Hold'Em is not poker

[MrGrob]

...as the fork is too pointed for the clown's smile.

If you want to wax your curtains, think about the sounds a blue walls wants to hear when the leaves fall into the milk wagon.

[Demana]

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This may be the most retarded post of the day. Or should I say, RPOTD?

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Retarded, no.
Unclear, yes.

Perhaps I am asking the wrong question or posing a confused thought in hopes that someone's response will lead me to the question I really need answered.

[Demana]

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Does there have to be a pot in hold'em?

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Does there have to be a pot in other forms of poker?


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What I meant was that you could play hold'em or any other game we automatically associate with the word poker without betting. Then the game would be at it's pure roots.

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You can also 'gamble' on other cardgames that are not 'considered' poker.

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That is part of the question: If add betting to a game like Speed or Whist or Bridge, while it would be strecthing the definition, would they then be poker too?

[tdarko]

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That is part of the question: If add betting to a game like Speed or Whist or Bridge, while it would be strecthing the definition, would they then be poker too?

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b/c money and gambling are involved doesnt make a card game poker, you see poker and gambling are not synonymous because betting on a card game does not make it poker but it does make it gambling.

for example i play a game called "pluck" all the time and we play $25 a game and double for Boston's, its not poker but it is gambling just as playing poker is gambling.

[k_squared]

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Does there have to be a pot in hold'em?

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Does there have to be a pot in other forms of poker?


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What I meant was that you could play hold'em or any other game we automatically associate with the word poker without betting. Then the game would be at it's pure roots.

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The problem here is that poker is war if there is no betting involved... you could play it with the betting not being worth any money and just worth 'points', as a game of skill (just like we play scrabble). In which case it isn't gambling any more because you aren't playing for money (although this becomes a complicated point, because we could argue that you can gamble without there needing to be money involved, and in fact that pride alone has value, and so when you lose even if not for money there is still some sort of loss involved, and so a reason to try to win)... The point though is that Poker has to have an element to the game in which we value our hand in relation to our opponenets, and then have to make decisions whetehr to continue or not. If no decisions have to be made whether to stay or fold (as necessitated by making a bet) then you just deal all the cards out until you see who the 'winner' is. Poker is a card game, but not all card games are poker.

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You can also 'gamble' on other cardgames that are not 'considered' poker.

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That is part of the question: If add betting to a game like Speed or Whist or Bridge, while it would be strecthing the definition, would they then be poker too?

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No that wouldn't be poker then... then it would be another card game played for money. Poker specifically involves the act of placing a value on your hand by placing a bet in the midst of the game.

It would be like taking speed, anteing some amount, then looking at your hand before you played AND then making an additional wager for how much you want to play. Your opponent could then agree to play or not. Re-ante, re-deal.

Poker is NOT SIMPLY A CARD GAME IN WHICH YOU BET MONEY WHILE PLAYING.

-k_squared

[alabubba]

Agreed. Hold-Em is indeed poker.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

Poker \Pok"er\, n. [Of uncertain etymol.]
A game at cards derived from brag, and first played about 1835 in the Southwestern United States. --Johnson's Cyc.[1913 Webster]

Note: A poker hand is played with a poker deck, composed of fifty-two cards, of thirteeen values, each card value being represented once in each of four "suits", namely spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. The game is played in many variations, but almost invariably the stage of decision as to who wins occurs when each player has five cards (or chooses five cards from some larger number available to him). The winner usually is the player with the highest-valued hand, but, in some variations, the winner may be the player with the lowest-valued hand. The value of a hand is ranked by hand types, representing the relationships of the cards to each other. [The hand types are ranked by the probability of receiving such a hand when dealt five cards.] Within each hand type the value is also ranked by the values of the cards. The hand types are labeled, in decreasing value: five of a kind; royal flush; straight flush; four of a kind; full house (coll. full boat, or boat); flush; straight; three of a kind; two pairs; one pair; and, when the contending players have no hands of any of the above types, the player with the highest-valued card wins -- if there is a tie, the next-highest-valued card of the tied players determines the winner, and so on. If two players have the same type of hand, the value of the cards within each type determines the winner; thus, if two players both have three of a kind (and no other player has a higher type of hand), the player whose three matched cards have the highest card value is the winner.

[LockLow34]

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It pisses me off so much when people call 72o "the worst hand in poker".

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Me too. Everyone knows it's AJo

[purnell]

Poker is a game that we play with money, using cards as props. Stud, Hold'em, Omaha, etc, are merely variants of the same game.

[OrianasDaad]

No description of any game can be complete without talking about how it is scored.

Poker is scored by the amount of money won/lost. Without a pot, there is no score, and no game.

Other card games have a different mechanism. If betting were involved in those games, they wouldn't be called poker either. Poker derives its unique structure through a mathematically-based system of hand rankings.

Any card game with poker's hand-ranking structure, and is scored by money won/lost is poker. Because of the element of chance in the game (and the fact that $$ are at risk) make it gambling.

[KingOtter]

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You can also 'gamble' on other cardgames that are not 'considered' poker.

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That is part of the question: If add betting to a game like Speed or Whist or Bridge, while it would be strecthing the definition, would they then be poker too?

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You forget that the term poker also describes the rules by which you decide which hand is better. And these rules don't make sense in Speed, or Whist, or Bridge.

So if you bet in Bridge, then it is Gambling Bridge, not Poker.

KO