

You:

Player 1:

Player 2:

You bet another chip, and both players call. Then you get:

You:

Player 1:

Player 2:

Player 1 bets one chip (in stud poker the betting is usually started by the best hand showing, while in hold 'em and draw the betting order remains fixed by table position relative to the dealer on all rounds; in some games the last raiser opens the betting on the following round). Player 2 folds.

You want to figure your chance of winning this hand. You need a king on the last card to have a chance, and even then you may not win. You have seen 17 cards, the 10 exposed cards shown here (including your hole card) and 7 up cards from the first round. That means there are 35 cards you haven't seen. If 3 of them are kings, your chance of getting a king is 3/35 = 8.57 percent. With 17 chips in the pot and 1 chip to call, you need 1 chance in 18 of winning, or 5.56 percent, to justify a call.

However, you have to consider what player 2 could have had. She should have started with an ace, king, or queen in the hole. She would never have folded a pair of queens or aces against sevens betting one chip, so she probably had one of your kings. That drops your chances of pairing from 8.57 percent to 5.71 percent. That's close to the folding point already, but it gets worse. Of the three cards player 1 is likely to have in the hole, a seven beats you for sure, a king reduces your chance of pairing to 2.86 percent, and an ace, your best hope, gives him a 7/34 = 20.59 percent chance of beating you if you do get your king (because 7 cards-2 remaining aces, 2 remaining sevens, and 3 remaining twos-out of the 34 cards are left after you get a king). So your chances of winning are either 0 percent, 2.86 percent, or 5.71 percent x (1 - 20.59 percent) = 4.54 percent. You might have misfigured one or both of the hole cards, but it does not make sense to call. If someone held a gun to your head to prevent you from folding, your best bet would be to raise, representing a pair of kings (and a reckless style, betting into a possible three of a kind).

If you have a good memory and can follow this kind of logic, FiveCard Stud reasoning is trivial. What isn't trivial is that immortals are very common-hands that the holder knows cannot possibly be beaten (the terms nuts and nut are often defined the same way as immortal, but sometimes are used to mean very strong hands that are not total certainties). Five-Card Stud only plays well with no limit, which means you must avoid at all costs facing a possible immortal. If there is a card another bettor might have that makes him sure of beating you, he can bet any amount and you will probably fold, even if there is only one such card. But if you remember that the key card was exposed on the first round and immediately folded, you can turn the tables. You also have to be very alert for situations in which you might have an immortal. This kind of thing makes Five-Card Stud very dull for gamblers and cardplayers, but it makes for the purest mano a mano confrontations, which some players consider the essence of poker. An evening of Five-Card Stud is hours of tedium and rote brain work, punctuated by occasional high tension.

Seven-Card Stud became popular around 1900. In this game, you get two down cards and one up before the first betting round, then three more up cards, each followed by a round of betting, and finally the seventh card face down and one more betting round. It is often played high-low and sometimes with wild cards (cards that can be used as any rank or suit) or additional rules such as that low spade in the hole splits the pot.

Seven-Card Stud calls for the widest variety of poker skills and is probably the most difficult poker variant to learn. You need more memory than a Five-Card Stud player because more cards are exposed and the deductions about hole cards are more complex. You also need to be aware of immortals, although they are not common. There are many strategic possibilities, but they can sometimes be enumerated and calculated, depending on the hand. That puts it between Texas Hold 'Em and Omaha as a strategic game. It can be played limit or no limit, and the choice makes more difference in terms of play than for other games.

DRAW

The other major form of Poker is Five-Card Draw. It is still a popular home game, but is popular commercially mainly in California. Each player is dealt five cards face down, after which there is a betting round. Each player remaining in the pot is allowed to exchange some or all of his or her cards for new ones (some games limit the draw to no more than three or four cards, but serious players would rarely draw four or five cards, anyway). Another common rule is that the first bettor must have a pair of jacks or better. Draw poker plays best with limits and often uses wild cards.

The only information you have about the other players' hands in draw poker, other than the general strength you may or may not be able to infer from the betting, is the number of cards drawn. Players generally draw three cards to a pair but sometimes keep a high card as a kicker and draw two. That reduces the chance of getting three of a kind, but if you get two pair, it's more likely to be a high two pair. More important, it adds some deception, suggesting you might be drawing to three of a kind.

With three of a kind you might draw two, or you could keep a kicker and draw one. Unless there are two wild cards, there is no point to keeping a high kicker rather than a low one, since it makes no difference to the hand. Even with two wild cards it's unlikely that two hands will have the same three of a kind so that the ranks of the other cards matter. The reason to draw one is to represent your hand as a draw to a straight or a flush.

Generally, you draw flushes or straight only when you have four cards already and, if it's a straight draw, only when your straight is open ended (four consecutive cards that can make a straight at either end). In rare cases, it makes sense to draw to an inside straight:

where only one rank of card can complete the straight (throw away the nine and hope for a four in the hand shown here). Only four cards can complete this hand, versus eight for an open-ended straight. Inside straights are also called gut-shot or gut straights. Players will sometimes draw two cards to "monkey" straights or flushes, when they have only three suited or sequenced cards, especially when the cards are high ones. This is mainly a bluff of having three of a kind, but once in a while you complete the hand, or get two high pair or three of a kind. Having a wild card makes straight and flush draws more attractive.

Draw poker requires no memory and little strategic thinking. It's mainly a game of straight calculation, and those calculations are pretty simple. It's the only poker game for which you could write out a complete strategy on an index card. It is the most psychological poker game-the edge consists of guessing how strong other players' hands are. It's important to keep track of how, and how often, players bet different hands, and how they vary their draws.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26