Category: Games

Texas Hold’em usually starts with two players and may end up in ten or more. First, the players place initial bets, or post the blinds. This is a standard poker game and so there are 52 cards shuffled in the deck. The dealer begins shuffling and doles out two cards per player with the faces down. These are the pocket cards or hole.

Since the round goes counterclockwise the “pre-flop” begins from the player on the left of the dealer to the right. There are several options that a player can bet depending on the “game limit”. He can choose the fixed limit, the pot limit, the spread limit and the no limit. The spread limit is a bet system wherein the player is given an option on a certain range of money (between $1 to $5 for instance) and the pot limit is a system wherein the player can choose a certain amount between the blind and the pot size.

After betting, players will choose whether they will fold, check or raise their bets. The dealer makes sure that the cards are secure from cheating by taking away the burn card (the top card on his deck). Then the “flop” begins.

The flop will determine whether a player will end up with a winning poker hand. The dealer gets three cards from the deck and lays them on the table with their faces up. The players will then pick up any card to match their hole that will be used to round up the poker hand.

Then the “turn” follows. After the players have chosen from the flop the next betting round will begin. The dealer will burn another top card and the players will choose their cards to round up the five-card hand poker.

Players will make another set of bets starting clockwise, sometimes double the amount. For the third time, the dealer will burn and flip a card.  It is known as the “river” or the “fifth street”. When the players have picked their cards to complete the five cards of a poker hand, they will make bets for the last time.

Then clockwise again from the dealer, each player will reveal their cards in what is called the “showdown”. Eventually the player who revealed the best cards wins.

How to tell who beats whom? The ranking of winning poker hands go as follows: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four-of-a-Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three-of-a-Kind, Two Pair, One Pair and a High Card. Usually when the players have a tie they can split the pots.

A Royal Flush beats all the other hands because it is a straight Ace of one suit (diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs). It is followed by Straight Flush which is a straight of an entire suit; Four of a Kind or Quads is four cards with similar ranks (e.g. four Kings); Full House is three cards of the same rank and one pair; Flush is an entire poker hand of similar suit (but not necessarily in order); Straight or Run are cards following a sequence of ranks (but not necessarily of the same suit); Three of a Kind or Set is just three cards having the same rank; Two Pair is a two sets of cards with similar ranks; One Pair is one set of card with similar ranks and when you have none of the hands mentioned here your highest card will determine your poker hand. Usually for hands that have leftovers such as four-of-a-kind, three-of-a-kind, etc., the kickers determine who wins the game if they have similar poker hands.

In Texas Hold’em your win depends largely on your knowledge of your odds. The more you know about the probability factor the higher your chances of winning. Lots of players will tell you this card game is quite easy to play but it takes a long time and a great deal of mastery in the calculation of odds before you can rake in the wins.

It is important to strategize even from the beginning. At the pre-flop, consider the following: The more the players, the harder it will be to compete. You can take advantage of playing a tight game if you notice that some players are betting aggressively. If your bankroll is small, you’ll want to bet in games with big pots but you cannot play in tight games that give high-payouts. Your position in Texas Hold’em also influences your win – if you are the dealer you can manipulate the pot size and gain upper hand.

Perhaps one of the exciting aspects of poker is the bluffing since one player can fool the other players into believing he is on a good position when the opposite is true. This is where the term “poker face” originated. Generally it is difficult to bluff with veteran poker players so you should know your opponents, even if you think few people are easier to fool than a crowd.

Intuition plays a great role in poker. You cannot bluff when you know that there are tight players who would not fold even when the stakes are high. You can sense a lot of player information by the kind of bets he makes and whether he raises, checks or folds. Only the seasoned players know how to bluff and bet as they wish, even if they have poor poker hands.

The lure of online Texas Hold’em comes from the fact that it is difficult to hack since poker software have encryption systems. Because of this, Texas Hold’em Poker remains to be the most popular poker game today.

Set it on the table, lay down the pieces and roll the dice. Board games are one of the most enchanting games in the world since time immemorial. Kingdoms and dynasties have participated in these games of mental strategy involving only a few specialized pieces and a flat picture board. People have in fact made careers out of playing chess. A man named Charles Darrow even became a millionaire when he invented the ever-fascinating game of Monopoly! Board games are great as family entertainment and as part of tournaments. They simulate the real world and also test your mental skill and strategy.

Here’s a list of various types of board games and puzzles.

Two-Player Abstract Games

These games may either be classic or modern. The most popular classic abstract games are the Chess and Checkers.

Chess is a direct descendant of an ancient Indian game called Chaturanga. There are 64 alternate squares and 8 ranks; both players possess a set of pawns, rooks, horses, bishops, a King and a Queen. The goal of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s King so that there is no other way to escape and the game is over. The funny thing about chess is that though there are only 64 squares in the whole expanse of the board, the number of possible outcomes out of a particular game is greater than all the atoms in this universe combined!

Draughts, also known as Checkers (with many variations such as the Russian, Brazilian and Spanish pool checkers) is played by jumping one piece over another until the opponent’s pieces have been captured out. Players can only move diagonally on the dark squares. The object of the game is to capture as many pieces belonging to the opponents until there is no more pieces left to make a move.

The Amazons is like the Go game and looks a lot like Chess but is played in a wholly different way. The outcome of the game depends on which player has the last move. It is because the object of the game is to shoot as many arrows so that the opponent’s (Amazon) queen will not be able to move and the territory will either enlarge or be confined to a small space. The player with the biggest territory usually wins the game.

Havannah is another modern strategy game that is similar to TwixT and Hex (Connection Games). It is played on a hexagonal board with stones. The object of the game here is to be able to complete shapes of winning combinations in the form of a ring, a fork or a bridge.

The Three Musketeers is a fun game invented by Haar Hoolim. Players can only move the pieces orthogonally on empty spaces. The goal of this game is that in order for the opponent to win he must force the Three Musketeers to fall on the same straight row. For the Musketeers to win they must still be able to move when there is an empty space before them unoccupied by the opponent and they are still not standing on the same row altogether.

Backgammon is a famous game of chance that was thought to be the oldest game recorded in the history of the world (then known by the ancient Romans as Tabula). Today Backgammon is being played as a gambling game, sometimes even in casinos (Chouettes). The object of Backgammon is to be the first to get the checkers or “men” off the board. Players must roll the dice and move the fifteen checkers on the 24 points (the triangles) past their enemy’s checkers. Backgammon is a simple game that entails strategy.

Puzzles

If you like brain teasers then puzzles are the perfect games for you. Puzzles are made to test your logic and mathematical skills. They have been enjoyed by people thousands of years ago and hundreds of variations have been invented today. Some of the most popular ones are the Jigsaw and the Whodunit.

Many find jigsaw puzzles a great hobby and a material for collection. Behind every completion of a jigsaw puzzle is a picture. Each piece of the puzzle is peculiar in shape and must interlock another piece. Although the completed pictures in most jigsaw puzzles are scenes from nature and children’s fairy tales, some have even carved porn star images out of them!

Crosswords are puzzles that can be seen anywhere. Some connoisseurs have devised the most elaborate crosswords and have published books that contain the most possible answers to the world’s most difficult crossword clues. The object of a crossword puzzle is to fill in the empty squares with a designated clue number and the words may either be spelled Across or Down.

Whodunits were popularized by many British mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Nicholas Blake but had their equivalent in the Unites States in the form of crime fiction and film noirs. A Whodunit is a mystery/detective story in which the author provides clues for the reader to figure out who the perpetrator of the crime is in the end. Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) is a popular Whodunit figure in literary history.

One of my favorites is the puzzle of the Rubik’s Cube. This is an utterly simple game but can be very deceitful. It may be prearranged as a block made of 26 sub-cubes of different colors that can be rotated on from a kernel (axis) inside of the cube. The goal is to keep on rotating the cubes until each facet which is comprised of nine sub-cubes is of the same color. Because of the fascination of many people on it the Rubik’s Cube is considered to be the biggest-selling puzzle toy in the world.

The benefits of playing puzzles and board games are countless. Whatever kind of game you wish to play, it’s a sure sign that you’re not only enjoying, but you’re honing your mental strategy and logical skills as well.