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Maple Poker Guide Poker is an awesome game – with rules easy enough to learn in a day, the flexibility to create complex strategies, and psychological subterfuge being such a crucial component, you’ll never get bored when playing Poker.
The bare essentials What you need to know: • Basic game play • Basic variations - straight, stud, draw, community There are many variations of Poker, but it all comes down to one basic principle: combining your cards to create the highest ranking hand. Draw Poker is the type most people are familiar with. This is when the dealer deals five cards face down to the players, who then have a chance to discard some of their cards in order to draw an equal amount from the deck.
Texas Hold’em
VS.
Five Card Draw
Community Poker is what’s popular online and in tournaments around the world, especially Texas Hold ‘Em. This type of Poker gives each player ‘hole cards’ that are dealt face down. Texas Hold ‘Em has two hole cards. The five-card hand is then constructed by combining your personal hole cards with the community cards, which are dealt face-up in the middle of the table. Because No Limits Texas Hold ‘Em is so popular nowadays, this is the version we’ll be explaining in detail. Later, we’ll go into a few of the different varieties of Poker – don’t worry, the ideas that Texas Hold ‘Em is based on will carry you through several of the variations, and by the end of the book you’ll confidently play all the Poker types you’ll likely come across in your lifetime! In the next section you’ll learn about the hand hierarchy.
Hand Ranks There is an accepted hierarchy in Poker hands that depends on the rarity of drawing them. No matter how many cards you’re given to work with, your aim is to create a strong five card hand. While some variations of Poker (such as low-ball, which we’ll get to later) ranks hands in a different order, these are the ranks you need to know for just about any common Poker game. When you have no useful combinations of cards but take that hand right through to the showdown anyway, that hand will be known by its highest ranking card. For example, if you had a Queen, 3, 7, 10, 4 in different suits, your hand would be known as Queen High. Now let’s get to the more valuable combinations of cards. One Pair is the lowest ranking actual hand, and consists of two cards of the same value. If you go up against another player with one pair, the person with the highest ranking pair wins: a pair of Jacks would beat a pair of threes, for example. The remaining three cards are of no consequence to the value of the hand.
Two Pair is the next highest ranking hand. As the name suggests, this is a card consisting of two cards of one value, and two cards of another value: like a pair of Kings and a pair of sevens in a single hand. The fifth card does not add to the value of the hand. A Two Pair of any values beats a One Pair.
Three Of A Kind (also called Trips or a set) is a collection of three cards of the same value, and it beats Two Pair. The other two cards in the hand are unrelated.
A Straight is when a hand consists of five cards in consecutive order, such as 6-7-8-9-10. This order must be uninterrupted in order to count as a Straight. An Ace can be the lowest or highest card in a Straight, but can’t act as both: so A-2-3-4-5 is a Straight but J-Q-K-A-2 is not.
Quick Tip: It’s generally advised that if your Texas Hold’em hole cards are paired you should bet aggressively.
A Flush is a hand of five cards of assorted values, of the same suit. It’s quite a visually pleasing hand to have, seeing the matching symbols all in a row.
Full House is a charming 80’s sitcom starring Bob Saget and very tiny Olsen twins. In Poker, though, it beats a Flush and consists of Three Of A Kind and a One Pair in a single hand. If your hand consists of two kings and three sevens, for example, it will be called ‘Full House, Kings over Sevens.’
Four Of A Kind is when you have four cards of the same value in your hand. It’s an unlikely hand to draw, especially in a game with no wild cards in play.
A Straight Flush is the best hand you can have: it’s a mix of a Straight and a Flush, meaning the cards in your hand are both all the same suit and in continuous order. Fun Fact: Four of a Kind is such a strong hand that it’s hardly ever beaten in the showdown. The odds of a Four of a Kind getting beaten by a Royal Flush are 2.7 billion to one - and it happened at the 2008 World Series Of Poker.
A Royal Flush is a type of Straight Flush, but is usually referred to as a hand on its own because it is unbeatable. It consists of 10-J-Q-K-A in the same suit.
So to sum up, here are the ranks in descending order. Each higher ranking hand beats every hand beneath it. 1. Royal Flush 2. Straight Flush 3. Four of a Kind 4. Full House 5. Flush 6. Straight 7. Three of a Kind
8. Two Pair 9. One Pair
BETTING So, how do you bet in Poker? Regardless of what kind of Poker you’re playing, there will always be a buy-in, an ante or blind, followed by rounds of betting, and finally ending in a showdown.
The Pot All bets go into the Pot, which is the pile of chips in the middle of the table. The winner of the hand gets the pot, which is where everyone’s bets have been collected throughout the round.
The Buy In
To join the Poker game, players must buy in. The buy-in amount is stated by the house rules, and starts the pot before any cards are dealt. This amount means everyone has a stake in the game so it encourages players to bet further rather than lose their initial money. It might not seem ‘fair’ that you have to put down money before knowing what your cards are, but the point of it is to stimulate further betting. If all players waited until they had a full hand to place their first bet, people would only bet on really excellent hands. It would be a pretty dull game! A buy-in ensures every player is in it to win it.
The Button Before the cards are dealt, the dealer’s position is marked by a button or ‘buck’, which will move to the next player in a clockwise direction every time a new hand starts – the term ‘passing the buck’ comes from this ritual. At a casual Poker game whoever has the dealer button will deal, but at casinos and tournaments where there is a designated dealer, the button nonetheless rotates around the table. What’s the point of the dealer button? It marks player’s relative positions at the table and what order the play will happen in. Because some positions are more advantageous to the strategic Poker player than others, the button moves so that everyone gets a turn to be in both the weak and strong positions. A weak position is when a player must make his own bet with little or no information as to how the other players are betting. This is a disadvantage because there is plenty of knowledge to be gained when observing other player’s bets.
The Blinds The weaker positions to be in are to the left of the button, these two positions are called the small blind and the big blind. The blind is made in
total ignorance of whether the other players will fold, check or raise. • To fold is to give up your cards and any further betting. If you have a bad hand, you will not lose any more money in the further betting rounds, but you also give up your chance at winning the pot. • To call is to bet the same amount as the person before you, in order to stay in the hand. • To raise is to see a bet and add onto it with an amount that you choose. The small blind posts the first bet, which is usually half the lower table limit. The big blind then wagers twice what the blind put down.
The Deal Next, the cards are dealt and betting rounds begin. The other players around the table – there can be as little as two or as many as nine – then bet in a clockwise direction. The person to the left of the double blind is called Under The Gun. This is also a weaker position as it is early in the round, meaning you don’t have information about how other players will act before you make your own decision. The Early Position and Middle Position follow, and then the Cut Off and the Button are the last positions in the round. A strong position is one in which the player has as much information as possible before making his own bet. Thus whoever has the dealer button (and therefore always bets last in the round) has the strongest position. Here are the common abbreviations for the standard Poker positions. You’ll come across these often in online Poker or televised Poker: • Small Blind – SB • Big Blind – BB • Under The Gun – UTG • Early Position – EP • Middle Position – MP • Cut Off – CO • Button – BU
(BU)
(BB)
(CO)
(BB)
(MP)
(UTG)
(MP)
(EP)
(EP)
Bear in mind there may be more than one EP and MP position at the table, and these are considered to be mediocre positions which are neither as bad as SB, BB and UTG but not as advantageous as CO and BU. Now that you know about positions, let’s look at the structure of a Texas Hold ‘Em hand. All the players are dealt their two hole cards, which they keep face down (but obviously peek at!). Then the small blind and big blind post their bets.
Here comes the first round of betting, which is done in a clockwise direction. Players bet on the strength of their hole cards: if they’re paired, it’s a good idea to bet aggressively. If they’re unpaired but close in value, such as a 4 and a 5, this is also advantageous, but the bigger the gap between the cards, the more likely a good hand can’t be constructed out of them: a 7 and 2 combination in different suits is usually considered the worst hand. Remember, if a player chooses to bet, the player after them must see the bet or raise. They don’t have the option to check after a bet has entered the round. Next, the board begins to be revealed: these are the five community cards dealt face-up in the middle of the table. The board cards aren’t dealt all at once but in three stages. The first stage is a three-card deal, called the flop. Once players see the flop, another round of betting happens. Then the fourth board card, the turn, appears. Once again the players bet on their developing hands in a clockwise direction. The final board card is called the river and the last betting round follows it, ending in the showdown. The showdown is when the players who haven’t yet folded reveal their cards to one another, and the best hand wins the entire pot. The showdown happens when two or more players who haven’t folded after the river show their cards and prove who has the highest ranking hand to take the pot. The last player to bet must show his cards first. His five-card hand may include one or both of his hole cards, or could be comprised of the community cards entirely. When this happens, it is called playing the board, and the pot will probably be split as other players may easily use the same community cards as their hand too. When the players at the showdown have similar hands (for example, one pair) the highest numerically ranking pair wins. If the hands are truly tied – for example, Player A has 9 of clubs and 9 of hearts, and Player B has 9 of diamonds and 9 of spades, the pot is split between them. If the hands are of the same rank and only one of the hole cards is used to form the winning hand, the other can be used to settle a tie. These spare cards are known as kickers and the term ‘having an ace in the hole’ comes from exactly this practice, because even if that ace doesn’t factor into your hand, it’s an excellent kicker that will win you the pot in the case of a tie.
Bluffing Bluffing is basically betting on a weak hand as if it were a strong one. It is
Concealing one’s eyes is acceptable poker strategy if you want to limit the tells others see.
recommended to bluff occasionally but not too often. The best bluffs are the ones nobody expects. If you bluff too often, other players will catch on and call you out, and you’ll lose money. If you never bluff, players will know that you only bet aggressively when you have a good hand, and will fold before putting any sizeable amount of money into the pot.
“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.” - Jack London on the importance of bluffing
As a beginner, you may find the bluffing aspect of Poker a bit intimidating at first. Don’t worry, with a bit of experience you’ll be able to bluff with the best of them. The idea of keeping your Poker face on is the first step to successful bluffing: no matter what hand you’re dealt, keep an even temperament and don’t let your emotions show. This is why most professional Poker players look disinterested at the table: there’s a lot of drama, emotions and strategizing going on under the surface, but if they let that inner world show on their faces or body language, their opponents will be able to deduce the strength of their hand. So whether your natural way of hiding emotions is to look disinterested, apathetic, grumpy or cheery, just remember to be consistent. Since bluffing is a type of lying, your nervous system will naturally make your body act differently when you bluff. These signs of bluffing are called tells. A tell can be as obvious as sitting up straight and speaking too loudly, or as subtle as a single vein twitching in a player’s neck. Often players are unaware of their own tells because they are done unconsciously. The eyes are often difficult to control: your gaze may linger on a good hand and dart around other player’s chips on a bad one. Many professional Poker players choose to wear sunglasses and hats (Amarillo Slim famously wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat) in order to hide their eyes from other player’s scrutiny. Other tells are nervous tics like tapping your fingers or rubbing your eyes. Often players over-play their roles when bluffing or hiding a good hand: an eager player who suddenly becomes disinterested is probably suppressing their glee at a strong hand; a cautious player who becomes boastful or arrogant is probably hiding a weaker hand. You must cultivate self-awareness every time you play Poker, so that you can either mask or control your tells as well as become very observant of other people’s tells. Look for players’ eyes lingering on their hole cards, which generally means they’re strong. Look for suppressed emotion: disappointment or nervousness at a bad hand and confidence at a good one. The most experienced players are able to pull off a double-bluff: that is, leading those around them to believe they’re bluffing when they in fact have a strong hand. Now that’s some psychological subterfuge. Once you can passably get away with it, the question is: when should you bluff? You should always have a good reason for bluffing. Bluffing on a whim is a
great way to lose money! So what qualifies as a good reason for bluffing? Obviously, you bluff to win a pot when you’ve been dealt a bad hand. But wanting to win by itself doesn’t qualify as a good reason! Strategically speaking, you should only bluff when it is believable that you have a strong hand. As you play Poker you will learn to make educated guesses as to the nature of your opponent’s hand according to their betting and reactions to the community cards. In turn, they analyze your moves and make conclusions about what hand you probably have. A successful bluff manipulates this analysis and a bad bluff gets caught out by it. For example, if you’ve been betting modestly all round (suggesting you’re waiting for a hand that hasn’t materialized) and suddenly make a huge raise on the river, your opponent will probably catch on that you’ve got nothing, and decided to bluff. But if you’d been betting aggressively from the beginning, your opponent may well assume you’ve got a strong hand. It’s better to bluff against one opponent than several. One opponent is much easier to intimidate into folding, whereas a large group are likely to take you to the showdown because there’s probably at least one strong hand in the round. Another good reason to bluff would be to put pressure on an opponent who’s exposed some weakness in their playing style. Poker is as much a psychological game as a strategic one, so leave your reservations (and your ego) aside before you sit down at the table. Once you’re in the hand, you’ll have to outwit, outplay and outlast the competition without holding back, and expect the other players to treat you exactly the same way.
Strategy You could fill a library with the huge amount of Poker strategy advice published out there. From those who insist Poker skill is an instinct you’re born with, to cold scientists who believe memorizing tables of probability odds will turn you from an amateur to a Poker machine, you’re going to hear a lot of contradicting advice. We think there’s no point in sending you in blind of any strategy or dunking you into the deep end of odds and statistics. Instead, we’ll describe a range of playing styles and suggest which is strategically best for you. There are two kinds of playing styles: tight and loose. This describes how the player bets and the range of hands they’ll engage in. A player with a tight style will only bet on strong hole cards like an Ace and a King, or high pairs. A player with a loose style will engage the hand when he’s dealt a much broader range of hands at the beginning of the game. Loose styles generally lose more money than necessary because they’re trying to save earlier bets rather than admit that a bad hand is a bad hand. Often commentators will mention that a certain player is playing passively or aggressively. These labels apply once a player has decided to play a hand instead of folding before the flop.
A passive style is one that checks and calls often, whereas an aggressive style is one that bets and raises when the chance comes to do so. We recommend that beginners adopt a tight-aggressive style in order to succeed at their first attempts at Poker. Of course, later on you can choose which style suits you better, and many professional Poker players adjust their styles to throw off the competition or when they feel the game changing, so this is definitely not gospel but a sensible place to start. Why play tight-aggressive? This approach is strategically sound because it keeps you from playing too loose and losing out to the stronger hands of your opponents; and keeps you from playing too passively and allowing other players to build full hands or bully you with big bets.
VARIATIONS There are hundreds of variations of Poker and each have their own rules and quirks. Texas Hold ‘Em, the version we’ve been using as our basic model, is what’s used in major tournaments and most online Poker rooms. But it’s good to have an idea of the scope and variation of Poker games, as you may want to mix it up and try something different.
Omaha
This version is quite closely related to Texas Hold ‘Em. Omaha (sometimes called Omaha High to distinguish it from Omaha Hi/Lo, as you’re aiming for only the highest ranking hand). There are usually six to ten players at the table. In Omaha, players are also dealt private hole cards and combine them with the community cards in order to form the best hand. Omaha sees the players getting four hole cards, and they have to use exactly two of those cards to combine with three of the five community cards to get their hand. Remember, even if you have two pairs in your hole cards, it doesn’t mean that can be your hand because you’re only allowed to play two of your hole cards and no more.
Omaha players get four hole cards.
The betting structures are determined by the version of Omaha you’re playing: Pot-Limit, Limit or No-Limit. Pot Limit Omaha is when each betting amount is limited to the current size of the pot. Usually known just as PLO, this version is exciting and quickly gaining popularity. Limit Omaha allows players to bet and raise in set amounts only, and No Limit Omaha obviously means there are no betting limits and you can bet and raise as much as you like. Like Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha betting begins with the small blind and big blind being posted before the flop. Then the regular options come into play: once their turn to act comes, players can check, bet, raise or fold their hand. After the flop, turn and river cards are dealt, the showdown occurs when there are two or more players who haven’t folded yet.
Seven Card Stud
Before Texas Hold ‘Em took Poker to a whole new level of popularity with the World Series Of Poker, Seven Card Stud was the most widely played Poker game in the world. It is usually played as a limit game of up to eight players. Seven Card Stud begins with the players putting an ante in to start the pot and buy in to the game. Then each player gets two face-down hole cards and one face-up door card. These first three cards are known as third street. The player with the highest door card then puts down the bring-in, which is a small amount determined before the game. The bring-in acts as the button, and the player to the left of the bring-in must then act, and the betting goes clockwise from there. After betting on the third street is finished, the fourth street is revealed, meaning a fourth card is dealt face up to each player. Now the player with the strongest pair of face-up cards acts first. The fifth street sees another face-up card being dealt to each player. Now every player has two hidden hole cards and three exposed cards, and thew player with the best face-up hand acts first in the betting round. On sixth street, the last face-up card is dealt to players and the player whose four exposed cards create the strongest hand now acts first, with action proceeding in a clockwise direction. The final card is seventh street, which is dealt to every player face down. This is also known as the river and completes the Seven Card Stud hand. The showdown follows if there are two or more remaining players in the hand. The player with the highest ranking hand gets the pot, and if two players have exactly the same ranking hand the pot is split evenly between them.
Omaha High/Low
Omaha High/Low is a split-pot game and its rules are slightly more involved than regular Omaha, but don’t worry, you’ll pick them up soon enough. Basically, players can build a winning high hand (according to the standard hand rankings) or build a low hand, which uses the cards 8 and below. Since Flushes don’t count in Omaha High/Low, the best low hand is called the wheel: Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5. The cool part of this game is that while you can only use two cards to make a hand (just like in regular Omaha) since there are two different ways to make hands, you can actually build a low hand with two of your hole cards and a high hand with the remaining hole cards. Rounds of betting carry on just like in Texas Hold ‘Em, ending with a showdown. The split-pot element comes in if there are both a winning low hand and a winning high hand at the showdown, in which case the pot is split between them.
The low hands are ranked from best to worst below: • The Wheel, also known as Five Low, is the best low hand. It must consist of a 5, 4, 3, 2, and Ace, which is always low in this hand. Straights and Flushes are irrelevant with this hand, if two players both have five low at the showdown they split the pot between them. • Six Low is any assortment of unpaired cards with six being the highest among them. • Seven Low is a hand consisting of any unpaired low cards with seven being the highest (remember, Aces are always low in low hands.) • Eight Low is the worst of the low hands, it’s a hand of assorted unpaired cards with 8 being the highest among them. If any two players have tied hands, the next highest ranking card in their hands will compete and the best card will win the pot. A two-pair hand in a five card draw.
The low hands listed in this section also apply to other lowball games like Stud Hi/Lo and Razz.
Five Card Draw
This is the version of Poker most people are familiar with as it’s a simple version that’s not overly complicated. There are usually up to six players at the table and the button marks who has the dealer position for that hand, which moves clockwise around the table every hand. Blinds are used in Five Card Draw, and the small blind and big blind must post bets before the cards are dealt. Each player is then dealt five hole cards face down. There are no up-cards or community cards in Five Card Draw, which makes for a simpler game with arguably less drama than other variations. After the cards are dealt there is a betting round beginning with the button where players have the option to check, call, raise or fold their hands. Once each player has acted, there is a draw in which a player may discard a card or cards and draw as many new replacement cards from the deck. After the draw there is another betting round, which begins with the person to the left of the button and continues clockwise. If there are two or more players left after this betting round there is a showdown, where active players show their hands and determine which has the highest ranking hand.
H.O.R.S.E. and other mixed games
Now you’ve got an idea of what a few variations of Poker are like, there are ways you can test your skills at combinations of different variations in a single game. HORSE is the most popular mixed game and consists of the following variations: 1. Limit Texas Hold ‘Em 2. Omaha High / Low 3. Razz – also known as Stud Low, which is Seven Card Stud but played
lowball 4. Seven Card Stud – regular high-ranking hands 5. Eight or Better Stud – also known as Seven Card Stud High-Low, which is regular Seven Card Stud but with High-Low betting rules such as we discussed in the section on Omaha High / Low. Each of these games is played as a ‘round’ of the whole game, so the first hand you play will be Hold ‘Em, which is followed by a round of Omaha High / Low, followed by a hand of Razz, and so on, until you play each variation. Once you reach Eight Or Better the HORSE game simply circles back to Hold ‘Em and plays the games in order once again. Mixed games are appealing for both newbies who want exposure to different forms of Poker, and for seasoned Poker players who are looking for a fresh new challenge. It follows that trying different strategies and betting along different rules will improve your game. Keep challenging yourself in a new way and your preferred Poker game will improve from the experience. Now that we know about the different kind of Poker games: community games such as Texas Hold ‘Em and Omaha, Stud games, Draw games and mixed games, we can move on to how to behave like a Poker pro, even if it’s the first hand you’ve ever played.
Poker Etiquette Like many group activities, there is a right way and a wrong way to behave in Poker. Even at a casual game, you must observe certain rules to ensure fair play. Here are a list of things to strive for and things to avoid:
Do’s DO wait for your turn. Poker is an ordered game with strict rules about who must act when, and if you act out of turn you risk slowing down or even ruining the game for others. When the dealer button is being used, respect your place in the order and know that it will rotate with every hand and you will get a chance to be in a strong position. Remember that the action at the Poker table always goes clockwise. DO be respectful. Obviously, Poker is partly a psychological game and some player’s tactics may be to ‘rattle’ opponents with snide comments, but these players never have a very good reputation in Poker circles and aren’t generally invited to stay for drinks afterwards. Especially as a beginner, you don’t want to put so much energy alienating other players that it takes away from focusing on your own game. When you’re on a losing streak, keeping a civil tongue and cool countenance is the mark of a future pro. DO keep your strategy to yourself. Of course it’s tempting when you’ve discovered a new passion to talk about it for days on end, but talk about
“If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.” - Warren Buffet on reading the table.
it in forums or with colleagues rather than at the Poker table. First off, nobody likes to be taught when they didn’t sign up for lessons – you may come across as arrogant and condescending. Secondly, why do you want to enlighten people as to the fastest way to take your money? If you’ve read the most ebooks, done the most research, and practiced the most online, good for you. Your opponent’s ignorance works to your advantage. Keep it that way. DO place your chips neatly in front of you when calling or raising. Dumping your chips into the pot when you bet makes it harder for other players and the dealer to see how much you’ve put in.
Keep your chips neat and you’ll be seen as a courteous player.
DO wait for the dealer to announce the winner of the hand instead of throwing yours away the second someone announces that they have a better hand. Remember, people may misread the hands they have: you may have a stronger hand than you thought, or your opponent may have a weaker hand than he thought. Don’t risk throwing away a winning hand just to be dramatic.
Don’t’s DON’T order messy food like ribs or chicken wings at the Poker table! Not only is it unappetizing for the other players to see your ecstatic face covered in sauce, but grease gets on the cards and damages them, maybe even creating a strong enough mark that a sharp-eyed opponent can tell it from the rest. DON’T chat about what’s happening at the table until the hand is finished. It may distract other players and unwanted speculation about an ongoing hand is seen as bad form. DON’T dig into the deck or the discarded cards and play guessing-games about what the other players had or what you might have had. It’s annoying to other players and slows the game down. DON’T take your cards out of sight or hold them below the table. Of course most Poker games are legitimate and cheating is a minor concern, but it’s only fair to yourself that you not act suspiciously. DON’T let other players see your hole cards. This may seem like an obvious piece of advice but it must always be heeded. Not only is it damaging to your hand, but the player who sees your cards automatically has an advantage over the whole table, and that isn’t fair for anyone. Keep your cards close to your vest or face-down on the table, taking the occasional peak when it’s needed. Even folding with your cards face-up is a bad idea, because it gives other players insight into what cards are out of the game, as well as gather information about your playing style which may be advantageous
to them in later hands. DON’T string raise, which is pausing between calling a bet and raising it. The purpose of this is to see the other player’s reaction to your call, which gives you an unfair advantage in reading the table. Most professional tournaments don’t allow string raises to avoid letting players have such an unfair advantage. DON’T play too loosely just to feel involved in the game. It takes discipline to take yourself out of the game until you have a strong enough hand, but remember you can learn much from observing the table and seeing how other players’ strategies unfold. Don’t feel like time spent not playing is time wasted: carefully studying what happens at the table as an observer is just as valuable as raking in that big pot once you’ve got a good hand.
History and Trivia Now that you know how to play and act like a pro at the Poker table, it’ll be interesting to see how this fantastic game has progressed throughout the ages to take on the form it is in today. It’s been a long and exciting journey. The essence of Poker is that some combinations of cards rank higher than others, and it’s possible to bluff your way to victory. Some say the first Poker-like game was invented around 969 A.D. in China, where the aristocracy would play ‘domino-cards’ to pass the time. This mysterious game for the rich made its way to Persia in the sixteenth century, where cards were carved from razor-thin slices of prized wood or ivory. The game consisted of 96 ‘treasure cards’ which were opulently painted by the artists of the empire. These games all inspired Primero, which is the closest historians have to an early version of Poker. Primero was found in sixteenth century Spain and involved bluffing which was structured into betting rounds. The game made it to France and by the time French settlers began to land on the Americas in the eighteenth century, Poque was the game they loved enough to bring with them. Louisiana and the Mississippi riverboats became famous for what was then called ‘the cheating game’, as it attracted so many hustlers and swindlers. Throughout the Wild West saloons offering Poker sprang up everywhere and soon Texas was evolving its own variations. Around the American Civil War the Joker card made its way into the deck, and this wild card made Poker more of an American game than a European one. An interesting point in the history of the game was the 1931 Nevada court
Never let other players see your cards
case that determined Poker as a game of skill rather than chance, which made it legal to play in the state that otherwise forbade gambling. In 1970 the World Series of Poker began with a few veteran players meeting to play Texas Hold ‘Em, and turned into the largest and most prestigious gambling event in the world. With the televising of the World Series of Poker as well as the rise of virtual Poker rooms online, the game has never been more popular. Poker celebrities such as Amarillo Slim and Johnny Moss helped expand and build the notoriety of the game, while internet sensations such as Chris Moneymaker kept Poker hopefuls feel that it’s a friendly game for amateurs too. Moneymaker achieved fame by qualifying for the World Series of Poker online and then going on to win the main event. This proves that anyone with the will to win can make it all the way to the top.
The World Series Of Poker brought the game to the masses.
You’re ready We’ve covered everything you need to know about Texas Hold ‘Em and a variety of different Poker variations, the do’s and don’ts of Poker etiquette, and even some history and trivia to chat about between hands. Now that you’re prepared to take any real or virtual Poker room by storm and rake in that pot. Here’s to your new skills!
Recommended Resources Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course in Power Poker, 3rd Edition by Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson ISBN: 978-1580420815
Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker by James McManus ISBN: 0312430086
Harrington on Hold ‘em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments Vols I, II and III by Dan Harrington ISBN: 978-1880685334
The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One by David Sklansky ISBN: 978-1880685006
Ace on the River: An Advanced Poker Guide by Barry Greenstein ISBN: 978-0972044226