In poker, a Multi-table tournament (MTT) is a tournament that involves multiple tables. A table generally sits 9 or 10 players, and MTT tournaments can incorporate up to 200 or more tables, for a total of 2000 entrants. MTTs are attractive because the payouts are rather large near the top. For a small investment (and a lot of time) one can win a large monetary prize if they finish In the Money.
Late Night Poker is a British television show in which Poker players, mostly professionals or strong amateurs, compete in a short series of No-Limit Texas hold ‘em tournament games for a prize of approximately £50,000.
Six series of the show were created between 1999 and 2002. Produced in Cardiff, Wales, by TV company Presentable, they aired on Channel 4.
In 2005 an all-amateur tournament by the name of PartyPoker.com Late Night Poker Ace was broadcast, following a qualification round on the aforementioned website. A second tournament is planned for 2006.
A celebrity version of the show was produced on 12 October 2000, featuring (in finishing order from 1st to 7th place) Anthony Holden, Al Alvarez, Martin Amis, Victoria Coren, Patrick Marber, Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais. This led into the creation of Celebrity Poker Club.
A series of Late Night Poker consists of 9 programmes – 7 heats, one semi-final, and the final. Each heat has 7 players. The 7 winners of the heats progress straight to the final, and the runners-up go to the semi-final, where one additional player progresses, for a final table of 8 players.
(NB: The first series featured 5 heats, with the players finishing 1st and 2nd in each progressing to the final. The players who qualified by finishing first in their heat started the final with twice as many chips as the heat runner-ups.)
Although the precise sums of money involved have varied, the typical buy-in has been in the region of £1,500, with a first prize of between £40,000 and £60,000.
The shows lasted 60 minutes when broadcast, with the season finals lasting 90 minutes. When shown in America on FSN, the shows were cut to 30 minutes each.
Late Night Poker’s success is largely attributable to its “under-the-table” cameras which allow the viewers and commentators to see the players’ cards through the transparent table. It is doubtful Poker could succeed as a spectator sport otherwise, and American broadcasters have subsequently used a similar technique in programmes such as World Poker Tour.
Nevertheless, in contrast to most Poker shows, Late Night Poker tends to use these cameras in a rather minimalist way. For example, in a two-way pot, often only one player’s cards are shown, with the commentators trying to infer from the other player’s actions what cards he or she holds, and how the first player should act. Because of this, the commentary often mirrors the actual decision-making process of a Poker player. Only late in the hand, at the time of a critical decision, would the other player’s cards be shown, possibly revealing a startling bluff or an unexpectedly strong hand.
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In the card game Poker the buck or button is a marker used to indicate the player who is the dealer or, in casino games with a house dealer, the player who acts last on that deal (who would be the dealer in a home game).
When Poker became a popular saloon game in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century the integrity of the players was unreliable and the honor codes that had regulated gambling for centuries became inadequate. Because the dealer has the greatest opportunity to cheat (by manipulating the specific cards that players receive and by seeing the faces of the dealt cards) the players took turns in this role. To avoid arguments about whose turn it was to deal, the person who was next due to deal would be given a marker. A knife was a common object used as such a marker, and the marker became generally known as a buck as an abbreviated reference to the buck’s horn that formed the handle of many knives at that time.
When the dealer had finished dealing the cards he ‘passes the buck’. According to Martin, the earliest use of the phrase in print is in the July 1865 edition of Weekly New Mexican: “They draw at the commissary, and at poker after they have passed the buck.”. The phrase then appears frequently in many sources so it probably originated at about this time.
The use of other small disks as such markers led to the alternative term “button”. Silver dollars were later used as markers and it has been suggested that this is the origin of “buck” as a slang term for “dollar,” though by no means is there universal agreement on this subject.
US president Harry S. Truman’s use of the slogan “the buck stops here” in speeches, and on a sign on his desk, derives from the adoption of the phrase “passing the buck” as a metaphor for avoiding responsibility.
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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.
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In poker, the starting hand is the initial set of cards dealt to each player before any voluntary betting takes place. For example, in Seven-card stud this is two downcards and one upcard; in Texas hold’em it is two downcards; in Five-card draw it is five cards.
The one decision made by every poker player on every deal of every game is whether to continue playing that hand after seeing that first set of cards. Since making this decision correctly will lead to the most long-run profit for a skilled player, players often put considerable study into what the appropriate starting hand “standards” are for the game being played.
Optimal starting hand standards can be very sensitive to factors such as the betting structure of a game, position, and the character of the other players, as well as the rules of the game being played.
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Video: How to Play Texas Holdem Poker : Premium Starting Hands in Texas Holdem
A casino is a building that accommodates certain types of gambling games and activities. Customers may gamble by playing slot machines or other games of chance and some skill (e.g., craps, roulette—for more see casino games). Game rules usually have mathematically-determined odds that ensure the house retains an advantage over the players. This advantage is called the edge. Payout is the percentage given to players. In statistically-even games, such as poker, the house takes a commission (a “rake”) on bets customers make against each other. Casinos are often placed near or combined with hotels, restaurants and other vacation attractions to encourage long stays.
The term originally meant a small villa, summerhouse or pavilion built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. There are examples of such casinos at Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese. During the 19th century, the term casino came to include other more public buildings where pleasurable activities, including gambling and sports, took place. An example of this type of building is the Newport Casino. Eventually this term in Italian now designates a bordello (also called “casa chiusa” literally “closed house”), while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent.
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Video: Trailer for the film Casino
Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players. Many people make the distinction in poker between hard cheating (mechanics, collusion, and the like) and soft cheating (noting the bottom card that the dealer happened to expose without calling for a misdeal). While the rules are explicit on the subject of cheating in general, many otherwise fair players are tempted to “soft cheat”. Miscalling your hand (calling four hearts a flush, for example–hence a “four-flusher”) is cheating, while offering alcoholic drinks is not, because each player can decline.
Cheating is more common in poker than most people care to believe. Although most cheating occurs in private games that do not follow strict gaming procedures, it is also very common in regulated card rooms and casinos. Cheating can be done either by means of collusion, sleight-of-hand (such as bottom dealing, stacking the deck, switching cards etc), or the use of cheating gaffs (such as marked cards, holdout devices, glims etc).
Cheating is as common in friendly games as it is in high-stakes games. A card cheat may operate alone, but most of them operate in pairs or small groups. The groups are often composed of one card mechanic who is in charge of manipulating the cards, one or several shills who pose as regular players, and a muscle who acts as a bodyguard. Street gangs also often employ a wall man who acts as a lookout, however this approach is more common with three card monte mobs, and back-alley dice gangs.
Following is a list of terms used to categorize specific card cheats:
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Video: Cheating at poker
There are several excellent books on poker strategy, and this article will only attempt to deal with the basics that must be mastered by the beginner. A list of articles on the material summarized here appears below.
Once a player has mastered the rank of hands, it is more important to realize their relative strength at a poker table. Approximately half the five-card hands in any given game will be less than a pair of twos, but only about one-fourth of five-card hands in the long run will be better than a pair of Aces. A full house is such a good hand that it is far more likely to be the best hand on the table than a 7 high (the lowest possible hand) is to be the lowest hand at a given table.
One mistake made by many beginners is to bet hands that are unlikely to win in the showdown, hoping that they will eventually improve. In the long run, this is a losing strategy against experienced players. For example, in draw poker, any hand less than a pair should generally be folded at the earliest opportunity. In other games, such as Texas Hold ‘Em where only two cards are dealt before the betting round, unmatched combinations of low cards are unlikely to result in a winning hand.
Athough improvement is possible with virtually every hand, most beginners forget that players with better hands may also improve their hands on the draw, and that in the long run the player with the better hand before a draw is likely to have the better hand after the draw as well. Generally, if you have reason to believe that your opponent has a better hand than you at any given point of a betting round, the appropriate action is to fold. However, if the money in the pot is large compared to the bet required to stay in (the “pot odds”), a call is possible. This is particularly the case when a player is attempting to fill a straight or flush. However, the approximate odds of filling an outside straight on the next draw is about 6-1, and the odds of similarly filling a flush is about 5-1. As such, calling is not recommended if the money that could be won gives a lesser payout on the bet.
One bet made by beginners that rarely pays off is to fill an “inside straight” – a straight with one of the middle cards missing. The odds against filling such a straight on a single draw are roughly 13-1 against and should not be considered unless the pot odds are particularly good.
Beginners, even talented beginners, see bluffing as a way to “buy” the pot. However, bluffing seldom works against poor players (who tend to overestimate the strength of their hand to begin with) and does not work for long against expert players if a player bluffs too frequently. Although all players should bluff occasionally to make their large bets on good hands look less credible, consistent and constant bluffing generally leads to large losses.
In large games it is difficult to bluff because of the high chance that someone has a good hand. It is also more sensible for your opponents to call than fold if the pot is large unless they are sure their hand is dead. Paying $10 to call with $100 in the pot is good value for anyone with more than a 10% chance of winning.
Generally, players who have to bet first need stronger hands to open the betting than players who bet later. This is because the raw odds of a better hand being on the table increase based on the number of players who have not had the opportunity to bet. For example, in a six-player game of draw poker, it is recommended that a player check in the first betting position unless they have at least a pair of aces. However, the last player to bet (the dealer) may open the betting if no-one else has spoken with as little as a pair of twos. One expert Hold ‘Em player recommends folding if you are the first player to the left of the blind unless you have the strength to raise.
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Video: Pot Odds – Poker Strategy
The standard poker hands in descending order.
A hand in poker can mean any of the following:
The second and third definitions are often used interchangeably. For example, in Texas hold ‘em, a player holding A♣ K♠, with a board of A♥ K♣ K♦ 7♠ 3♦, might say, “my hand is ace-king”. However, his best 5-card hand (the portion of the hand which determines value) is the kings-over-aces full house.
The following general rules apply to evaluating poker hands, whatever set of hand values are used.
The most common ranking of hands is as follows:
The hands are ranked in this order because of their relative probabilities, with rarer hands ranking above more common hands.
An additional hand type, five of a kind, exists when wild cards are used. Five of a kind outranks the straight flush (and therefore the royal flush too) making it the most valuable hand.
Some games called lowball or low poker are played where players strive not for the highest ranking of the above combinations but for the lowest ranking hand. There are three methods of ranking low hands, called Ace-to-five low, Deuce-to-seven low, and Ace-to-six low. The ace-to-five method is most common. A sub-variant within this category is high-low poker, in which the highest and lowest hands split the pot (with the highest hand taking any odd chips if the pot does not divide equally). Sometimes straights and/or flushes count in determining which hand is highest but not in determining which hand is lowest (being reckoned as a no-pair hand in the latter instance), so that a player with such a holding can win both ways and thus take the entire pot.
Certain variants use hands of only three cards, either high or low. Three-card low hands can be ranked by any of the three methods above, although with three cards they become ace-to-three (rather than ace-to-five), deuce-to-five, and ace-to-four. The ace-to-three method is the most common, just as the ace-to-five method is most common method for five cards. Three-card high hands are ranked in one of two ways: either with or without straights and flushes. Without them (which is the most common, and used such games as Chinese poker), the hands are simply no pair, one pair, and three of a kind. If you add straights and flushes, the order of hands should be changed to reflect the correct probabilities: no pair, one pair, flush, straight, three of a kind, straight flush. This order is used, for example, in Mambo stud.
Some poker games are played with a deck that has been stripped of certain cards, usually low-ranking ones. For example, the Australian game of Manila uses a 32-card deck in which all cards below the rank of 7 are removed, and Mexican stud removes the 8s, 9s, and 10s. In both of these games, a flush ranks above a full house, because having fewer cards of each suit available makes flushes rarer.
Some games add one or more unconventional hands, or have special exceptions to the rules above. For example, in the game of Pai gow poker as played in Nevada, a Wheel (5-4-3-2-A) ranks above a king-high straight, but below an ace-high straight. This is not the case in California, where the nearly identical game is played under the name Double-hand poker using traditional hand values.
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Video: Poker hand rankings
Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, which is awarded to the remaining player or players with the best combination of cards. Poker can also refer to video poker which is a single-player game seen in casinos much like a slot machine.
In order to play, one must learn the basic rules and procedures of the game, the values of the various combinations of cards , and the rules about betting limits. Some knowledge of the equipment used to play is useful. There are also many variants of poker, loosely categorized as draw poker, stud poker, community card poker (a.k.a. “widow game”), and miscellaneous poker games. The most commonly played games of the first three categories are five-card draw, seven-card stud, and Texas hold ‘em, respectively; each being a common starting point for learning games of the type. Dealer’s choice is a way to play poker where the dealer chooses what type of poker to play.
A game of Texas hold ‘em in progress. “Hold ‘em” is currently the most popular form of poker.
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