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 (usually, only one player left), and a specific roster of competitors.
Players may freely buy into or cash out of a cash game between hands. [1] However, it is normally prohibited for a player to remove a portion of his or her chips from the table. This is known as "going south". [2] For example, if a player buys in for $100, then wins $100 (for a total stack of $200), the player may not remove the original $100 buy-in while remaining seated. He would have to forfeit his seat, possibly wait to rejoin the game, and buy in again for $100; however, many cardrooms prohibit the practice of buying in again unless a certain time period has elapsed before the player rejoins. Similarly, cash games are played for table stakes. If a player attempts to put additional money onto the table (from his/her wallet) in the middle of a hand, he may not do so until the conclusion of said hand.
In "no limit" poker cash games, some cardrooms have a maximum buy-in for cash games. In limit poker games, there is seldom a maximum buy-in because betting limits already limit the amount a player can wager on each hand.
In a casino, a rake is usually taken from a pot if a flop is shown and the pot reaches certain values. [3] Some games take a time rake instead of a pot rake. In these games players pay a seat charge every half-hour.
While the terms "ring game" and "cash game" are often considered synonymous in common usage, opinion differs on the true definition of "ring game". For example, in the glossary of Doyle Brunson's Super System 2 , a ring game is defined as "A game with a player in every seat, that is, a full game—as opposed to a shorthanded game". [4] As such, the term "cash game" may be considered a more precise depiction of the kind of game commonly found in most casinos or home venues; that is, a non-tournament game played for actual money (or chips representing actual money), without regard for the number of players seated at the table at any given time.
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Tournaments and cash games have different basic strategies. One difference between tournaments and cash games is that the blind/ante structure of tournaments increases periodically over the course of the tournament, whereas the blind/ante structure of cash games remains constant. Another difference between the tournaments and cash games is that a tournament sticks with a predetermined style of poker, and cash game players, depending on house rules, may have the option of playing other types of card games. Some online cash games offer a variety of choices limited only by the game software.
Other differences between cash games and tournament poker are that, in cash games sometimes straddles and chops are allowed. A live straddle is a dark bet of two big blinds by the player first to act, who is then entitled to bet again if the bet is not raised. A chop is an agreement between the players in the blinds to retract their blind bets if no one else has bet. A chop prevents the casino from taking a rake from the pot. Also, cash games sometimes allow players to reduce the element of luck (often called "variance", especially by professional players) by splitting large all-in pots. Since online platforms can instantly calculate each player's pot equity at the time they go all-in, some online cash games allow such pots to be split based on this equity. Players who opt for such an arrangement will receive a share of the pot based on his or her odds of winning (from the time all players still in the pot exposed their cards) once all of the cards have been dealt. An alternative method of reducing variance, used both online and in live games, is to run the board multiple times to ensure that the person with the best odds of winning gets the largest share of the pot more often.
An example of a cash game is broadcast on the United States subscription-based streaming service PokerGO as High Stakes Poker . The Bellagio casino's "Big Game" is a high-stakes permanent cash game, featuring a wide variety of rotating poker games with and without limits. [5]
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 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 "chop the pot". Texas hold 'em is also the H game featured in HORSE and 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.
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.
David Edward "Chip" Reese was an American professional poker player and gambler from Centerville, Ohio. He is widely regarded as having been the greatest cash game poker player.
In poker and other gambling games, table stakes is a rule that a player may bet no more money than they had on the table at the beginning of that hand; they cannot go back to their pocket for more money once a hand is dealt. This limits the amount that a player can lose, while also limiting the amount other players may have to bet. In between hands, a player is free to re-buy or add-on so long as their entire stack after the re-buy or add-on does not exceed the maximum buy-in.
Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment was an online gambling company, formed by the March 2011 merger of PartyGaming plc and Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG. Formerly the world's largest publicly traded online gambling firm, it was best known for its online poker room PartyPoker, World Poker Tour and its sports betting brand Bwin.
A big bet (BB) is the larger of two fixed bet amounts in a fixed-limit poker game. A big bet is used in the final rounds of a game to increase the pot amount and thereby enable the possibility of a bluff. Big bets are generally double the wager of the initial or small bet. Any multi-round poker game can use big bets to standardize wagers while maintaining a sufficient risk-ratio to encourage bluffing. Casino poker tables use big bets to set a limit to the amount of money a patron can lose in each wager.
In poker games with blinds, chopping the blinds is a custom that may occur when all other players fold to the blinds before the flop. The blinds then remove their bets, ending the hand.
Joseph Hachem is a Lebanese-Australian professional poker player known for being the first Australian to win the World Series of Poker main event, which earned him $7.5 million, then a record for all-time biggest tournament prize.
Prahlad S. Friedman is an American professional poker player and rapper from Los Angeles, California. He has played under the screen names "Spirit Rock" on Full Tilt Poker, "Mahatma" on Ultimate Bet, "Zweig" on Prima Network, and "Prefontaine" on PokerStars.
High Stakes Poker is an American cash game poker television program. The poker variant played on the show is no limit Texas hold 'em. The first four seasons ran from January 16, 2006 to December 17, 2007 on GSN. The next three seasons ran from March 1, 2009 to May 21, 2011, and was simulcast in 3DTV on N3D. The show was revived on December 16, 2020 on PokerGO.
Commerce Casino is a cardroom located in the Los Angeles suburb of Commerce. With over 240 tables on site, Commerce Casino is the largest cardroom in the world. Established in 1983, the casino accounted for 38% of Commerce's tax revenues for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. As of 2016, the casino was providing $22 million a year in licensing fees to the city.
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.
The Big Game is a high-stakes poker cash game played in the "Bobby's Room", a cardroom named after Bobby Baldwin, at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. In 2010, the game partially expanded to "The Ivey Room" at Aria Resort and Casino. The table features no-limit and pot-limit games with wagers up to $100,000 per hand. Limit games as high as $4,000/$8,000 are often played but $800/$1,600 is normal.
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.
Justin "Boosted J" Smith is an American high-stakes poker player living in Los Angeles, CA.
This is an alphabetical list of poker topics.