A bounty is a feature in some poker tournaments that rewards a player for eliminating another player. Depending on the tournament, a player might be rewarded for eliminating either a specific player, or any player. The reward is almost always a cash prize, and not tournament currency. Bounties are rare but do occur occasionally in professional tournaments. [1] They are more commonly only implemented in smaller tournaments, or charitable tournaments.
A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table, and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables. The winner of the tournament is usually the person who wins every poker chip in the game and the others are awarded places based on the time of their elimination. To facilitate this, in most tournaments, blinds rise over the duration of the tournament. Unlike in a ring game, a player's chips in a tournament cannot be cashed out for money and serve only to determine the player's placing.
The practice of charity means the voluntary giving of help to those in need, as a humanitarian act.
In bounty tournaments that reward a player for every player they eliminate, the buy-in structure of the tournament may require each player to pay an additional amount for their own bounty chip, or token. This bounty chip is carried by the player throughout the tournament. If the player is eliminated, the bounty chip is given to the player who eliminated them. The bounty chips are cashed in, usually for the amount each player paid for the bounty chip. The winner can usually cash in their own chip. Some online tournaments use a more complicated schedule, whereby a player's own bounty increases with every elimination he makes.
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a huge increase in the number of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker revenues grew from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion in 2005, while a survey carried out by DrKW and Global Betting and Gaming Consultants asserted online poker revenues in 2004 were at $1.4 billion. In a testimony before the United States Senate regarding Internet Gaming, Grant Eve, a Certified Public Accountant representing the US Accounting Firm Joseph Eve, Certified Public Accountants, estimated that one in every four dollars gambled is gambled online.
Some bounty tournaments assign a bounty to only a few players. This assignment is rarely random, and is usually only prearranged with the bountied players, as such an assignment to a random entrant would significantly affect their game. Some tournaments may feature a celebrity bounty, if the tournament hosts have arranged for a celebrity to play in the tournament. This type of bounty arrangement is usually only the celebrity bounty variety, or if the bountied player is playing for reasons of promoting the tournament.
Celebrity is the fame and public attention accorded by the mass media to individuals or groups or, occasionally, animals, but is usually applied to the persons or groups of people themselves who receive such a status of fame and attention. Celebrity status is often associated with wealth, while fame often provides opportunities to earn revenue.
The aspect of having a bounty in a tournament can significantly affect the play of the tournament. For example, if a player with a lower amount of chips declares that they are all-in, other players may be more enticed to call the bet. Most professional poker players would alter their normal playing style to adapt to this aspect if they were to enter a bounty tournament.
You must have at least the same amount of chips as the bounty holder (in other words, have them "covered") to take their bounty, as it's the player who takes the last chips from a player that is awarded the Bounty. This may not be the overall hand winner; the bounty is awarded to the player who wins the ‘relevant pot’ for the hand in question, which may be the main pot or one of several side pots. ‘Relevant pot’ means the pot in which the bounty player was all-in for their final chips.
For example: Daniel (100 chips), Barry (200 chips), Vicky (400 chips), and Julian (1000 chips), are playing a hand in a No-Limit tournament. Daniel moves all-in, and Barry, Vicky and Julian call. The pot which Daniel is eligible for is known as the ‘main pot’. Betting continues ‘on the side’, in side pot 1. Barry moves all-in, and Vicky and Julian call. Betting continues between Vicky and Julian in side pot 2. Vicky moves all-in, and Julian calls. Barry shows the best hand. He wins side pot 1 and the main pot, eliminating Daniel. He receives the bounty for Daniel. Julian shows the next best hand, and wins side pot 2, eliminating Vicky. Julian wins the bounty for Vicky. Note that although Barry had the best hand overall, he didn’t have as many chips as Vicky and therefore could not eliminate her. Julian however did have enough chips, and therefore wins Vicky’s bounty
The blinds are forced bets posted by players to the left of the dealer button in flop-style poker games. The number of blinds is usually two, but it can range from none to three.
In the game of poker, the play largely centers on the act of betting, and as such, a protocol has been developed to speed up play, lessen confusion, and increase security while playing. Different games are played using different types of bets, and small variations in etiquette exist between cardrooms, but for the most part the following rules and protocol are observed by the majority of poker players.
Texas hold 'em is a variation of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five community cards are dealt face up in three stages. The stages consist of a series of three cards, later an additional single card, and a final card. Each player seeks the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards of the five community cards and their two hole cards. Players have betting options to check, call, raise, or fold. Rounds of betting take place before the flop is dealt and after each subsequent deal. The player who has the best hand and has not folded by the end of all betting rounds wins all of the money bet for the hand, known as the pot.
Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules that is intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players.
Three-card brag is a 16th-century British card game, and the British national representative of the vying or "bluffing" family of gambling games. Brag is a direct descendant of the Elizabethan game of Primero and one of the several ancestors to poker, just varying in betting style and hand rankings.
Casino tokens are small discs used in lieu of currency in casinos. Colored metal, injection-molded plastic or compression molded clay tokens of various denominations are used primarily in table games, as opposed to metal token coins, used primarily in slot machines. Casino tokens are also widely used as play money in casual or tournament games.
Jack "Treetop" Straus was an American professional poker player.
In poker, bad beat is a subjective term for a hand in which a player with what appear to be strong cards nevertheless loses. It most often occurs where one player bets the clearly stronger hand and their opponent makes a poor call that eventually wins with the turn or the river card being dealt in their favor, for example.
Poker Royale was a television series on the Game Show Network (GSN), which featured No Limit Texas hold 'em Poker. The first series began on December 7, 2004. The eighth and final series, Poker Royale: Young Bloods II, began airing on December 9, 2005. The series host at its conclusion was John Ahlers, with commentary by Robert Williamson III and sideline reporting by Lisa Dergan.
The 1972 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was a series of poker tournaments held during early May 1972 at the Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the 3rd annual installment of the World Series of Poker, and also the 2nd one to feature the freezeout structure. In comparison with the previous year's series, the number of events was cut back and the buy-ins were raised, resulting in one preliminary event and the Main Event both having the same buy-in of $10,000. The preliminary event featured 5-card stud poker and was won by Bill Boyd, the same man who won the 1971 5-card stud preliminary event. The previous years' double champion Johnny Moss was defeated early in the main event and Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston went on to win the tournament after a series of deals.
High Stakes Poker is a cash game poker television program, which was broadcast by the cable television network GSN in the United States. The poker variant played on the show is no limit Texas hold 'em. It premiered on January 16, 2006 and ended on December 17, 2007 for the first 4 seasons and the last 3 seasons ran from March 1, 2009 to May 21, 2011 and was simulcast in 3DTV on N3D.
Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 2.5% to 10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount. There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake in any community card poker game like Texas hold 'em when a hand does not have a flop. This is called "no flop, no drop".
Calling station is a poker term used to pejoratively describe someone who consistently calls bets and rarely raises, regardless of the strength of his or her hand. In Texas hold 'em and other community card poker games, calling stations are sometimes rewarded for their poor play by lucky cards that come on the board, often encouraging unskilled players to overestimate their skill level. Many calling stations can be found on low stakes tables both on the Internet, in online poker rooms, and in traditional bricks and mortar card rooms.
Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, usually with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit. In contrast, a poker tournament is played with tournament chips worth nothing outside the tournament, with a definite end condition, and a specific roster of competitors.
Dario Minieri is an Italian professional poker player from Rome, Italy who won a bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker at the age of 23, is a member of team PokerStars, is an online poker player who was the first person to collect enough Frequent Player Points to buy an automobile with them, and is a three-time European Poker Tour final tablist.
The following is a glossary of poker terms used in the card game of poker. It supplements the glossary of card game terms. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon poker slang terms. This is not intended to be a formal dictionary; precise usage details and multiple closely related senses are omitted here in favor of concise treatment of the basics.
Poker is a popular card game that combines elements of chance and strategy. There are various styles of poker, all of which share an objective of presenting the least probable or highest-scoring hand. A poker hand is usually a configuration of five cards depending on the variant, either held entirely by a player or drawn partly from a number of shared, community cards. Players bet on their hands in a number of rounds as cards are drawn, employing various mathematical and intuitive strategies in an attempt to better opponents.
Samuel "Sam" Stein is an American professional poker player from Los Angeles who lives in Henderson, Nevada. He won his first World Series of Poker bracelet at the 2011 World Series of Poker where he made two final tables and three in the money finishes. In both the 2010 and 2011 World Series of Poker, he finished in the money in two $10,000 Championship events, with one of them being the Pot Limit Texas hold 'em championship event each year. Of his nine World Series of Poker (WSOP) cashes, his last five are in pot limit events.