Poker – Game & Rules
Dealer button
At the beginnning of each game the dealer button is raffled. For that every player gets a card and the player with the highest card gets the dealer button for the first game. After that the dealer buttom moves clockwise from player to player.
Small/Big Blind
The next two players clockwisely following the dealer button have to pay in the SMALL BLIND (first player following the dealer button) and the BIG BLIND (second player followig the dealer button). The height of the blinds is stated by the poker room. The big blind marks the minimum bet that the players have to playce to take part in the game. The first action (call, raise, fold) is done by the first player following the big blind ("UNDER the GUN"). This player has the opportunity to pay the big blind (CALL), to RAISE or to put down his cards and quit the game (FOLD). In the latter case the next player has to set an action.
Fixed Limit/Pot Limit/No Limit
The terms FIXED LIMIT, POT LIMIT and NO LIMIT are referring to types of bets which are stated by the poker room as maximum bets. Fixed limit is referring exclusively to the height of the big blind and it is just allowed to double the big blind. Pot Limit means that the height of the bet is depending on both, the height of the big blind and the position of the player on the table. The farer away a player is from the position of the big blind, the higher the pot is and the higher his maximum bet can be. When playing no limit, the maximum bet is limited just to the own chips stock of a player.
A player that is betting all of his chips is going "ALL-IN".
Pot
Pot means the number of chips betted by all players at a particular point of time.
Stake
The stake is stated by the poker provider and is depending on the height of both blinds. On the one hand stake refers to the minimum/maximum amount of chips that have to be brought by the players to take part in a particular game. This is also referred to as BUY IN. On the other hand stake refers to the amount of chips a player owns at a particular point of time during a game.
Rake
The rake is the fee a poker room keeps for itself to cover its costs and which is depending on the height of the pot.
There are 3 different types of rakes:
- a specified percentage of the pot
- a specified percentage with a maximum amount
- a so-called "time-collection" (f.e. every half-an-hour a specified amount is collected from the players)
Tournaments
Nowadays tournaments are mostly played as Texas Hold’Em tournaments. Nevertheless there are still tournaments played in Omaha Poker and Seven Card Stud Poker.
Tournaments are poker events that happen at a specified point of time where a high number of players take part. These events have a restricted number of participants and all players are considered that register for this event within a specified range of time and pay the buy in.
The buy in is usually written in the following way:
EUR 20,– + EUR 5,–
that means: EUR 20 are going to the price pool and EUR 5 are the rake of the provider.