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THE FORMS OF POKER
Poker is a generic name for literally hundreds of games, but
they all fall within a few interrelated types. There are high
games like seven-card stud and Texas hold 'em, in which the
highest hand in the showdown wins, and low games like draw
lowball and razz, in which the lowest hand wins. There are
also high-low split games, in which the best high hand and
the best low hand split the pot. Among high, low, and high-low
split games there are those like five-card draw, in which
the hands are closed, and those like seven-card stud, in which
some of the players' cards are exposed for all to see.
Jokers, wild cards, and special rules may be introduced into
any of these games to create such aberrations as Baseball,
Follow the Queen, Anaconda, and scores of other variations
that have spiced up home poker for decades. Paradoxically,
the two types of players who favor these exotic poker variations
are generally amateurs who want a lot of action and hustlers
who prey on these amateurs because their long experience allows
them to adjust more easily to unusual games than their amateur
opponents can. However, before a player can become an expert
at exotic games, he must understand the basic concepts of
standard games.
Another significant distinction among poker games is their
betting structure. Most home games and most games in Las Vegas,
Gardena, California, and elsewhere are limit games-that is,
games in which limits are set on the minimum and maximum bets.
Normally, in the smaller-limit games of Las Vegas, such as
$1-$3 seven-card stud, there is no ante, and the low card
starts the action for 50 cents. In subsequent rounds, the
high hand on board may check or bet $1, $2, or $3. In the
higher-limit Las Vegas games and in the limit draw games of
the card rooms of Gardena, the betting is rigidly structured.
In Gardena the bets double after the draw. In Las Vegas they
double in the later rounds of betting. In $5-$10 seven-card
stud, for example, there is a 50-cent ante, low card starts
the action, or brings it in, for $1, and on the next round
the bets and raises must be $5, no more and no less. With
an open pair after four cards, a player generally has the
option of betting $5 or $10, but anyone who raises must raise
$10. After the fifth, sixth, and seventh cards, the bets and
raises must be $10 whether or not anyone has a pair showing.
In other poker games the betting structure might be pot-limit
or no-limit. In a pot-limit games, bets and raises may be
for any amount up to the size of the pot. Thus, with a $10
pot, someone might bet $10 and be called by three players.
The last player to call can raise $50, the current size of
the pot. If one player calls the raise, the size of the pot
would then be $150 so that in the next round the first bet
could be anything up to that amount.
In no-limit poker, a player may bet or raise any amount up
to what he has in front of him/her at any time. If he has
$500 in front of him, he can bet that. If he has $50,000 in
front of him, he can bet that. He cannot, however, raise a
player with less money out. That player may simply call with
the money in front of him and a side pot is created for any
remaining players. If his hand prevails, the player who is
"all-in" can win only the money he called in the
main pot, and the best hand among those remaining wins the
side pot. (The same mechanics apply to limit games when a
player is all-in.)
Notwithstanding the great variety of poker games - high games
and low games, stud games and draw games, limit games and
no-limit games - there is an inner logic that runs through
all of them, and there are general precepts, concepts, and
theories that apply to all of them. However experienced a
player may be with the rules and methods of a specific games,
like, say, five-card draw, only by understanding and applying
the underlying concepts of poker can he move confidently to
the expert level. The principles of such stratagems as the
semi- and slow playing are essentially the same in limit five-card
draw poker as in no-limit hold 'em poker, and they are equally
important.
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