Basic rules
Chicago is played with a standard 52-card deck. Each player is dealt five cards. The objective is to reach, or exceed, 52 points.
Exchanges and hand scoring
The players are allowed to exchange any number of their cards. If a player chooses to exchange one card only, he may choose "one up", meaning that he is dealt one card faced up, which he can either accept, or instead take the next card unseen. After the exchanges, the player with the best hand (and only one player) gets points for his hand. Then follows another round of exchanges, but no hand scoring.
The game
Now, the first player begins by playing one card. Ordinary whist rules apply, but the players keep their cards collected by themselves. The player who wins the last trick gets 5 points. Also, the player with the best hand (whether it is the same player or not) gets points for his hand. After achieving 42 points a player is no longer permitted to trade cards as they normally would. Instead, they are dealt 6 cards at the beginning of the game and must discard one before the first scoring round. No further exchanges are permitted.
Chicago
Any player can choose to play Chicago at any time. In this case, he pledges himself to win all the tricks of the game. If he does, he is awarded 15 points, but if he fails, the penalty is just as harsh: -15 points.
Blind Chicago
In addition to the conventional Chicago mentioned above, a player may also elect to pull a Blind Chicago. As with the standard Chicago, during a Blind Chicago a player also pledges to win all the tricks - however he announces his intention to do so before having ever seen his cards. In other words, a Blind Chicago can only be announced immediately after the last card leaves the dealer's hand. If he succeeds, a player is rewarded 30 points, with 20 deducted in the event of failure. If a Blind Chicago is announced, no players are awarded points for their poker hands in any of the phases. The player attempting the Blind Chicago may trade as he normally would. Also note that if a player succeeds in completing the Blind Chicago on a deuce, he is awarded 60 points - an automatic game win.
Omaha hold 'em is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make their best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd, who offered it as a game at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino. Omaha uses a 52-card French deck. Omaha hold 'em 8-or-better is the "O" game featured in H.O.R.S.E.
Sheepshead is an American trick-taking card game derived from Bavaria's national card game, Schafkopf, hence it is sometimes called American Schafkopf. Sheepshead is most commonly played by five players, but variants exist to allow for two to eight players. There are also many other variants to the game rules, and many slang terms used with the game.
Lowball or low poker is a variant of poker in which the normal ranking of hands is inverted. Several variations of lowball poker exist, differing in whether aces are treated as high cards or low cards, and whether straights and flushes are used.
Piquet is an early 16th-century plain-trick card game for two players that became France's national game. David Parlett calls it a "classic game of relatively great antiquity... still one of the most skill-rewarding card games for two" but one which is now only played by "aficionados and connoisseurs."
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.
Spades is a trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s. It can be played as either a partnership or solo/"cutthroat" game. The object is to take the number of tricks that were bid before play of the hand began. Spades is a descendant of the Whist family of card games, which also includes Bridge, Hearts, and Oh Hell. Its major difference as compared to other Whist variants is that, instead of trump being decided by the highest bidder or at random, the Spade suit always trumps, hence the name.
Brag is an 18th century British card game, and the British national representative of the vying or "bluffing" family of gambling games. It is a descendant of the Elizabethan game of Primero and one of the several ancestors to poker, the modern version just varying in betting style and hand rankings. It has been described as the "longest-standing British representative of the Poker family."
Big two is a card game of Cantonese origin. It is similar to the games of Zheng Shangyou, daifugō, president, crazy eights, cheat, and other shedding games. The game is very popular in East Asia and in Southeast Asia, especially throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Macau, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. It is played both casually and as a gambling game. It is usually played with two to four players, the entire deck being dealt out in either case. The objective of the game is to be the first to play off all of one's cards.
Tichu is a proprietary card game primarily classified as a shedding game that includes elements of Bridge, Daihinmin, and Poker played between two teams of two players each. Teams work to accumulate points, and the first team to reach a predetermined score is the winner. Tichu is the trade name for what appears to be a variant of Dou di zhu, Choi Dai Di (Cantonese) or Da Lao Er (Mandarin), meaning "big two", combined with Zheng Fen. It is also marketed as Tai-Pan in Dutch. Tichu was invented by Urs Hostettler and originally released in 1991.
Pusoy dos, a variation of big two, is a popular type of "shedding" card game that originates on the islands of the Philippines in Calauag, Quezon Province. The object of the game is to be the first to discard one's hand by playing them to the table. If one cannot be first to play all cards, then the aim is to have as few cards as possible. Cards can be played separately or in certain combinations using poker hand rankings. Games of Pusoy Dos can be played by three or four people.
Chinese poker is a card game based on poker hand rankings. It is intended as a beginner-friendly game, with only a basic knowledge of poker hand rankings needed to get started. The format allows for frequent unexpected outcomes due to the large element of luck involved, meaning a beginner has a good chance of winning in the short term against even experienced opponents.
Daifugō or Daihinmin, also known as Tycoon, is a Japanese shedding-type card game for three or more players played with a standard 52-card pack. The objective of the game is to get rid of all the cards one has as fast as possible by playing progressively stronger cards than those of the previous player. The winner is called the daifugō earning various advantages in the next round, and the last person is called the daihinmin. In that following round, winners can exchange their one or more unnecessary cards for advantageous ones that losers have.
Teen patti is a gambling card game. Teen Patti originated in India and is popular throughout South Asia. It originated in the English game of three-card brag, with influences from poker. It is also called flush or flash in some areas.
Smear is a North-American trick-taking card game of the All Fours group, and a variant of Pitch (Setback). Several slightly different versions are played in Michigan, Minnesota, Northern and Central Iowa, Wisconsin and also in Ontario, Canada.
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.
Stud poker is any of a number of poker variants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round. The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards, which gave rise to the common English expression ace in the hole for any hidden advantage.
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.
Mistigri, historically Pamphile, is an old, French, trick-taking card game for three or four players that has elements reminiscent of poker. It is a member of the Rams family of games and, although it is a gambling game, often played for small stakes, it is also suitable as a party game or as a family game with children from the age of 12 upwards.
Rödskägg ("Redbeard") also called Fem Opp, is a Swedish card game for three to seven players in which penalties are incurred for failing to follow certain rituals as well as for failing to take a declared number of tricks. Some rules describe Fem Opp as a variant of Rödskägg. It is an advanced and tactically demanding game and, of games played in Sweden, only Bridge and Poker are considered more difficult.
