How to Play Poker
The Rules
All inPlay Poker is an online, multiplayer version of
the classic card game of five-card draw poker. Two to five people can play together.
One standard deck of cards is used to play. The object of the game is to win
chips from your opponents by either having the best hand or by raising the stakes
so high that all of your opponents fold (drop out) rather than continue betting.
Play proceeds as follows:
- Each player antes one chip into the pot.
- The deck is shuffled, and players are each dealt
five cards.
- Players participate in a round
of betting.
- Players are given the opportunity to discard cards
in their hand (0-5 cards) and replace them with cards dealt from the deck.
The other players are told how many cards their opponents discard, but do
not know what cards were discarded or received. Discarded cards are not dealt
again until the next hand.
- There is another round
of betting.
- If everybody folded except for one player, then
that player wins the pot without revealing what was in their hand. Otherwise,
the non-folded players' hands are revealed, and the player with the strongest
hand wins the pot.
- After a brief pause for everybody to review the
game, another hand is started.
- If at any point there is only one player who hasn't
folded, that player wins immediately.
Betting rounds
- Each All inPlay table has its own betting rules. For
example, one table follows fixed 20/40 chip betting rules, with a 5-raises-per-round
limit. That means that when it is your turn to bet, you can raise the bet
by 20 chips in the first betting round (before everybody discards and draws
cards), and 40 chips in the second betting round.
- Betting proceeds as follows:
- Each player is given an opportunity to match the
current bet ("call" the bet), raise the bet (unless the maximum
number of raises for this round has been met, or they don't have enough money
to raise the bet), or fold (drop out of this hand, forfeiting the money that
they've already put in the pot).
- The betting round continues, with players prompted
to call, raise, or fold in turn until everybody has folded except for one
player, or everybody has called the raise (everybody except for the person
who made the last raise-- you don't have to call your own raise).
- Example of fixed-limit betting for a 20/40 table:
In the first betting round, if you must bet 10 chips to call the current bet,
then you can either fold, call (putting 10 more chips into the pot), or raise
up to 20 chips (putting up to 30 more chips into the pot). The most you can
lose in any one hand is 300 chips (but, in a 5-person game, you can win as
many as 1200 chips-- 300 from each of the other four people-- in one hand).
A note on all-in:
All-in allows a player to bet all of his chips when
matching a current bet that is higher than the number of chips he is holding.
For example, if SusanBot has 12 chips in her hand but SteveBot has just raised
200 chips, SusanBot can call that raise and throw in her last 12 chips. If she
loses, she loses it all and gets kicked from the table to play Guess'Em. If
she wins, however, she wins back her 12 chips plus 12 of SteveBot's chips. Steve
loses but the additional 188 chips are returned to his pocket.
In cases where more than two players are at a table,
a side pot is added if a person goes all-in and wins. If there are fractions
of a chip due to the splitting of winnings, All inPlay takes the fraction of the
chip as a All inPlay tax.
Hand Rankings
All inPlay Poker is played with a standard deck of 52
cards; four suits-- hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs-- of 13 denominations--
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.
The five cards in your hand are rearranged to make
one of the following ranks of hands. Poker hands are ranked as follows,
from the best hand (a straight flush) to the worst (a high-card hand):
- Straight flush. Five cards, in order, all
of the same suit. Aces act as both high and low, so the highest ranking straight
flush (a Royal Flush) is 10-J-Q-K-A, and the lowest ranking straight flush
is A-2-3-4-5
- Four of a kind. Four cards of the same
denomination, with any other card. Aces are high, so the best four-of-a-kind
is four aces (and the worst is four twos).
- Full House. Three cards of one denomination
and two of another. Aces are high, and the denomination of the three cards
is used to determine which of two straight flushes wins (so, for example,
4-4-4-2-2 beats 3-3-3-Ace-Ace).
- Flush. Five cards of the same suit. If
two players both have flushes, the denominations of their cards are used to
determine the winner. The best flush is 9-J-Q-K-A, the worst is 2-3-4-5-7.
If both players have the same denominations of cards, then their hands are
tied.
- Straight. Five cards, not all of the same
suit, in order. Ranking for breaking ties between straights is the same as
for straight flushes.
- Three of a kind. Three cards of the same
denomination, with any other two cards. Three aces is the best three-of-a-kind,
three twos the worst.
- Two pair. Two cards of one denomination
and two of another, plus one other card (the "kicker"). The best
two-pair hand is A-A-K-K-Q, the worst is 3-3-2-2-4. The high pair wins the
hand, so A-A-2-2-3 beats K-K-J-J-A.
- One pair. Two cards of one denomination
and three other cards. The best one-pair hand is A-A-K-Q-J, the worst is 2-2-5-4-3.
- No pair (high-card). Five cards that don't
match any of the above categories. The best high-card hand is A-K-Q-J-9, the
worst is 2-3-4-5-7.
Suits are never used to break ties between hands,
so, for example, 2-3-4-5-6 of hearts ties 2-3-4-5-6 of spades. If the best hands
are tied, the pot is split evenly among the winning players.
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