I’m sure you all remember Mister Ed the talking horse, well this game has nothing to do with him, I just liked the photo to start this blog off.
At 1215pm today (Sunday 5th January) Event 2 – $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. will kick off and is one of the most coveted side event championships in the series for the well rounded Poker player.
There will be five disciplines of poker played during the event and they are all limit games.
Limit games are fixed in the betting limits and the bets are referred to as ‘small bet’ and ‘big bet’. For instance the first level has a small blind of 50 and big blind of 100 which makes the ‘small bet’ 100 and the ‘big bet’ double this for 200. Like all other tournaments the blinds and limits increase regularly (40 mins for this event).
Limit Holdem
Played exactly the same way as No Limit Holdem with each player receiving two hole cards – there is a flop, turn and river. Betting is limited to one bet and three raises and this is known as the ‘cap’. Best hand wins – simple.
Omaha 8 or better
Each player receives four cards and the game is played with a flop, turn and river the same as Holdem. You are however, playing for two parts of the ‘Pot’, there is half the pot for the high hand and half for the ‘low’ hand.
The high hand is played as normal – best hand wins.
The Low hand is determined by the lowest five cards from 8 and under. The concept is a little confusing at the start but just know that the best ‘low’ hand (and a pretty good high hand) is a straight form Ace to 5 … you may even ‘scoop’ the pot. (This means you have the best high and low hand)
Razz
This is played as a Stud variant where each player receives two down/hole cards and one up card (visible to all players). Each player will receive a maximum of seven cards to make their best Razz hand. The ‘nuts’ in Razz is A, 2, 3, 4, 5 – a ‘wheel’. In total there will be 4 up cards (visible to all players) and three down cards (with the last, seventh street, being dealt face down).
A couple of other differences are that this game is played with antes, a ‘bring in’ and a ‘completion’ as opposed to blinds. The highest up card is the ‘bring in’ and betting starts to their immediate left. Dealing will always start from seat one (or closest live player to their left) regardless of who is the bring in once all betting is complete for each street.
At showdown the best ‘low’ hand wins – unlike Omaha 8 you do not need to have a 8 or better to qualify.
Seven Card Stud
Dealing for this game is the same, antes, bring in, completion. The lowest up card will be the bring in and the best ‘high’ hand will win the pot – simple right?
Seven Card Stud – 8 or better
Bringing together the high and low into Stud 8 – the lowest up card is still the bring in and play continues with the end result being that the pot may be split between two or more players with ‘high’ hand and ‘low’ hand.
There will be a minimum of 7 hands played of each game, unless tables are eight handed, in this case 8 hands of each. For the final table a minimum of 6 hands of each will be played this simply means once final table has less than 6 players – there will still be six hands of each game until a champion has been determined.
Now you have the basics, get amongst it!
These games do not get enough air time so I will be focussing on this event for today with a few updates on flight 2 for the opening event in between.
The Prince aka The Poker P.I.