High On Poker

Hey folks. In my recent AC trip reports, I mentioned a couple of card games that are great time killers if you are ever waiting around with your gambling friends. I thought I’d take a moment to give some more details, as I’m sure one or more of these games, all of which involve gambling, probably will appeal to you. Let’s start with the game I learned most recently.

Israeli Poker

First let’s start by acknowledging that I do not know the actual origin of these games, and I am sure that they probably go by many different names. In fact, if you know any of these games by other names, drop me a comment. I’m always curious about these things.

“Israeli Poker”, as it was introduced to me, is a two-person game. Each player is dealt five cards face up, lined up in a row. The two players face each other, with their individual cards lined up. In other words, it looks something like this:

2s  8c Ah 8d Kc <– My Cards
7c 6s  As 2h Qh <– Your Cards

This is not a five card hand. Rather, we each will eventually have five five-card hands, and the cards we start with are merely the first cards in each five card hand.

Once the hands are dealt, the deck is placed to the side, within reach of both players. The non-dealer is first to take a card off the top of the deck. He then places that card in one of his five columns/hands. So, in the example above, if I’m the dealer and you pull a 7d, the smart player would place the 7d under their first column, since it matches their 7c. After you place your card, I would take the next card in the deck. Hypothetically, let’s assume I get a Qc. The logical spot to put it is under my 5th column, with the Kc. So after our first two cards, the result is:

_________ Qc
2s  8c Ah 8d Kc <– My Cards
===============
7c 6s  As  2h Qh <– Your Cards
7d

This process repeats itself. You take one and place it face up. I take one and place it face up. There are some key rules, though. You must place a second card in each column before you move onto the third row of cards. So, if your very next card is 7s, you can’t put it underneath your other two 7s. You’d more likely place it unde the 6s as your next best bet. Because of this restriction, in each row, you will have a card that basically is automatic. For instance, if we play back and forth and end up pulling a 7h with the following board, you will be forced to play it under your As:

6c        Ad  Jd Qc
2s  8c Ah 8d Kc <– My Cards
===============
7c 6s   As 2h Qh <– Your Cards
7d  6h       Kd 4h

Deuces are wild. That’s also very important, for obvious reasons. Of course, when you are playing at home, you can change that rule, but for this type of game, the wild card is actually a great thing to have.

The game proceeds this way. One card for you; one card for me. We can see how each other’s boards are forming and what cards are out, so counting outs is actually a key component to the game.

Finally, 0n the last row, each player places their cards face down. So you don’t know your opponent’s entire hand until showdown, but you know what direction they are going in. At showdown, both players reveal their hands and then each winning hand counts as a “point.” Points are essentially your betting increments. So, to futz around, I’ll just play $1 per point. If you sweep all five hands, the payout doubles, for $10, if we are playing $1 per point.

At the end of the game, there are two unused cards (5 hands with 5 cards = 25 cards per player). An end board may look something like this (with the last cards face down until all cards are placed):

Qs 2d 5s 4c 3d <– Face Down Until Showdown
————————
4d   Td 5c Ts 6c
Td Th 5d 9d 3c
Qd  6d Ad Jd Qc
2s 8c Ah 8d Kc <– My Cards

===============

7c 6s  As 2h Qh <– Your Cards
7d 6h 7h Kd4h
2c 9c Kh 9h 8h
9s Ac Ks 3s 3h
————————
7s 4s  Jh Jc 5h<–Face Down Until Showdown

God damn, that took a long time, and I’m not even sure it’s worth it. For you RSS readers out there, some of those cards may even be missing. What a fool’s errand. The point is, each column is a heads up 5-card hand. So in the first column, I have 3 Queens (QQ2T4). It looked like I was going for the flush, but with the wild card, I opted to use the final Queen for a set to beat your apparent set of 7s. As we now know, though, you rivered me with a 7, as well, for quads (77729). We’d go down the line, comparing hands, and whoever had the most points gets paid the requisite amount. In this scenario, you win Columns 1, 4 and 5. I won 2 and 3. Therefore, you win 1 point, or $1, assuming it’s $1 per point. Congratulations, moneybags!

Since this is taking so long, I’ll split it up. Next time, we’ll discuss 31, a great game for large crowds.

Until next time, make mine poker!