Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
55. Red and Black
55. Red and Black In this game the cards of the deck are assigned an arbitrary numerical value as follows: king, queen, jack, ten, 10 points each; 1 point for the ace; and all other cards, their face or pip value. In figuring the value of the hand, the point counts of the cards are totaled. All cards in a red suit count their real value, but all cards in a black suit count a minus value. In a hand containing both red and black suits, one is subtracted from the other. Example: The point total for a hand containing king of clubs, jack of hearts, seven of spades, three of clubs, and two of diamonds would be a minus 8.
In actual play, after an agreed ante has been made by all players,
In actual play, after an agreed ante has been made by all players, each receives five cards, face down, one by one, in a clockwise rotation. There is an opening round of betting, followed by the draw. All active players have the option of taking one to three cards or not taking any cards at all. There is then a final round of betting and the showdown. The highest point count and the lowest point count divide the pot. It often happens that nobody in the game has a minus count; then the smallest number of plus points wins low, while the largest number of plus points wins high. Conversely, if nobody has a plus count, the smallest number of minus points wins high, and the largest minus figure wins low.