Blackjack is a casino banking game. It is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. It uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This family of card games also includes the European games Vingt-et-Un and Pontoon, and the Russian game Ochko. Blackjack players do not compete against each other. The game is a comparing card game where each player competes against the dealer.
Five-card draw is a poker variant that is considered the simplest variant of poker, and is the basis for video poker. As a result, it is often the first variant learned by new players. It is commonly played in home games but rarely played in casino and tournament play. The variant is also offered by some online venues, although it is not as popular as other variants such as seven-card stud and Texas hold 'em.
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, but in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game was played with just 20 cards, today it is usually played with a standard deck, although in countries where short packs are common, it may be played with 32, 40 or 48 cards. Thus poker games vary in deck configuration, the number of cards in play, the number dealt face up or face down, and the number shared by all players, but all have rules that involve one or more rounds of betting.
In poker, pot odds are the ratio of the current size of the pot to the cost of a contemplated call. Pot odds are compared to the odds of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value. The purpose of this is to statistically guide a player's decision between the options of call or fold. Raising is an alternative to place this decision on the opponent.
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 one of the most popular variants 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; 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. In certain situations, a "split-pot" or "tie" can occur when two players have hands of equivalent value. This is also called a "chop-pot". Texas hold 'em is also the H game featured in HORSE and in HOSE.
Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules of poker that is intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players.
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.
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console similar in size to a slot machine.
Strip games or stripping games are games which have clothing removal as a gameplay element or mechanic. The clothing may be removed to keep score, or as penalty for a loss. Some games are sexualised and the eventual complete loss of clothing is considered part of a usual game in the style of a striptease, whereas others merely presume the loss of clothing as an inconvenience. While games involving stripping have been invented independently of non-stripping games, it is also the case that games not normally involving clothing loss can be adapted into strip games. In such instances, some rulesets are more amenable to adaptation than others.
Razz is a form of stud poker that is normally played for ace-to-five low. It is one of the oldest forms of poker, and has been played since the start of the 20th century. It emerged around the time people started using the 52-card deck instead of 20 for poker.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to poker:
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 mathematically poor call that wins with any subsequent dealing to complete the hand.
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.
Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, often 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.
Advantage gambling, or advantage play, refers to legal methods used to gain an advantage while gambling, in contrast to cheating. The term usually refers to house-banked casino games, but can also refer to games played against other players, such as poker. Someone who practises advantage gambling is often referred to as an advantage player, or AP. Unlike cheating, which is by definition illegal, advantage play exploits innate characteristics of a particular game to give the player an advantage relative to the house or other players. While not illegal, advantage play is often discouraged and some advantage players may be banned by certain casinos.
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.
Draw poker is any poker variant in which each player is dealt a complete hand before the first betting round, and then develops the hand for later rounds by replacing, or "drawing", cards.
Texas Shootout is a casino poker game based on Texas hold 'em developed by Galaxy Gaming. It is available in Las Vegas, and a number of smaller casinos in the U.S.