Online Poker Blog

half bet rule

In some casinos, the rule that placing chips equal to or greater than half the normal bet amount beyond the amount required to call constitutes a commitment to raise the normal amount. For example, in a game with a $4 fixed limit, a player facing a $4 opening bet who places $6 in the pot is deemed to have raised, and must complete his bet to $8. The alternative is the “full bet rule”.

half kill

A kill for less than double the normal limits. For example, a $6 game may have a kill for $9 rather than the usual $12.

half-pot limit

A betting structure resembling pot limit, but which allows maximum raises of half the amount in the pot rather than the full amount.

hammer

1. To bet and raise aggressively. Nora kept hammering, so I folded.
2. “Having the hammer” is being in last position, especially head up. You’ve got the hammer; I check to you.
3. A “hammer lock” refers to a player with an almost 100% chance of winning the pot.
4. In Texas Hold’em, The Hammer refers to a starting hand consisting of a 7-2 offsuit.

hand

1. The set of cards played by one player.
2. A single instance of a game of poker, begun by shuffling the cards and ending with the award of a pot. Also called a “deal” (though both terms are ambiguous).

hand for hand

In tournament play, the act of equalizing the number of hands played at two or more tables by waiting for slower tables to finish each hand before beginning the next hand on every table. This is usually done to ensure an accurate finishing order to distribute prize money.

hard

1. Aggressive and uncompromising, said of one’s play. Jim played me hard all night; I could never get a break.
2. Chips, as opposed to paper money. I gave the floorman $100 for $50 hard and $50 soft.

head up, heads up

Playing against a single opponent. After Lori folded, Frank and I were head up for the rest of the hand.

here kitty kitty

A conspicuously small bet made with a very powerful hand in the hope of getting a call from one or more opponents who would otherwise fold to a normal-sized bet.

high, high hand

The best hand using traditional poker hand values, as opposed to lowball. Used especially in high-low split games.

high card

1. A no pair hand, ranked according to its highest-ranking cards.
2. To defeat another player by virtue of high-ranking cards, especially kickers.
3. To randomly select a player for some purpose by having each draw one card, the highest of which is selected (for example, to decide who deals first). When all the players get here, we’ll high card for the button. Often high card by suit is used for this purpose.

high-low, high-low split

Any of several games in which the pot is divided between the player with the best conventional poker hand and the best lowball hand.

high society

1. Large-denomination chips. Also “society”.
2. $10,000 worth of chips. “Give me three stacks of high society.”

hit and run

To play for a short time, make money, and leave. Also called “chopping” a game.

hog, hogger

To win all of the pot in a split-pot game, for example, by having both the best high hand and best low hand simultaneously. Also called “scooping” the pot.

hole, hole card

1. Face-down cards. I think Willy has two more queens in the hole.
2. A seat, often preceded by a number relative to the button. Sara opened from the 2-hole.

Hollywood

Overt acting to deceive other players. Karl had a big smile when he bet, but it seemed too Hollywood to me, so I called anyway.

home game

A game played at a private venue (usually the home of one of the players), as opposed to a casino.

hop the fence

The enter the pot with a cold call.

horse

A player financially backed by someone else. I lost today, but Larry was my horse in the stud game, and he won big.

H.O.R.S.E.

A combination game with five games played in rotation: Texas hold ‘em, Omaha hold’em, razz, seven-card stud, and eight-or-better seven-card stud high-low. Other combinations of the letters are often seen as well: S.H.O.E., H.O.E., etc.

hunt

Looking further into the deck after the hand is over to see what cards would have come next (see also: fox hunt, rabbit hunt).

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Another variant of Texas hold ‘em that is quite popular and complex is Omaha hold’em. Briefly, each player is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical. At showdown, each player’s hand is the best five-card hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards. Unlike Texas hold ‘em, a player cannot play only one of his cards with four of the board, nor can he play the board, nor play three from his hand and two from the board, or any other combination. Each player must play exactly two of his own cards with exactly three of the community cards.

The most popular form of the game is high-low split, called “Omaha/8 or better”, or just “Omaha/8″. Each player, using the above rules, makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card low hand, and the pot is split between the high and low (which may be the same player). To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower. A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead, but this is rare. This game is generally played at fixed limit.

When high hands only are used, the game is generally called “Omaha high” to avoid ambiguity. This game plays particularly well at pot limit, called “PLO”.

Another variant is to deal each player five cards instead of four. The same rules apply for showdown: each player must use two of his cards with three of the community cards.

In the game of “Courcheval”, popular in Europe, instead of betting on the initial four cards and then flopping three community cards for the second round, the first community card is dealt before the first betting round, so that each player has four private cards and the single community card on his first bet. Then two more community cards are dealt, and play proceeds exactly as in Omaha.

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In traditional poker games, the player with the best traditional hand wins the whole pot. Lowball variations award the pot to the lowest hand, by any of several methods). High-low split games are those in which the pot is divided between the player with the best traditional hand (called the high hand) and the player with the low hand.

There are two common methods for playing high-low split games, called declaration and cards speak. In a declaration game, each player declares (either verbally or using markers such as chips) whether he wishes to contest for the high hand or the low hand. The lowest hand among those who declared low wins that half of the pot, and the highest hand among those who declared high wins that half (for further details, see declaration). In a cards speak game, all players simply reveal their cards at showdown and the hands are evaluated by all players; high hand wins half of the pot and low hand wins the other half.

Especially when using the ace-to-five low method, it is possible for one player to have both the low hand and the high hand, and therefore win all of the pot (called “scooping,” “hogging” the pot, or “going pig”). In the event more than one player ties for either high or low, the pot can be further split into quarters or smaller fractions. For example, if one player has the high hand on showdown, and two other players tie for the best low hand, the high hand wins half of the pot and each low hand wins only a quarter of the pot.

It is common, especially in cards speak games, to require a certain hand value or better to win the low half of the pot, called a qualifier. For example in an “eight or better to qualify low” game, a player with an eight-high hand (or better low such as seven-high) is entitled to win the low half of the pot (assuming his hand defeats all other low hands), but a player with a 10-high or 9-high hand cannot win, even if his hand is the lowest. In this case, the high hand wins the entire pot. There is generally no qualifier to win high, although one common variant is any pair/no pair, where a hand of at least a pair is required to win high and any hand with no pair is required to win low.

In high-low split games where each player is dealt more than five cards, each player chooses five of his cards to play as his high hand, and/or five of his cards to play as his low hand. The sets may overlap: for example, in seven-card stud played high-low split, a player dealt 7-7-6-4-4-3-2 can play a high hand of 7-7-4-4-6 (two pair, sevens and fours) and a low hand of 7-6-4-3-2 (seven-high).

Note that bluffs can be especially powerful in high-low split games, because a player making a successful bluff wins the whole pot rather than having to share it. This fact also makes bluffs less likely to succeed.

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There are many types of poker games. While poker was originally played with each player receiving five cards and only one betting round, it has expanded to include hundreds of variants. Currently, the most popular one is Texas Hold’em, but other variants are very popular.

Here are some common rule variations:

1. High-low split: the highest and lowest hands split the pot. Generally there is a qualifier for the low hand. For example, the low hand must have 5 cards with ranks of 8 or less. In most high-low games the usual rank of poker hands is observed, so that an unsuited broken straight (7-5-4-3-2) wins low (see Morehead, Official Rules of Card Games). In a variant, based on Lowball, where only the low hand wins, a straight or a flush does not matter for a low hand. So the best low hand is 5-4-3-2-A, suited or not.

2. Players can pass cards to each other. An example of this would be Anaconda.

3. ‘Kill game’. When a fixed limit game is played and a player wins two pots in a row, the stakes are doubled.

4. Wild cards are added. This can range from simply making deuces wild to the wild 7-stud variant of baseball.

5. A twist round in which players can buy another card from the deck. If a player does not like their card, they can purchase another one by adding money to the pot. This is sometimes called a “Tittle.”

6. A stripped deck may be used. Poker was first played with only 20 cards. In the spirit of poker history, players will sometimes only play with a stripped deck. A popular poker game in Spain is played with cards 8-A. It is played similar to hold’em, except that one card is dealt at a time and you must use both of your hole cards.

7. Each player is dealt a certain amount of cards. Then there is usually a number of community cards that all players can use. When forming a poker hand a player may use cards from his hand and the “community cards”. Examples of community card poker include Texas hold ‘em and Omaha hold ‘em

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

In the game of poker, the term cards speak (“for themselves”) is used in two contexts:

First, it is used to describe a High-low split game without a declaration. That is, in a cards speak game, players all reveal their hands at the showdown, and whoever has the highest hand wins the high half of the pot and whoever has the lowest hand wins the low half.

The other context is a key rule in casino poker rooms. “Cards speak” means that any verbal declaration as to the content of a player’s hand is not binding. If Mary says she has no pair, but in fact she has a flush, her cards speak and her hand is viewed for its genuine value, that of a flush. Likewise if John says he has a flush, but in fact he does not, his hand is judged on its actual merits, not his verbal declaration. At the discretion of management, any player miscalling his hand may have that hand fouled, but this is not required.

The “cards speak” rule does not address the awarding of a pot, player responsibilities, or the one player to a hand rule. It merely means that verbal statements do not make a hand value. The cards do.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.