Red and Black
Red and Black is played exactly like standard Draw Poker, but hands aren’t valued as poker hands. Instead, each red card in the hand counts as a plus value: face cards are 10 points each, aces one point each and other cards by their index value. All black cards count as minus by the same calculation. After five cards have been dealt, there is the usual betting interval, then the draw, then a second betting interval, then the showdown, with the hand containing the highest number of points winning the pot. Player’s ante, check, bet, call and raise in the normal way.
The game is best played perhaps as High-low. Of those left in at the showdown, the player with the highest score shares the pot with the player with the lowest score. It is impossible to win high and low. The players don’t announce whether they are trying for high or low, although obviously at the draw each player will have one or other in mind.
Put and Take
Put and Take is sometimes called Up and Down the River. It is a simple banking game with little to suggest that it is a poker variant at all, but it is one of those games sometimes played in Dealer’s choice.
The dealer is in effect the banker. He deals five cards to each player face up. He then deals five cards to the center, face up, one at a time. These are ‘put’ cards. As each card is dealt to the center, players whose hands contain a card of matching rank put into the pot a specified number of chips. When the five cards five been dealt, and players have put into the pot as required, the dealer collects up the five cards, face up. These are the ‘take’ cards. Each player whose hand contains a card of matching rank, takes a specified number of chips. If all the chips previously put in are taken out, the dealer must replenish the pot.
Settlement
There are three main methods of settlement.
- For the first card turned up in the ‘put’ and ‘take’ piles, each player with a matching card puts or takes one chip. For the second card the put and take is two chips, for the third three chips, for the fourth four chips and for the fifth five chips.
- Instead of putting and taking 1,2,3,4 and 5 chips as the cards are turned, online poker players put and take 1,2,4,8 and 16 chips.
- The put and take does not depend upon the order of the five cards turned but upon their rank. Thus a player with a King in his hand puts and takes 13 chips, a Queen 12 chips, a Jack 11 chips, an Ace one chip and other cards according to their index numbers.
In each of the above methods of settlement, a player who holds two or three cards matching a put or take card in rank, must put in or take out two or three times the required amount of chips.
Dealer’s Choice
Dealer’s Choice is one of the most popular forms of poker in ‘social’ games among friends. Each dealer can choose which form of poker will be played on his deal. It introduces variety and presents different mathematical problems from hand to hand. It is best, perhaps, when not played all evening, but intermittently.
Stud poker
The main distinguishing features between Stud Poker and Draw Poker are that in stud there is no draw and most of the cards are dealt face up.
Five-card Stud Poker
The basic game is Five-Card Stud Poker, in which there are four betting intervals. Because most of the cards are dealt face up, each player knows much more about the other players’ hands than in Draw Poker, giving more scope for strategy.
Because there is no draw, it is possible to play with up to ten players, although should all ten players stay in to the showdown only two cards will not be used in the play, and 40 will be exposed the longer players might take pondering the chances of improving their hands and the game could become clumsy. The game is best with six to eight players, although it is a better game than Draw Poker if there are fewer players, and can be played with plenty of action with only two players, as the film The Cincinnati Kid demonstrated.
Preliminaries
As with Draw Poker, the seating, the first dealer, any special rules, the stake limits and the time limit should be agreed. The deal rotates to the left as usual.
The ante
It is not usual to have an ante in stud Poker, but players may agree to have one if they wish.
The stakes and limits
A common way of limiting the stakes in stud Poker is to set one chip as the low limit, and set differing upper limits, usually two chips for bets and raises during the first three betting intervals and, say, five chips for the fourth betting interval.
*jargon -buster
Open pair a pair showing among a player’s face-up cards.
Hole-card the face-down card that is the first dealt to each player.
It is also common practice for the higher limit of five chips to come into operation as soon as any player has an ‘open pair’, i.e. a pair showing among his face-up cards. This could be as early as the second betting interval.
An alternative way of limiting stakes is to set upper limits of one chips in the first betting interval, two in the second, three in the third and four in the fourth, again usually with the proviso that the limit of our comes into operation as soon as a pair is showing.
pot limits, in which a player can bet or raise the size of the pot are also suitable for Stud Poker.
The play
- After the shuffle and cut, the dealer deals one card face down to each player (known as the ‘hole-card’), then one card face up. Each player examines his hole-card but does not reveal it. It is not shown until the showdown.
- There is then a betting interval. The player with the highest card showing (i.e. the highest face-up card) must bet within the limits agreed. He has no option, i.e. he cannot check or fold. If two or more draw cards showing are of the same rank, the holder of the one nearest the dealer’s left is the player who must open the betting. Thereafter, each player in turn must fold, call or raise. The betting continues round the table until all the bets of those players who haven’t folded are equalized.
- The dealer then deals a second face-up card to each player who remains in the game.
- There is then a second betting interval. The first player to speak is the player with the highest poker combination in his face-up cards. Straights and flushes do not count for this purpose, so the highest possible combination at this stage is a pair. If more than one player holds a pair, the one with the highest pair speaks first. If there are no pairs, the person with the highest card speaks first (Ace, 2 beats King, Queen). If two or more players hold equal combinations, the player nearest the dealer’s left speaks first.
On the second and subsequent betting intervals, the player to speak first may check rather than bet. Until a player has bet, subsequent players have the option to check, too. But s soon as a player bets, then subsequent players must either call or raise. When all bets are equal the betting interval ends. If during any betting interval after the first all the players check, the deal continues.
- After the second betting interval, players are dealt a third face-up card.
- The third betting interval begins with the player holding the highest combination (highest triple, pair or high card).
- After that, players are dealt their last face-up card.
- Finally there is a fourth and last betting interval.
The showdown
If all the players except one fold at any of the betting intervals, then the remaining player wins the pot. Otherwise the two or more players left in after the bets are equalized in the fourth betting interval reveal their hole-cards and the one with the best poker hand wins the pot.
*Dealer’s obligations
The dealer has a more difficult task than in Draw Poker. He must point out who should bet first in each betting interval by pointing to the hand and saying ‘ King high’ or ‘Pairs of 4s’ or whatever. When dealing the third and fourth up-cards, he must also point out, as he deals the relevant card, whether it might be possible for the player to make a straight or flush. Thus, on the third up-card, if he dells ♥ 6 to ♣ 10 and ♦ 9 he should announce ‘possible straight’ and when dealing ♦ j to ♦ 4 and ♦ 2 he should say ‘possible flush’. He can also announce the pairs.
He should also ensure that players who fold don’t reveal their hole-cards. The correct procedure when folding is to turn over the upcards and place them face down on the hole-card. One player’s hole-card could be a vital card for another player and its premature display could affect the way the other player who folds without turning all his cards face down must pay a penalty to the pot, say two chips.
If the dealer makes a mistake, other players are allowed to point out the error. If the dealer makes a mistake in indicating who should speak first at any betting interval, the mistake can be pointed out and corrected, but if two players have bet or checked out of turn because of the dealer’s error then the situation stands and the betting continues as normal.