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Welcome to Vista Poker.
How to Play Poker.
The aim of playing poker is to win the ‘Pot’ this is either a collection of money or other bets made by a player during a hand of poker. There are essentially two ways in which you can win, these are to have the highest ranking hand or to bluff the others into folding, by convincing the other player’s that you have the winning hand. The dealer beings the game by dealing the card clockwise from his or her left, as soon as the cards have been dealt each player is left with one of four options:
1) To check the bet, bet nothing but still remain in the game.
(you can only check when no other players have made any bets and it’s your turn in that round).
2) Call the previous bet, bet the same amount as the previous bet.
3) Raise the previous bet, increase the amount of the previous bet.
4) or Fold, giving up a pot by not matching a bet.
There usually only three rounds of betting in casino poker. When the player makes a bet the next player can either call, raise or fold, to stay in the game you must at least match the previous player’s bet or you can forfeit your chance at the pot by folding. Within organized games there is always a betting structure, for example if playing at a two to five pound table you can only bet in sums of two pounds until a player has a pair showing or the bet has gone round the table once or twice (this depends on the casino), it is only at this point can the bets be increased to five pounds.
As all of the player’s want to win the pot they are in fact all playing against each other ( unlike Blackjack). The casino makes it’s money by charging 10% of the pot for each hand of poker played, the maximum that the house takes is around three pounds although that can vary depending on the casino or table being played at, or on the amount set for betting.
There are a number of different ways that poker can be played, first there is Stud Poker. This form of poker starts by one or more cards being dealt to each player face down, followed by a up-card, there are more up-cards with each betting round, and then another betting round after each up-card. Then there is a final down-card and a final betting round, there are various forms of this game such as five, six and seven card stud. The additional cards that are dealt during the game and can change the rank of a player’s hand, once the new cards have been dealt the player has another chance to bet.
There are three variations to Seven Card Stud these are high, low and high-low. In Seven Card High the highest ranking hand takes the pot and in Seven Card Low it is the lowest hand that wins. Seven Card High-Low means that the players attempt both extremes where the highest and the lowest hand claim half the pot each.
Texas Hold’em is similar to seven card stud , the main difference is that the players get two cards face down of their own and five cards facing up in the middle of the table for everyone’s use these cards are called ‘community cards’, each player has seven cards to make up the best possible poker hand. Texas Hold’em has four betting rounds unlike Seven Card Stud that has five.
Omaha has four cards down to each player and five down to the table, however the final hand must have two of the players four cards and three community cards.
Chicago has two cards down each player the highest Spade face down wins the pot.
English Stud is the same as Seven Card Stud except the players only get six cards to play with, before the sixth card is dealt each player may exchange one card before the final bet.
Poker is a game that often reflects the personality of it’s player’s.
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