[ poker home | rules | games | directions]

General

• Above all, remember this is friendly poker. The stakes are small, and please try and keep things as open and honest as possible. A lot of the players are not regulars, so patience is a virtue.
• The chips are valued as follows: twenty-five cents for white, fifty cents for red, one dollar for blue, five dollars for orange and ten dollars for black. Other colour and values of chips may be introduced from time to time, and their value will be assigned by that evenings bank.
• The standard buy in will be for $20 - a player is expected to purchase at least one of these upon beginning play.
• To speed play, we'll use two decks. One to be shuffled while the other is dealt. The shuffler is the person two seats behind the dealer, and they are responsible for making sure the deck is adequately randomized (at least four shuffles, guys!)
• Players may buy and sell chips to each other at any time, and a player may put cash in the pot if he is out of chips.
• The house reserves the right to extract up to fifty cents from each pot in order to satisfy the cost of the cards and other required supplies.
• No smoking.

The Deal

• The ante of one dollar shall be made by the dealer prior to the beginning of the first round of betting. This is in lieu of individual players antes.
• In the event of a misdeal, the dealer will be penalized one dollar to the pot, and redeal with the other deck.

Games

• No Indian poker. Enough said.
• It's poker. Games that aren't poker should not be called. This means games without at least one traditional "poker style" betting round. In particular, "Chinese Poker" variants which use scoring instead of betting shall not be permitted. This rule shall not be considered to forbid Pai-Gow Poker.
• If it's on variants web page, it's fair play. Otherwise, please use discretion and these rules.
• When Pai-Gow Poker (or any other "banked" poker) game is called, the dealer must present sufficient securities to guarantee the bank ($8/player, not including himself). However, any other player able to present sufficient security may elect to be the banker. In the event that more than one player wishes to be the banker, the one player wishing to be banker closest to the dealer on the dealer's left shall be the banker. The ante will not be awarded to any player, but rather left to add to the next traditional poker pot.

Betting

• The maximum bet shall be one dollar during normal betting rounds, and two dollars during the final betting round in any game. There are three raises (not including the initial bet) per round of betting. Pai-Gow or any other single-round "banked" poker games shall have a maximum bet of eight dollars.
• The pot may be used to make change when placing bets. For example, to see a twenty five cent raise, you may place a fifty cent chip in and remove twenty five cents. This should be announced (see the single chip rule, below).
• All raises, calls and checks should be announced verbally. If it is not announced, then we'll let "the chips speak." We will follow the single chip rule: If a single chip of greater value than the current bet is placed in the pot by a player, without a raise being announced, then the player is seeing the bet, and making change.
• Sandbagging, the despicable practice of raising in a game where the player has already checked, shall be permitted.

Showdown

• This is friendly poker. If at showdown, you have a better hand than you call, the cards speak if anyone notices.
• In a high low game, if no means of determining who went high or who went low are offered, then we shall presume the cards speak.
• When splitting the pot between a high winner and a low winner, the high winner shall get the odd quarter.
• When splitting the pot between to equally placed winners (both high, or both low), the odd quarter shall remain in the pot until the next game.
• In a declared high-low game, a player going pig may not win unless he wins both low and high. In the event that a player going pig does not win both, he loses all. Then the pot shall be split among the non-pig players as if nobody had gone pig.