how many games of poker have been played until now ?

puupia: thanks :) .. 15 minutes and i can play again .. lets find out if this knowledge improves my play :)

Hrqls: Yes, you are correct. First is the lowest possible straight, second the highest straight. The third is not a straight at all, you cannot loop around like that.

puupia: thanks! very clear answers :)

about the straight :
A-2-3-4-5 is a straight ?
10-J-Q-K-A is a straight ?
Q-K-A-2-3 is a straight ?

i think the first 2 examples are .. the third is nothing ?

Hrqls: Yes A2345 is a straight.

You always use the best five card hand from each player to determine the winner. Whatever cards are left over do not matter at all. So in your example both players have the same straight and the pot will be split between them.

Minimum amount to play in BK poker is the size of big blind. (Unless it has been fixed recently. You really should be able to play until you lose all your money.)

And about the side pots: you cannot win anymore from any player than you put in the pot yourself. For example P1 calls 10, P2 raises all-in 50, p3 raises to 100, p4 calls and then P1 folds. Main pot will be 10+50+50+50=160. Whoever has the best hand in the end will win this. P3&P4 will also be playing for a side pot of 50+50=100.

a few questions :

can the ace be used as a '1' ?
i mean : is A-2-3-4-5 considered to be a straight ? (or nothing)

are there situations where more than 5 cards are used to determine the winner ?
for example :
player A has in his hand 2 and 10
player B has in his hand K and 10
on the table is 6,7,8,9,Q
will the pot be split (both players have a straight) or will player B win with his (6th card) K ?

whats the minimum amount you need to play in a game ? as much as the big blind ? or more ?
(i am not talking about how much you need to join the table, but amout the amount you need to participate in a game when you are already on the table)

coan.net: ah, thanks!

that sounds logical and fair

so if i save 50 credits for the last game and go all in on the first round .. then i can only win <nr of players> * 50 ? the rest of the pot will go the second best hand (provided they had enough credits to play normally :))

Hrqls: If one person put in all their money (lets say 100), and then 2 others bid higher (lets say up to 150) - then if that first person wins, they will only win up to what they put in (100x3 = win 300) - which will leave 100 left in the side pot, in which those 2 who bid higher play for that, and the one who has the higher hand between those 2 win that one.

i am sure this was already asked before, but i cant find it right now

yesterday i played poker for the first time on here and i like it .. quite addicting :)

sometimes i see 2 winners : 1 wins the pot and another wins the 'side pot' ?

when does this happen ?

the programming from the card´s is good... equal....
in the playing window i miss a few things like a possibillity for a flag with the funktion fold, for faster playing...

joshi tm: You are correct, you never do know exactly what your opponent has in their hand.

It could be a well timed bluff, and every so often, you will rightly fold to a worse hand than your own.

But again, over time, a first position raise (on a full table especially) is NOT going to be a pure bluff.

...also, good poker players have learned to always mix up their play style or strategy, so good instincts and the ability to read tells becomes very important as well (some people prefer online play just because tells dont become a factor)

Universal Eyes: No, he's in the BB in his example, everything is correct

/nit

bobwhoosta: The 50/100 table here has 10 people even if it wasn't full 150 to start would mean 3 people playing for the pot and a 500 raise takes it to 650 plus yours brings it to 1150 not 1050.

bobwhoosta: But how do you know that your opponent has QQ assuming he is not that stupid to tell you?

Pedro Martínez:

Czuch: Zak? I've never seen him playing Poker.

samanta: ok, I vote zak the second best player on brainking!

Pedro Martínez:

I think some people like to play cards?
you can place all the odds you want...granted, in the long run, playing "proper" poker will win you chips, but if lady luck is riding on your opponents shoulder....your sunk, before the long run ever occurs.
Because so many will stay trying to catch an inside straight, or just catch anything, it changes how you need to form your betting tactics.
the main thing is, its virtual chips meant for fun....so have fun!!
now....when Fencer finally incorporates tournament play...

Here's a situation where this applies, but in a different way...

You have A J, both diamonds. Your opponent has Q Q. The pot is 150 to start (50/ 100 blinds), your opponent is in First Position pre-flop, and raises to 500. Since it is a full table, and the raise is from first position, when it comes around to you in the big blind (everyone folds, including the small blinds), you just call. The pot is now 1050

The flop comes Q 5 2, two diamonds. You check, and your opponent bets 300. Do you call?

The answer is yes. The odds against catching your flush are around 4 to 1 ( a little more), but your opponent is now offering you the shot at a pot of 1350 for 300, which is MORE than 4 to 1 pot odds. Now, sometimes the opponent will catch four of a kind, or a full house, but mostly when you catch your flush you will take the pot, and will win at least one more bet. So, it is an easy call.

This brings in the concept of hand protection. If you have top pair after the flop, and there are three players in the hand, it is likely you have the best hand, but if you check, people will draw out on you. Three hands drawing is two hands too many!!! So, you must bet a significant percentage of the pot (more than 3/4 of the current pot) in order to drive out the other players. In this case, perhaps an overbet of the pot is warranted, for instanct, if the pot is 1000, bet 1200-1400!! The idea is to deny the odds to the players involved.

You want to have a caller, but if you can take the hand down now, you've won a pot you could've lost later. Good players take advantage of that.

And if all three players call you, and one catches a straight, and the other one a flush??? Well, that's poker. You did your job, denying the proper odds, and they caught some luck. Cest la vie.

On a side note, the bigger the advantage, and less volatile the board, the less you can bet. For instance, a pot of 1200, and you have QQ, flop comes Q 7 2, with all three suits different. Check, or bet a small amount. You absolutely WANT callers here, because THEY DON"T HAVE THE ODDS ANYWAY.

Hope this helps,

-Zak

Czuch:

I think Universal Eyes and Czuch, you are missing the point of Nothingnesses post. Now, it's likely that by using "Never" he is being too strict, but the point is this: If you always play against the odds, SOMETIMES you will win. MOST OF THE TIME, you will lose.

So, breaking down his hand analysis into a hypothetical situation, let's say you're in a hand, and you're opponent has a pair of Aces. You have a shot at a backdoor flush. (Two Diamonds must come in a row to make a flush). He goes all-in. Do you call??

Now, 1 in about 16 times, you will make your flush. Some of the other times, you will catch two pair. But MOST OF THE TIME, you will lose. That makes this a losing play, and in the long run, making such calls will lose you money.

I made the situation more drastic to illustrate the point (I think) Nothingness was making. If you always play against the odds, you will lose money. If you always play the odds, you will win money.

The tough part comes in not knowing exactly what the odds are!!!!! Some nice guesswork tends to help out nicely, but there I cannot help you...

-Zak

Nothingness: Well, never say never.... what if your 5 3 is suited and the ace flops you the nuts flush, or even possibly the straight flush!

In some others poker sites there is a voting system that allows players to choose the best player (#1, # 2 and # 3) based on their own opinion. And then the moderator calculates the number of votes. If all players vote for themselves (# 1) it is getting funny that # 2 they always judge to a really nice player and in the end he(she) is calcuted as the # 1.
Maybe we should ask Fencer to have something right this here...

lol that is still a foolish bet you cant gamble on odds that are that bad 5 and 3 is just a hand you should NEVER play preflop or post flop with a high bet and Ace on the Board!

Universal Eyes: Your language seems to be too sophisticated for my understanding.

Look 7 messages back.

Can anyone translate the most recent post of Universal Eyes into English for me, please?

Czuch: We not saying if you have 3 7 where taking about specific cards in a hand.

Universal Eyes: yeah, and if I have 3 7 off suit, and I flop 3 7 7, I win with a full house too

Point is.... If your aces raises in front of my 3 7, pre flop, I should never be around to see my boat, but with play money, its more like a low stakes limit game, where its everyone in to the river and the luckiest person wins

Nothingness: if the next 2 cards are 3 5 player 1 wins the hand with 2 pair and if a j 8 comes then player 2 wins with 2 pair and if the next 2 cards are diamonds player 4 wins with a flush player 3 with the pair of aces at the flop loses in all three situations.

Nothingness: Its called play money poker....

In the long run though, if you play smart, good poker, you will eventually win more from them than they will win from you

im noticing more and more that the players here are depending too much on chance and not skill. they pray to get that one card when the hand they are playing is unsound and should never have been played. P1 3H-5S, P2 has JC -9H, P3 AD-KC , P4 2D-QD
If the Flop is AC-QS-9D player two bets 100 player 3 then bets 350 at this point everyone should be folding to P3 Player 1 has no chance of winning the hand. P2 is hunting for a straight and that is foolish, P4 has witnessed a large raise when an A is on the board.. assume he has the A. Dont pray for the other Q!

Czuch: It's bot money.. it's chips. And yes, it's not an accurate calculation of how good someone is, it'd take another calculation such as average winnings per sitting to do that, or hands one..... or both!!

Czuch: and hopefully before long we'll see tournament play, which is a different level of player altogether.

(V): But, like I said, the amount of money in a persons stack is not the same as a poker ranking. For some it may give evidence of how good they are. for others it may simply mean that they play a lot more than anyone else.

Czuch: It's not a good idea to trade them I feel. It makes the rankings a joke, as someone can just 'buy' themselves to the top.

Bwild: Well, in RL, ones stack is their stack, and it doesnt matter how large it is, it doesnt change how good they are, and it doesnt matter really, how they got it, just that they have it....

But in this world here, it does matter somewhat. It is our way of "keeping score", and keeping an accurate score is very important for most people, so in this sense I agree with you, and better to let people keep their own chips, and better for fencer to not use them for any memberships until he can make sure there is no "bad" way to get them too.

In order to stop the last discussions I would like to clarify the following point.
It was my idea to give an offer of sharing chips in change of paid membership.
The idea was to see what would happen because in my understanding many players would like to have many chips for playing even if it costed something.
In the same time I have some difficulties with web-money and rather lazy to have it solved. Besides, I have won too many chips and don't see any way to loose it.
Please understand I didn't want to begin such a theoretic and sophisticated discussion.
And of course I didn't want to hurt anyone's feeling.
I absolutely agree with Czuch (thanks him) and in the same time I understand Pedro Martinez (But I don't need your dollar cause I have mine :)))
I like this poker club and all its inhabitants.
I'm satisfied that I had an opportunity to give you a chanse to discuss such an interesting topic.
Yours sincerely,
Evgen

Czuch: rookie games it would still be harder to win with 10 players than with 4 but on the other hand it's winning more chips per win.

Czuch: It would be like a baseball avg,your not looking at how many poker hands,it's how many poker hands and people playing in the poker hands,you don't win as often at a table with more people.

selling chips for a membership is no different than boosting bkr's imo.
same as using a multi nik to gain chips. its cheating, plain and simple.

Czuch: I think one think you may not be considering is that even if someone "gives" you BKR, unless you keep "buying" it, it is eventually, over time, going to show your true BKR.

Pedro Martínez: Thinking about it more.. I can see too that people could trade bkr for membership too.... if you dont care, you could let me win games of chess to help my bkr, if i buy you a membership.. ... so there is a similarity there...... but again too, your poker winnings on any particular hand is not dependent on how good or bad your m opponent is, unlike BKR

Pedro Martínez: You see?

I can play in "rookie games" and make just as much in chips as i can in a game against a good player....but with BKR, that is not true, I cannot play all poor players all day and make the same BKR progress per win as I can with a quality player.

Pedro Martínez: Good point.

What's to stop people from doing what has been talked about already on this board? (giving chips if someone gives someone else a membership)

I imagine most people, if they know it is not considered correct behavior, wouldn't do it. But we all know there are people who would find a way to do it anyways.

Pedro Martínez: Well, I see your point, but I dont necessarily consider the amount of chips a person has, as an indicator of how good a poker player they are?

Also, like I said before, there is no "ranking" in poker, except for maybe in tournaments, but in normal play, unlike BKR, the amount of chips I win is not dependent, in part, on how good my opponent is, we all start equal every new hand.

But, now that I think of it, if you do want to have the amount of chips a person has actually represent some sort of evidence of how good a poker player they are, then maybe Fencer needs to show us an indication of how many hands we have played to help us out?

We both may have 30k in chips, but If I have done it in 30 hands and you have done it it 300 hands and someone else has done it in 3000 hands, it all matters, no?

Czuch: I don't see any difference at all. The chip count, as well as the BKR, determines the ranking of players. Buying a considerable amount of chips is, in my opinion, equal to buying a considerable amount of BKR points. If people are allowed to trade poker chips or BKR, the rankings will become useless. When I play the top player of a particular game, I expect that the player has proven himself to have the best results in terms of playing that game, not in trading chips or BKR for whatever else.

Bernice: Yes, but you can also win brains as well, and then turn them in for money(paid memberships)... and I guess too, you could make a brains tournament with two people, both multi niks, and then lose on purpose, but not quite the same as poker , where everyone is given 1000 chips every day, or whatever it is.


Maybe poker needs to be for paying members only then?

Czuch: remember how you got brains.....by spending money, by donating to the site. Poker chips cost nothing moneywise so are worth nothing moneywise.

Pedro Martínez: because there is no possible way, really?

Plus BKR is really very different from poker chips.

It doesnt matter when I play poker against you if I have 10 million chips and you only have 1000, if I win or you win, we both win the same amount.But BKR is different, I may only lose 3 BKR if I lose to you, and stand to make 100 if i win, so there is a big difference right there.