The
Betting Rules
Some of the
questions you should ask before sitting down to
play are: Is check-raising allowed? Is a flat bet
imposed, or is there variable betting? In seven-card
stud, does the low card bring it in or the high
card? How many raises are allowed? Does the player
who opens the pot have to bet first next round?
Whatever the rules, you should be thoroughly familiar with them
before you sit down to play. Don't make the mistake a friend
of mine made the first time he ever played draw poker in Gardena.
He is the only man I know who made a royal flush but lost the
hand. In Gardena you need jacks or better to open, and a joker
is used as a bug. That is, the joker may be used with straights,
flushes, and aces; it cannot be used to make a pair except with
aces.
When
it came time to draw cards, the first man stood pat.
The second man stood pat. N.S. was smart enough to
realize his straight was beat, if not by the man
in first position, certainly by the man in second
position. So he cleverly discarded the ace of clubs
to draw to a straight flush in hearts - or any kind
of flush, since with the joker he'd have an A,Q high.
Drawing to lOrJrQrJk, N.S. actually had four cards that would
make the straight flush - the 81r, 9V, KV, and AIV. When he looked
at the card he'd drawn, there it was - the king of hearts! He'd
made a royal flush, the pure nuts of pure nuts.
The man in second position bet. N.S. raised. The man in first
position called. The man in second position reraised. N.S. reraised.
The man in first position eventually folded his jack-high flush,
but the reraising continued until the entire $40 with which N.S.
bought into the games was in the pot. The second player turned
over a full house - kings full of 9s. With a broad smile N.S.
revealed his royal flush.
Remember that in Gardena card rooms you need jacks
or better to open. The joker can be used only with
aces, straights, and
flushes. Since N.S. had thrown away his ace of clubs and had
indeed drawn one card to make the royal, he had no proof whatsoever
that he had opened with a legal opening hand. Of course, there's
a posted rule in Gardena card rooms to cover such situations: "When
splitting openers, player must declare same and protect split
card by turning it face up under a chip." N. S. had not
informed himself of this rule, his royal flush was declared dead,
and the full house won the pot.
Beyond knowing
the rules, it's important to use them to your advantage
- as the man in Gardena with the full house certainly
did. However, here we're not talking about exploiting
technicalities but rather adjusting your play to
suit the rules of the games. Suppose, for example,
the games does not allow check raising. Well, that
rule takes away a very effective tool, which presumably
you can use better than other players in the games.
But it changes your playing strategy in that it
gives more power to the player in last position.
Therefore, when you are in last position, you must
bet quite a lot more since you are no longer putting
yourself in jeopardy of a check-raise. You would
semi-bluff more on earlier rounds because the worst
that could happen would be that you'd get called-not
raised. Even in first position you must bet more
often than you ordinarily would since you can't
check raise. (However, against tough players it
may be still better to check and call, rather than
bet out with a very good hand in first position,
because you may induce them to bet with a hand
they would have folded if you had bet.)