In Poker What Is A Straight

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• In Poker Does A Straight Flush
• In Poker What Is A Nut Straight Draw
• In Poker Hands What Is A Straight
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• What Is A Straight In Poker Texas Holdem

Poker definition is - one that pokes; especially: a metal rod for stirring a fire. One that pokes; especially: a metal rod for stirring a fire See the full definition. Definition of straight poker in the AudioEnglish.org Dictionary. Meaning of straight poker. What does straight poker mean? Proper usage and audio pronunciation (plus IPA phonetic transcription) of the word straight poker. Information about straight poker in the AudioEnglish.org dictionary, synonyms and antonyms. Any five cards of the same suit, but not in a sequence. Five cards in a sequence, but not of the same suit. Three cards of the same rank. Two different pairs. Two cards of the same rank. When you haven't made any of the hands above, the highest card plays. In the example below, the jack plays as the highest card.

In the 1988 World Series of Poker, Johnny Chan and Erik Seidel were heads up (the last two players remaining) in the $10,000 No-Limit Championship Event. In the final hand of the tournament, Chan held Jc-9c and Seidel held Q-7 off-suit. The flop came 8-10-Q of mixed suites. Chan had flopped the nut straight. Erik had a pair of Queens. The turn card, a 3, did not frighten Chan. On the river a 6 fell. Chan had the pure nuts. He checked to Seidel as he did on the turn, slow-playing his nut hand to the river and trying to '**** him in.' Chan knew Seidel's style: Seidel frequently went all-in on the river, in an attempt to pick up the blinds, antes and on-the-flop bets. Chan took a gamble that Seidel would make this play again. Sure enough, Seidel moved all-in on the river after Chan checked. Chan 'took him down' and successfully defended his title.

The writers of the movie 'Rounders' decided to use the film clip of the 1988 WSOP. Sure enough, being another predictable Hollywood film, our hero flops the nut straight on the final hand and makes a Johnny Chan-style slowplay. Of course, he is successful and beats the villain, played brilliantly by John Malkovich. All of this tells us that when you flop a nut straight, you simply check and wait for your opponent to bet all his money to you on the river, when you can raise him and win a massive pot. Unfortunately, limit holdem has certain limitations, so to speak, and in my opinion this play is not correct for a number of reasons.

Nut straights are to be distinguished from nut flushes and full-houses (or better) on the flop, because split pots or bad beats can occur more easily when you flop a nut straight. For instance, when you flop a nut flush (ace high), no one can catch a card to split or improve to a better flush. They must make a full house to beat you. But if you get a free ride in the big blind with a hand like 10-7 and the flop comes 6-8-9, you have flopped the nuts, but a 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J or Q on the turn will change that fact. In other words, 23 cards in the deck may well make your hand second best. Yet time and time again I see opponents with a nut straight check the flop, simply because they have a nut hand. But given the amount of dangerous cards that may fall, you must bet/raise/reraise/cap in this situation. This is not a time to slow play. Be happy to win a small pot if everyone folds on you. A bet on the flop is unlikely to force a pair or an AK to fold, however a player with a J-X is more likely to fold. However, if you check and give him a free card and it turns out to be a 10, you will not get rid of him. Furthermore, if he improves to a straight it will beat yours.

Therefore, you must protect the pot early in this situation. Not only will you make money from calls on the flop, but you will also force out hands that may pick a draw on the turn, which can consequently beat you on the river. Even if you have J-Q and the flop is 8-9-10 on mixed suits, you should still bet it out. It is true that there are fewer cards to hurt you, but if a player has only three to a flush on the flop, which he would fold for even one bet, but gets a free card and picks up four to a flush, your opponent is unlikely to fold for a bet on the turn and you have inadvertently reduced the number of safe river cards for your hand.

The above example shows how a nut-straight can be cracked or run down more easily than a nut flush and for that reason, one should bet it out and reraise if raised. That is, when you flop a nut flush, only a repeat can present a problem: 9 cards. As we saw above, you can flop a nut straight, but not have the nuts if one of 23 cards falls on the turn. Thus, it is more prudent to slowplay a nut flush rather than a nut straight.

The second reason not to slowplay this hand is to reduce the chance of splitting the pot. Let say you have Q-10 in middle position against three opponents. The flop comes As-Kc-Jd. You have flopped the nuts and no one can make a bigger straight. It would appear that you're in business. But let's say the player on the button has J-10. An earlier position player bets, probably with a pair of aces. If you call, so will the button. If you raise, the button may fold. So let's say you call and the button calls. The turn card is a Queen. Now you still have the nuts, but do not win the pot alone. Rather, you will split it. Furthermore, the button will probably bet or raise on the turn and everyone except you will fold. Now you split a mediocre pot after flopping a nut straight. Hardly a replay of the 1988 World Series. Had you raised the flop, there is a good chance that the player on the button would have folded. Of course, there will always be some players who won't fold no matter what the price is and you can't do anything except charge them when you're in front.

Also, from a financial point of view, the top straight is a good hand to be aggressive with on the flop. In the above example with A-K-J on the flop, you are more like to build a large multi-way pot because several players will have hands such as A-9 and K-J, etc. and will be a lot more willing to put money into the pot, even though they are massive underdogs. The hands you are really trying to get rid of are the 10-8, J-10, Q-9, etc as these are hands that shouldn't be in the pot beyond the flop, but may split the pot is you give them a free or cheap turn card.

It is clear that flopping a nut straight is not a hand you slowplay. Rather you play it very aggressively and obviously. Risking free cards is simply too dangerous. Be happy to win a small one alone, rather than lose a big one or split a mediocre one. Save slowplaying for hands that are bigger than straights.

Poker is a family of card games that combines gambling, strategy and different skills. All poker variants involve betting as an intrinsic part of play, and determine the winner of each hand according to the combinations of players' cards, at least some of which remain hidden until the end of the hand. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or 'community' cards, the number of cards that remain hidden, and the betting procedures.

In most modern poker games the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some form of a forced bet (the blind or ante). In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in turn must either match (or 'call') the maximum previous bet, or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further involvement in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also 'raise' (increase) the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the remaining player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed, and the player with the winning hand takes the pot.

With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who either believes the bet has positive expected value or who is trying to bluff other players for various strategic reasons. Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen on the basis of probability, psychology, and game theory.

Poker has increased in popularity since the beginning of the 20th century and has gone from being primarily a recreational activity confined to small groups of enthusiasts to a widely popular activity, both for participants and spectators, including online, with many professional players and multimillion-dollar tournament prizes.

History[edit]

Poker was developed sometime during the early 19th century in the United States. Since those early beginnings, the game has grown to become an extremely popular pastime worldwide.

In the 1937 edition of Foster's Complete Hoyle, R. F. Foster wrote: 'the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas.' By the 1990s some gaming historians including David Parlett started to challenge the notion that poker is a direct derivative of As-Nas. Developments in the 1970s led to poker becoming far more popular than it was before. Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began, in 1970.^[1]

Gameplay[edit]

Poker Hand Ranking Printable

In casual play, the right to deal a hand typically rotates among the players and is marked by a token called a dealer button (or buck). In a casino, a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, but the button (typically a white plastic disk) is rotated clockwise among the players to indicate a nominal dealer to determine the order of betting. The cards are dealt clockwise around the poker table, one at a time.

One or more players are usually required to make forced bets, usually either an ante or a blind bet (sometimes both). The dealer shuffles the cards, the player on the chair to his or her right cuts, and the dealer deals the appropriate number of cards to the players one at a time, beginning with the player to his or her left. Cards may be dealt either face-up or face-down, depending on the variant of poker being played. After the initial deal, the first of what may be several betting rounds begins. Between rounds, the players' hands develop in some way, often by being dealt additional cards or replacing cards previously dealt. At the end of each round, all bets are gathered into the central pot.

At any time during a betting round, if one player bets, no opponents choose to call (match) the bet, and all opponents instead fold, the hand ends immediately, the bettor is awarded the pot, no cards are required to be shown, and the next hand begins. This is what makes bluffing possible. Bluffing is a primary feature of poker, one that distinguishes it from other vying games and from other games that make use of poker hand rankings.

At the end of the last betting round, if more than one player remains, there is a showdown, in which the players reveal their previously hidden cards and evaluate their hands. The player with the best hand according to the poker variant being played wins the pot. A poker hand comprises five cards; in variants where a player has more than five cards available to them, only the best five-card combination counts.

Variants[edit]

Poker variations are played where a 'high hand' or a 'low hand' may be the best desired hand. In other words, when playing a poker variant with 'low poker' the best hand is one that contains the lowest cards (and it can get further complicated by including or not including flushes and straights etc. from 'high hand poker'). So while the 'majority' of poker game variations are played 'high hand', where the best high 'straight, flush etc.' wins, there are poker variations where the 'worst hand' wins, such as 'low ball, acey-ducey, high-lo split etc. game variations'. To summarize, there can be variations that are 'high poker', 'low poker', and 'high low split'. In the case of 'high low split' the pot is divided among the best high hand and low hand.

Poker has many variations,^[2][3] all following a similar pattern of play^[4] and generally using the same hand ranking hierarchy. There are four main families of variants, largely grouped by the protocol of card-dealing and betting:

Straight

A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as now played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, a very popular gentleman's game around the time of the American Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is almost always played in a more complex form to allow for additional strategy.

Stud poker

Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.

Draw poker

A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.

Community card poker

Also known as 'flop poker', community card poker is a variation of stud poker. Players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make a 5-card hand. Texas hold 'em and Omaha are two well-known variants of the community card family.

There are several methods for defining the structure of betting during a hand of poker. The three most common structures are known as 'fixed-limit', 'pot-limit', and 'no-limit'. In fixed-limit poker, betting and raising must be done by standardized amounts. For instance, if the required bet is X, an initial bettor may only bet X; if a player wishes to raise a bet, they may only raise by X. In pot-limit poker, a player may bet or raise any amount up to the size of the pot. When calculating the maximum raise allowed, all previous bets and calls, including the intending raiser's call, are first added to the pot. The raiser may then raise the previous bet by the full amount of the pot. In no-limit poker, a player may wager their entire betting stack at any point that they are allowed to make a bet. In all games, if a player does not have enough betting chips to fully match a bet, they may go 'all-in', allowing them to show down their hand for the amount of chips they have remaining.

In Poker Does A Straight Flush

Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as poker. Video poker is a single-player video game that functions much like a slot machine; most video poker machines play draw poker, where the player bets, a hand is dealt, and the player can discard and replace cards. Payout is dependent on the hand resulting after the draw and the player's initial bet.

Strip poker is a traditional poker variation where players remove clothing when they lose bets. Since it depends only on the basic mechanic of betting in rounds, strip poker can be played with any form of poker; however, it is usually based on simple variants with few betting rounds, like five card draw.

Another game with the poker name, but with a vastly different mode of play, is called Acey-Deucey or Red Dog poker. This game is more similar to Blackjack in its layout and betting; each player bets against the house, and then is dealt two cards. For the player to win, the third card dealt (after an opportunity to raise the bet) must have a value in-between the first two. Payout is based on the odds that this is possible, based on the difference in values of the first two cards. Other poker-like games played at casinos against the house include three card poker and pai gow poker.

Computer programs[edit]

In Poker What Is A Nut Straight Draw

A variety of computer poker players have been developed by researchers at the University of Alberta, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Auckland amongst others.

In a January 2015 article^[5] published in Science, a group of researchers mostly from the University of Alberta announced that they 'essentially weakly solved' heads-up limit Texas Hold 'em with their development of their Cepheus poker bot. The authors claimed that Cepheus would lose at most 0.001 big blinds per game on average against its worst-case opponent, and the strategy is thus so 'close to optimal' that 'it can't be beaten with statistical significance within a lifetime of human poker playing'.^[6]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'World Series of Poker Retrospective: Horseshoe History'. gaming.unlv.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-13.
2. ^Richard D. Harroch, Lou Krieger. Poker for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 2010
3. ^Reuben, Stewart 2001. Starting out in Poker. London: Everyman/Mind Sports. ISBN1-85744-272-5
4. ^Sklansky, David. The Theory of Poker. Two Plus Two Pub, 1999.
5. ^Bowling, M.; Burch, N.; Johanson, M.; Tammelin, O. (2015). 'Heads-up limit hold'em poker is solved'(PDF). Science. 347 (6218): 145–149. CiteSeerX10.1.1.697.72. doi:10.1126/science.1259433. PMID25574016.
6. ^Computer program 'perfect at poker' (2015-01-08), BBC

External links[edit]

In Poker Hands What Is A Straight

Poker Hands Chart

• Poker at Curlie

What Is A Straight In Poker Texas Holdem