Bad Beat Poker
Poker is a broad term covering a number of card games with similar rules. Of course, there are plenty of differences from one poker game to the next including the way hands are dealt, the amount of cards that are dealt, hand rankings, the number of betting rounds and the amount that players are allowed to bet in each round. Here is a look at some of those differences in addition to the different ways that people play poker.
Live and Online Poker
The primary settings for poker games are live play (physical locations such as a casino, card club, etc.) and online play (internet poker rooms). People have played live poker for decades with tournaments and cash games being held in locations all over the world. Online poker, on the other hand, is relatively new having just started in the late 1990’s.
Many of the first online poker rooms were full of software bugs and security issues. However, internet poker companies have worked hard over the years to improve their service and offer a better overall experience. Now people can log on from anywhere in the world (provided they have an internet connection) and play poker games without having to worry. This definitely adds a convenience factor to playing online poker.
In addition to this, online poker players can also take advantage of bonuses and other promotions to earn extra cash on top of what they make at the table.
Poker Variations
While there are numerous poker games and variations, only a few variations are commonly played. Texas Hold em (a.k.a. Hold’em) is the most widely played poker game with millions of people playing it worldwide. Hold’em is also considered one of the easiest games to learn as well. Hold’em hands begin with players being dealt two hole cards, and players try to form the best five-card hand using their two hole cards and five community cards.
As with many other poker games, there are different variations of Texas Hold’em based on the betting amounts allowed. In Limit Texas Hold’em (a.k.a. Fixed Limit), players can only bet the amount dictated by the stakes. In Pot-Limit Hold’em, players can bet as much as the size of the pot.
Omaha is another popular poker game that has No-Limit, Limit, and Pot-Limit variations. Omaha also has variations based on the hand rankings. For instance, in Omaha Hi players try to form the highest hand while Omaha Hi/Lo sees the pot split between the highest and lowest hand.
Those who’ve played Texas Hold’em before should have little trouble adjusting to Omaha since the rules are fairly similar. The main difference is that Omaha players are dealt four hole cards instead of two; however, players can only use two of these four hole cards to form a hand.
Seven Card Stud (also called Stud), is one more popular version of poker. Much like Omaha, Stud offers both Stud Hi and Stud Hi/Lo versions. However, the betting rounds and deals differ greatly in Seven Card Stud since players are not dealt community cards. Instead, players are dealt three cards (one face-up) and they choose to either bet or fold their hand. A fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh card are dealt in similar fashion with a betting round in between each card.
As mentioned before, there are many other poker variations that people play besides Hold’em, Omaha, and Stud, but these are the main ones.
Tournaments and Cash Games
All poker games offer tournament and cash game formats. In a tournament format players pay a buy-in (entry fee), and a prize pool is created out of the buy-ins. In most cases, the house guarantees a specified prize pool so if the buy-ins don’t reach this amount, the rest of the prize pool is covered by the house. The size of the tournament all depends on how many people buy into the event, the format of the tournament, and if there is a cap on the field size.
Everybody that buys into a tournament gets an equal starting chip stack, and they play to increase this stack throughout the tournament. If a player’s chip stack runs out, they are out of the tournament. Prizes are offered to players based on how long they last in the tournament.
Cash games (also called ring games) differ from tournaments in that players can keep playing as long as they have money. So even if somebody’s stack runs out in a cash game, they can simply buy more chips and keep playing. Another big difference is that players can quit a cash game at any point during the session.
Ring games are separated by the stakes, or blind amounts (forced bets in the beginning of a hand). For example, in $1/$2 Hold’em two players would have to place a $1 and $2 bet before any cards are dealt.
