best online poker rules

Now, despite these arguments, one must frequently raise early in a stud game. Following are some of the reasons for an early raise:

1. Assuming that you will soon be spotted as a tight player,
the other players will figure you for an ace or a pair anyway.
You might as well make them pay to stay around with you, and
furthermore a policy of raising will open the way to a number
of bluffs that will steal small pots at the beginning. Further
more, since you are known to play conservatively, an early raise
on a pair will put you in a very good position later if you hap
pen to catch a showing ace. A higher pair than yours may very
well fold.

2. If you are in good position (last man from the high hand)
you may sometimes raise on the third card (the second upcard)
to give yourself a free ride on the fourth card (the third upcard).
After your early raise, everyone may check to you the next time
and you can see your last card free. No doubt you would have
had to call at least the minimum bet anyway, to see that last
card, and you might have been confronted with one or more
raises.

3. Occasionally when you have the second-best hand you may raise to drive the best hand out. This is a first-round raise. An ace that is forced high will not infrequently drop. If a couple of hands with small cards showing have stayed in against the ace, your raise on such a combination as K-Q may drive the ace out and leave you with a better chance to make a higher pair than either of the other players.

In all these cases a primary object is to vary your game. There are two basic ways to keep the opponents guessing in poker. One is to play different kinds of hands in the same way; the other is to play the same kind of hand in different ways. If you are going to play only good hands in stud poker, then you have to play them in different ways so that you cannot be too easily figured.

There is one general exception to the principle of early raising. If the game is wide open, in which the other players bet and raise very freely, there is seldom an occasion for you to raise early. On every round, someone else is pretty sure to bet. The pot will be built up without your help. You might just as well wait until the end and make pretty sure you are going to win before you start putting unnecessary chips into the pot.

The play of an open pair. When you have the only open pair, every other player in the game is at a great disadvantage. You may have a cinch high at the moment and if so it is pretty sure to stand up. Therefore the policy among most stud players is always to bet the maximum on an open pair and make the opponents pay through the nose if they want to try to draw out on it.

In most fairly good stud games, no one is going to stay against an open pair unless he has a higher pair or unless (on the next-to-last card) he has a straight or flush possibility. Even the straight or flush possibility is a pretty bad gamble unless the pot is already big; the pot should offer 5 to 1 odds unless at least three cards in the possible straight or flush are over the showing pair, and even then the pot should offer at least 4 to 1 odds.

In general, I subscribe to the idea of betting the maximum on the open pair, because only such a policy can maintain your chance of making a real killing when you actually do have three of a kind or two pair at the time your open pair shows. Nevertheless, discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. If you know there are likely to be a couple of higher pairs out (and sometimes you can tell this from the previous action) and if you know you aren't going to scare anybody out, you are simply betting a losing hand. If the other players are of the kind who will freely bet or raise on their higher pairs against your open pair, you are risking the loss of a considerable amount of money. In such cases it is no disgrace even to check the open pair; it is stubbornness never to do so. And, of course, you can still mix up your game by checking occasionally when the open pair has actually given you a cinch hand.

In any event, you are under no obligation to bet the open pair on the last round. That is usually the time when you bet only when you do have the winning hand and when you figure the other players to be too smart to bet into you.

As for playing against an open pair: You know, of course, that it is always dangerous. I am speaking only of the times when you have a higher pair, concealed of course. Only a losing player bets because he has a number of "over" cards which if paired will beat the showing pair. Except as a bluff, such hands should be dropped. In most cases, the higher pair must not be dropped, but it is losing play to raise on it. The only time you raise is when you are alone with the open pair, you have a lower limit before the last card, and you want to coax the open pair into checking to you on the last card. A bet by the only pair on the last round puts every other player on a terrible spot. There are few more effective bluffs against good players, because everyone knows that when a tight player gets a pair showing there is a very good chance that he has two pair or better.

Watching other cards. It takes a pretty good stud player to watch all the cards and draw the proper conclusions from them. Every player, however, can watch for the cards that most affect his hand. Sometimes simple observation leads you to some valuable conclusions. Suppose you have neither the temparament nor the aptitude for concentration to watch and remember every card, but you have observed the cards in general and have noticed that a lot of spades have shown. If you have a doubtful play on a spade four-flush for the last card, this observation will cause you to drop fast. If you have noticed an absence of showing spades, the fact might persuade you to stay in on the four-flush when otherwise you might have dropped it.

Much more important is to watch every card that pairs one of your cards. The appearance of those cards has a tremendous effect on your chances. For example, if you have an ace in the hole and no other ace has shown, the odds are 4 to 1 against your pairing it eventually; if one ace has shown, the odds go up to more than 6 to 1 against you. If two other aces have shown, for all practical purposes your ace is valueless except as a high card.

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