5 card draw

The rules of 5 Card Draw are similar to the rules of Holdem. The game is played as follows:

1. A small dealer button identifies one player as the dealer. The dealer button moves one spot clockwise after every hand.
2. Before any cards are dealt, players must post any mandatory bets, known as ‘blinds’ or ‘antes’.
   1. In Draw, the player directly to the left of the dealer must post the ‘small blind’.
   2. The player two spots left of the dealer must post the ‘big blind’.
   3. The small blind is most often smaller than the big blind, usually exactly half.
3. After the mandatory blinds and/or antes are posted, each player is dealt five cards face down.
4. A betting round begins, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind. This player is said to be ‘under the gun’. As in every other form of poker, players can choose to check, fold, bet or call as appropriate throughout the round of betting.
5. After the first round of betting, players have the option of discarding up to 5 cards, and exchanging them for new ones. It is not mandatory that players discard and exchange- it is strictly optional. If a player chooses to keep all of his original cards, this is known as ‘staying’.
6. After each player has discarded and exchanged his desired amount of cards, a second and final round of betting begins. The action starts once again with the player under the gun.
7. Once the final round of betting is complete, any remaining players must show down their hands. As in all other forms of poker, the player with the best five-card poker hand wins the pot. If two players show down identical hands, they must split the pot.
8. Once the pot has been transferred to the winner, the dealer button is moved one spot clockwise, and a new hand may begin.

Omaha poker

Omaha Hi poker, usually known simply as Omaha, is very similar to Texas Holdem. There are two main differences between the games:

1. In Omaha, instead of receiving only two hole cards, each player receives four.
2. In Omaha, players must use exactly two of their hole cards in combination with three community cards to make their five-card poker hand.

Structurally, Omaha is pretty much the same game as Holdem. Let’s take a look at the rules:

1. A small dealer button identifies one player as the dealer. The dealer button moves clockwise around the table, and is passed at the end of every hand.
2. All blinds, antes or other required bets must be put into the pot before any cards are dealt. In Omaha.
   1. The player directly to the left of the dealer posts the small blind.
   2. The player two spots to the left of the dealer posts the big blind.
   3. Generally, the small blind is half the size of the big blind.
3. After the required bets have been placed, four hole cards are dealt face down to each player. A betting round begins, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind. This player is said to be ‘under the gun’.
4. Once betting has completed in the first round, three community cards are dealt face up, for all players to use. A second betting round follows the deal, beginning with the player in the small blind. This betting round is known as the ‘flop’, or ‘Third Street’.
5. Once betting has completed on the flop, one community card is dealt face up, for all players to use. A third betting round follows the deal, beginning again with the player in the small blind. This betting round is known as the ‘turn’, or ‘Fourth Street’.
6. Once betting has completed on the turn, a final community card is dealt face up, for all players to use. A fourth and final betting round follows the deal, beginning once more with the player in the small blind. This betting round is known as the ‘river’, or ‘Fifth Street’.
7. Once all betting is complete on the river, any players remaining in the hand must show down their cards. All players still involved must compare their five-card poker hands. The pot is handed over to the player with the highest ranked hand.

Omaha Hi-Lo (Omaha 8):

Omaha Hi-Lo, usually known as Omaha 8, is structurally the exact same game as Omaha Hi. There is, however, one fundamental difference:

1. In Omaha 8, players can aim to make either the best high poker hand, or the best low poker hand. In the case that one player shows down a winning high hand, and the other shows down a winning low hand, the two players split the pot. In order to win the full pot at showdown, a player must have both the best high and low hand, or there must be no low hand in play.

Poker Pro Alan Goehring

There are two basic types of big-money tournament players in the poker world: those who play for the money, and those who play for fun. You can safely file Alan Goehring away in the latter category. The Henderson, NV, resident is a retired junk bond analyst and trader who doesn’t need the big cash that major tournament prize pools offer in order to live. For Goehring, competition is the big draw. For the last 7 years Goehring has been playing in big events on the poker tournament circuit. While one could call him a professional player, that would imply that he lived off his earnings from poker tournaments. He’s more like Paul Phillips than Chip Jett - comfortable thanks to his previous career, he now pursues the game of poker as an intellectual challenge.

Goehring’s tournament record is an impressive one. His first major cash came in the $3,000 no-limit hold’em event at the 1997 World Series Of Poker, which featured 217 entrants and other accomplished money finishers such as Kathy Liebert, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Dan Harrington, and Bill Gazes. His next cash also came at the WSOP, when he finished 13th in a field of 112 at the $5,000 no-limit hold’em event of the 1998 WSOP. It wasn’t until the 1999 WSOP, though, that Goehring truly gained a reputation as a great player. That year he finished 2nd in the $10,000 Main Event to Ireland’s Noel Furlong. His runner-up position was good enough for over $768,000 in winnings.

Though he had proven his mettle, Goehring gained a reputation as someone who couldn’t win the big tournaments. While he made final tables regularly, he didn’t have any major wins to his credit. That all changed in 2003 when the  broke onto the scene. At the inaugural WPT Championship at Bellagio, Goehring bested the entire 111-man field to take home over $1 million in prize money. He also outlasted a tough final table that included the likes of Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Ted Forrest, and his heads-up opponent, Kirill Gerasimov. Goehring could no longer be considered an also-ran - he was now officially a champion.

After Goehring’s big win at Bellagio, it would be another three years before he would claim another major title. There may have been plenty of doubters, but with the WPT title under his belt Goehring had plenty of status in the poker world. In the meantime, he had good showings at a variety of tournaments on the circuit. In 2004, he took home over $375,000 with top-20 finishes in four different WPT events and a 2nd-place finish in a preliminary event at the Five-Star World Classic at Bellagio in December. 2005 was also a solid year for Goehring. He cashed in three WPT main events, including a final table at the Grand Prix de Paris, and also cashed three times at the WSOP. That marked the first money he’d won at the marquee poker event since his 2nd place finish in the 1999 Main Event. In all, he took home over $257,000 in winnings over the course of 2005.

In early 2006 Goehring finally broke his winless streak at the LA Poker Classic and took home nearly $2.4 million. His win was truly a wire-to-wire performance - he finished in the top 5 for the first five days of the tournament. His victory catapulted him to 12th on the all-time money list and 4th on the WPT all-time list, and brought him near the $5 million mark in career earnings. That’s not too bad for a guy who only plays big tournaments for fun - and not for the money.

Poker Positions and Why they Matter

Types of Poker Players

What type of poker player are you?  What type of poker player are your opponents?  If you can’t answer those two questions, you’re missing a key component of your game.  Poker players are generally classified by two attributes - tight or loose and aggressive or passive.  These combine to create the four main player types:

• Tight-Aggressive
• Tight-Passive
• Loose-Aggressive
• Lose-Passive

The Rules of Texas Hold ‘em

Texas Hold ‘em is one of the easiest games to learn.  A hand of Hold ‘em starts with the placing of the blind bets.  There is a small blind and a big blind, which is typically double the size of the small blind.  The small blind is placed by the player to the direct left of the dealer and the big blind is placed by the player to the right of the dealer.

After the blinds have been placed, each player is dealt two cards face down.  These are called the hole cards.  Any player can look at their cards at any time.  The first round of betting begins with the player to the left of the big blind.  This player may call the big blind, raise the big blind, or fold.  Betting continues clockwise around the tab le until every player has called or folded.

After the first betting round ends, three cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table.  These three cards are called the flop.  They are community cards and can be used by any player at the table along with their hole cards to make up a hand. Once the flop is laid out, another betting round begins.  This time the betting begins with the first person to the left of the dealer that is still in the check (which means they don’t bet, but they don’t fold), bet, or call, raise, fold, or they may check as well if the player before them has also checked.  Once someone bets all other players must either call, raise or fold.  You can’t check once someone else has bet.

Once the second betting round has finished, one card is dealt face-up next to the flop.  This card is called the turn; this is another community card and can be used by any player at the table.

After the turn card has been dealt, another betting round begins.  It is played out in exactly the same manner as the betting round that followed the flop.

After the third betting round is finished, one final card is dealt face-up next to the turn card.  This card is called the river.

After the river card is dealt, the final betting round begins.  It is played out the same way as the betting rounds that followed the flop and the turn.  After all players have bet or folded, any players still in the hand reveal their cards in the showdown.  The player that makes the best five-card hand out, of their two hole cards and the five community cards wins the pot.  After the post has been paid out, the dealer rotates one position to the left.  The blinds are placed again, and another hand is dealt out.

Hold ‘em can be played with a set limit or no-limit betting.  In set limit there are actually two limits set.  For example, the limits could be $1/$2.  In this game, the big blind would be $1 and the small blind would be 50 cents.  The minimum bet during the first two betting rounds is $1.  During the third and final betting rounds, the minimum bet is $2.  Betting increments must be made the same size as the minimum bet.

In no limit, a player can bet all of their chips at any time.  However, a player can only lose all of their chips if they are in a showdown with a player who has an equal number or more chips.  If you go all-in with $100 and another player goes all-in with $75, the most you can lose is $75.

What is Rakeback?

Rake is how poker rooms make money.

To understand what is rakeback, you must first learn how poker rooms make profit by charging rake from all real money players. Rake is the only way for poker rooms to make money, since unlike with other casino games, in poker the players are wagering money against other players and not against the house. Think of rake as a small entry fee taken by the poker room for organizing the games.

Poker players do not directly lose any money to the poker room, but the room is steadily raking in micro payments from every cash game pot and tournament entry. The proportion of rake taken online is roughly the same 5% of pot size as in brick and mortar casinos, and depending from stakes it can be anywhere from one cent to five dollars.
Rakeback is a refund of rake

Rakeback is a way for you to save on poker rake costs. By creating your new online poker room accounts through Rakeback.com you will save on average 30% of any rake you pay. Once your poker account is registered in Rakeback.com system, we can keep track of all rake you pay to the poker room. And based on revenue share agreement made between the poker room and Rakeback.com, we are able to credit your poker account with rakeback payments of your rake. Rakeback is typically paid once per calendar month, directly back to your poker account.

Please try the Rakeback Calculator tool to see an estimate of how much rake you are currently paying, and how big your savings could be if you were using rakeback.
How your rake is calculated

Some online poker rooms display the total amount of rake taken from a pot, but none show what your individual rake contribution has been. For accounting purposes however your personal rake is recorded in the poker room backend, and rakeback is based on these rake reports. There are two main ways that poker rooms use to calculate your individual rake contribution: shared and contributed.

In the shared method, rake is divided evenly among all players that were dealt cards. For example if there are ten players sitting at the table and total rake is $1, each player would be assigned 10 cents of rake.

In the contributed method, players must contribute money to the pot to get assigned rake. The rake a player gets credited with is proportionate to the amount of his/her pot contribution. If you were to contribute $50 to a pot of $150 and the total rake taken was $3, you would be assigned $1 rake.

Interview With Freddy Deeb

Originally forced into pro poker by financial difficulty, Freddy Deeb morphed circumstance into opportunity - and more than $3 million in career winnings. THP caught up with him in the Caribbean to chat about this unusual start, his famous lucky shirt and the banning of online poker.

How did you first get started playing poker?

“Well I came here to go to school in 1975, and I had a student visa. About one year after I came here, a civil war broke out in Lebanon. And, slowly businesses got screwed up, and everything got a little messed up with the infrastructure. So, it was really hard to get on the phone for a while. And, I lost touch with my parents, and I had no money. I couldn’t go to school. I was on a student visa, so I couldn’t get a job.”

And you couldn’t go back to Lebanon either?

“I could just go to immigration and deport myself, but I didn’t want to do that because I didn’t want to get involved in the war. In the meantime, while I was going to school on the weekends in Utah, there were a couple of casinos on the border between Utah and Nevada in a small town called Wendover. So it was an easy drive. We used to go on the weekends and just party over there and gamble a little bit - blackjack or poker. I couldn’t work, so I tried playing poker.”

What do you think your biggest mistakes were in the beginning?

“Playing casino games or playing any games that have nothing to do with poker. It’s like you want to be a professional basketball player, you can’t go play soccer and be successful at it or famous at it. The biggest mistakes I made were playing the casino games.”

What got you the worst?

“Dice and baccarat. I didn’t like blackjack. It’s funny because when I played blackjack I could bet $100 and my mouth would get dry and I feel like I’m nervous. I swear I just don’t like the game because I don’t have control of the cards. I don’t have control of the betting, you know?”

When did you become a pro?

“It’s been since 1980. I was always a pro because I was making a living out of it; I just never considered myself to be a pro. But to think about it, I was a pro as soon as I started playing. I was always comfortable doing it, and I never had any intentions of going and getting another job. Because here I am waking up whenever I want to wake up, going to work - which is go to play - and winning money on a long-term basis all the time. I mean, I’d have to find some fluky job that doesn’t need a lot of work but pays a lot of money. I don’t know what that could be.”

What did your family think?

“I was hiding it from my family, just avoiding having to explain something that’s not easily explained to these people that have never heard of it. They just don’t get it. They’re going to say, ‘Bullshit, you don’t make any money playing poker. That’s just a story. You must sell drugs or something.’ They don’t understand that. Before the television, you couldn’t just go up to normal working people and say, ‘I haven’t worked in 15 years. I’m just playing poker, making money. I’ve got this house, this car. I just screwed up and lost $15,000 in the casino yesterday.’ It’s beyond imagination.”

So you hid your career from your parents?

“If Americans couldn’t understand, then in the Middle East they would not approve. Gambling is not so popular there. I mean we had a casino there, but it’s like 50 or 60 years ago when people played poker and they had to go play underground in hiding. Nobody approved of it.”

How did you break the news?

“I really started making serious money at the game in 1986. Before I was making expenses, had a nice car, had a nice place, helped my parents with whatever I could. But in 1986 they legalized holdem in California, and the poker business in California boomed like in America now. There were so many people who had no clue what they were doing. I would love to have the California days even more than these days. That’s how good it was because it was on a cash-game basis. I’m telling you, it was like picking money off a tree.”

Did your parents ask where all this money was coming from?

“Every month I’d send them some money. If somebody wanted to get married, I sent them $5,000. Or somebody wanted to fix his house I’d send them $3,000. Somebody needed a car to go to work; I’d send them about $3,000. I helped about 40 or 50 people in the family. So one day I said to my father, ‘Why don’t you get a visa and come to America and visit? It’s beautiful, you know.’ At the time I was living in Long Beach, right on the beach. So I paid for his plane, and he flew over. After 10 days he says to me, ‘I’m worried. I’ve been watching, and everything seems to be quiet. I know you leave the house maybe once in a while in the evening for a couple of hours. You make too much fucking money. I mean what kind of business do you make this money in? It must be illegal.’ So, the next day at lunchtime, we’re driving down to the club and we pull up in the valet. We park the car and walk in and I said, ‘You know what this is?’ And he said, ‘Yeah you think I’m an idiot or something? It’s a casino.’ I said, ‘Okay, let me ask you a question now. You see that guy that just walked through that door? If he’s got $20,000 in his pocket and he’s coming here to lose it, you think he’s going to lose it whether I’m here or not?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t go to school. And, I’m good enough to get it. Let me get it.’”

Speaking of making money, you’ve said that cash games are more dependable than tournaments? How do you balance those out?

“Cash games, that’s where the money comes from. Tournaments are nice once in a while, and if you get lucky and hit one, it’s a bonus. Winning a tournament now is like winning five tournaments in the old days or maybe more.”

Is it harder to place in those tournaments than it used to be?

“The only thing hard about it is the long hours for a couple of days. Sometimes you get bored, but it’s worth it when you win. It’s worth it when you put in the time and the patience.”

Do you think you’ll be able to nail down a win in the World Series?

“Oh yeah, because even if you don’t win, even if you come in on the final table, you make enough money to cover all of your expenses for all the tournaments. Even if you come in sixth or seventh, you get $150,000, which is enough to cover all the balances for the World Series put together. So if you make the final table twice, you’re definitely going to make a profit. Even once.”

With so many random people winning the WSOP, do you think the bracelet is as validating as it used to be as far as getting respect as a pro?

“Oh yeah, it’s more so now than before. The bracelets really mean something. Before I didn’t care about winning a bracelet. I was looking for the cash, not the title. Now the title means more than the cash because you can get endorsements. That’s how it is now. It’s just not easy. You have a field of 9,000 players. A lot of pros will make it down there and play hard, but when you get to that final table, it seems like you’re sitting there with millions, but really all you have is enough money to play one hand. I guarantee you - and I know they’re not going to do this - but when you’re down to the last 40 or 50 players, give everybody whatever the average amount of chips is and let the blinds stay the same, then see if one of the newcomers can win it. It’s impossible. I’ll definitely tell you, a pro will win it 100 percent of the time. There was $90 million this year in the pool. So, when you’re down to six players the average is $15 million and you’re playing $100,000 or $200,000 blinds. Every time you open the pot, you have to open for $700,000 or $800,000 - almost 10 percent of your stack. If you get raised, you can’t just call it. You’re either going to call all of them or throw your hand away. So there’s still a lot of luck down there.”

Tell me about your famous lucky shirt.

“There was this time I beat Phil Ivey, and he normally doesn’t say much. That time he said, ‘It must be your lucky shirt.’ It was a white shirt with red blocks in it, kind of flowery looking. So, I said, ‘Tomorrow if I win, I’ll give it to you to wear.’ And he said ‘I wouldn’t wear it.’ A lot of people out there watching the television started picking on my shirt - they all had their opinion. And most of them out there really liked the shirt, and now wherever I’m at, people say, ‘Where’s that lucky shirt? I’ll wear it, too.’ I should make my own shirts, and put that in the market.”

How long have you been a U.S. citizen?

“Since about 1989.”

What do you think of your adopted government banning online poker?

“I think they’re crazy for doing that. I mean, I can’t believe it’s been so long. There are poker sites making billions. There could be taxes for them. They could be making billions of dollars. But instead they’re just letting it go. I have no clue what they’re thinking.”

Has it affected you endorsements?

“Well I was working with Ultimate Bet for a while and now I don’t know what’s going to happen because of the online poker and everything. The poker sites were making a lot of money. I was getting big offers from different sites to go to them for promoting, but now we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Do you have any forecast for the future?

“Five years ago, before the television, they could have probably stopped it. And it would have worked, but now it’s impossible to stop it anyway. Because now everybody wants to play poker. There are so many poker games in bars, businesses and restaurants. Everyone is playing poker. So they might as well legalize it and get the tax off of it. A lot of people are not happy about it. I can’t believe they won’t legalize it. I bet you there are a few people in the White House who are playing right now. I’d like to bet money on it.”

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