Poker is a commercial card game (i.e. the game for money, where the winning or loss is determined by players’ skill rather than luck, unlike gambling). The aim of poker is to win bets, collecting the highest possible poker hand, using 5 cards or forcing rivals to stop participating in the game. The game has completely or partially closed cards. Specific rules may vary depending on the type of poker. Common elements of poker are a combination of varieties and the availability of trade in the game.
Rules of the Game
They use different decks of 32, 36, 52 or 54 cards in a poker game, but most often a standard deck of 52 sheets with equivalent suits is used. Several participants (2 or more, usually up to 10) can play the game. Values of cards are in descending order from Ace and further (King, Queen, Jack, 10,… 2). Ace can be considered to be a lowest card for making sequence (Street) up to 5 inclusive, and the highest one (in combination King-Queen-Jack-10).
Also, there’s a version of the game for slot machines - video poker, though because of missing the trade video poker is not usually considered to be a kind of poker by experts.
Combinations in poker
You can find the possible combinations of cards in descending order of value below.
Royal Flush (in English royal flush means “Royal Suit”): high cards (ace, king, queen, Jack, ten), five cards of the same suit.
Straight Flush (in English straight flush means “Suit Order”): Any five cards of the same suit in order.
Quads (four of a kind, quad means “four identical”): Four cards of the same value.
Full House (full house, full boat): three cards of the same value and a pair.
Flush (in English flush means “Suit”): Five cards of the same suit.
Straight (straight means “order”): five cards in order (an ace could start the combination as well as finish it).
Set (three of a kind, set - “three identical”), three cards of the same value.
Two pairs are any two pairs of cards.
A pair (one pair) is two cards of one value.
High card is none of the above combinations, for example (a combination that is called a “high ace”).
When combinations are equal the combination with higher senior cards wins, for example 8 ♣ 8 ♠ 4 ♥ 4 ♣ 2 ♠ higher than 7 ♣ 7 ♠ 3 ♥ 3 ♣ K ♠
In some varieties of poker (they called Hi-Lo (from the English High-Low), such as 7-card stud hi-lo) gains may be divided equally among players with the hands of the most powerful combination of cards of any value (discussed above) and the most weak combination of unpaired cards value more than 8, for example: T ♣ 7 ♥ 2 ♠ 4 ♦ 8 ♠ (in weak hands an ace is considered a card of the lowest value). Thus, the same player can simultaneously have the hand of the strongest and the weakest combination of cards.
The weakest combination in poker:
Wheel is a straigt made up of five cards of the lowest value, such as: T ♦ 2 ♥ 3 ♠ 4 ♦ 5 ♦.
Trade
In each version of poker, each game has several rounds of trade.
In some versions of poker before playing all the players make the same initial bet (English: ante)
In some versions of poker, some players make the first bet blindly (Eng:: blinds)
During the trade a player can do the following:
Move (bet) - to make a bet;
Reply (call) – to put as much as the opponent has put i.e. to even;
Raise - to increase the bet that is to put more than rivals;
Fold - to stop taking part in the further game and to throw cards.
Check - the situations when the bets have already been made blindly and the opponents do not make any other bets that is not to add a bet to leave “as it is”
A round of trade is over when all rivals have made the same bet or fold their cards.
All the bets are placed into the pot.
If more than one player has been in the game after the last round of betting, the cards are opened and players’ card combinations are compared with each other. If only one player has been in the game, he picks up a pot.
When playing in casinos, casino picks up a portion of the pot for itself as a fee for the game.
If more than one player won a game, the pot is divided equally among all the winners.
In poker, there is a rule by which a player participates in the game only by money, which he puts on the table - a stack. A player can add money into the stack only between games. You can take money from the stack only when you are going to leave the table. In case the player ran out of money in the trading process, he continues to participate in the game, but does not participate in further trade and on the table there is an additional pot (or pots) (side pots), which can be won only by remaining players.
Often there are several varieties of the same game, the distinction between those is the size of bets that players can make:
The limit (limit) - players can do only fixed bet or raise only the amount of fixed bet.
Pot-limit (pot limit) - players can bet from the minimum size of the pot to the current size.
No-limit (no limit) - players can bet up to the minimum size up to their stack.
