BigHoldem

This page allows you to play Texas Hold'em (or simply Holdem) Poker.

You do not win money, but neither lose, and no registration is required. The only information required, if you play in the interactive way, is an identifier, that can be of pure fantasy, needed to compile the rankings of the game.

The number of players can vary from 2 up to a maximum of 10. 10 is the default.

At the beginning of each game, each player has a stack of chips from which to draw for betting and raising.

Each game is divided into hands, each of which is subdivided in four phases.

1. • PREFLOP

     A player acts as dealer. The dealer shuffles the cards of a deck of 52 French cards.

     In the first hand the dealer is chosen randomly. In later hands the player left of the dealer will be the new dealer.

     Before any cards are dealt, if the user sets the checkbox ante in the setup section, each player must pay to the pot a chip with the minimum value. Then the player left of the dealer must post the small blind, that is, put in the pot a chip with the minimum value, and the player to his left must post the big blind, that is, an amount double of the small blind.

     The dealer distributes two cards to each player. Each player can see only his cards.

     Each player, starting from the left of those who posted the big blind, based on his two cards, evaluate the probability of winning the hand.

     If a player believes it has a good chance of winning and if he has enough money, can play the hand saying "CALL" and puts in the pot an amount equal to the big blind; otherwise he says "FOLD" and is excluded from the hand.

     The player who posted the small blind, if he accepts the hand, must cover the difference between big blind and small blind.

     If a player believes he has a very good chance of winning the hand, besides the big blind, may, by declaring "RAISE", increase the value of the bet by adding to the pot, in addition to the big blind, an additional amount.

     If this happens, all the other players, starting from that on his left, must pay the big blind plus the raise, otherwise they are excluded from the hand.

     If no player accepts the raise, who raised wins the pot and the hand ends.

     A player can raise even though he has cards with very little chance of winning, in order to convince opponents to fold and win the pot. This behavior is called bluff.

     In addition to accepting the raise, each player in turn may raise, forcing other players, starting with that on his left, to cover the raise, if they do not want to be excluded from the hand.

     Every raise can not be greater than the stack held by the player.

     The maximum number of raises per phase is 3 by default, but can be changed before the game and may be unlimited, using the setup of the game.

     If, at the end of this phase of the game, only one player is left in the game, he wins the pot and the hand ends. If the number of hands has not reached the predetermined number or game time has not exceeded the predetermined time, another hand begins.

     Otherwise the players begin the second phase of the hand.

2. • FLOP

     The dealer places three cards face-up on the table. These are the community cards.

     Each player, starting with that who posted the small blind, evaluates the rank given by the combination of his two hidden cards and the three community cards and the probability of winning the hand.

     If the player who made the small blind believes he has a good chance of winning an if he has enough money, he can bet on his cards by adding to the pot a certain amount of money, usually proportional to the estimated odds of winning. In this case he says "BET" and the amount of the bet.

     The same player may renounce its right to bet and pass it to the player on his left, saying "CHECK". The player on his left can also bet or check, and so on.

     If no one bets, the hand proceeds to the next phase of TURN.

     If on the contrary somebody makes a bet, the other players, always in clockwise order, may accept the bet saying "CALL" and by putting in the pot the same amount of money; otherwise, they say "FOLD" and are excluded from the hand.

     If no one accepts the bet, the player who bet wins the pot and the hand ends.

     As in the previous phase of PREFLOP, if a player believes he has a very good chance of winning the hand or wants to bluff, he may increase the amount of the bet by declaring "RAISE" and putting other money in the pot, in addition to that of the bet.

     If this happens, all the other players, starting from that on his left, must pay the bet plus the raise, otherwise they are excluded from the hand.

     If no player accepts the raise, who raised wins the pot and the hand ends. Otherwise the hand proceeds to the next phase of TURN.

3. • TURN

     The dealer adds a fourth card to the community cards.

     Each player evaluates the possible combinations of five cards can be obtained from the set of all of the six cards consisting of the four community cards and his two hidden cards and evaluate the best chance of winning.

     As in the previous phase, the player who made the small blind can bet or check and the other players can call, raise or fold.

     If no one bets, the hand proceeds to the next phase of RIVER.

     If a bet or a raise is not paid by any of the remaining players, who made the bet or raise wins the pot and the hand ends.

     Otherwise, the players who have completely equalized any bet or raise play the next step.

4. • RIVER

     The dealer adds a fifth card to the community cards.

     Each player evaluates the possible combinations of five cards can be obtained from the set of all of the seven cards consisting of the five community cards and his two hidden cards and evaluate the best chance of winning.

     As in the previous phase, the player who made the small blind can bet or check and the other players an call, raise or fold.

     If there are bets and raises and if a bet or a raise is not paid by any of the remaining players, who made the bet or raise wins the pot and the hand ends.

     Otherwise, the players who have completely equalized any bet or raise compare their ranks showing their two hidden cards.

     The player who obtains the combination with the highest rank wins the pot accumulated during the hand; players without the money needed to play another hand, are eliminated.

When a hand is finished, players, who have not been eliminated, begin the next hand and so on until the end of the game conditions occur.

To start playing click the button Game.

 

setup

Before you start playing with BigHoldem, you may change the setup of the game and determine how many players begin to play, the maximum number of hands in a game, the maximum duration of a game, etc..

All this information can be accessed and possibly modified by using the setup section of the form, that shows an interface composed of editing fields and checkboxes whose meaning is intuitive.

In particular, in the interactive game, setting the checkbox probability, the player is informed of the odds of his hand, calculated by the simulation of hundreds of thousands of hands.

 

Simulated game

If the name field or the setup section is empty, the user watches a game played by players all simulated by the software.

 

Dealer

The dealer is the player who has the deck and deals the cards in each hand to all players remaining in the game, one at a time, starting with the one on his left and continuing clockwise until each player has received two cards and then put on the table the community cards.

As the first player that must place a bet is the one on his left, the dealer has the last word, which is a 'strategic' advantage because he can decide its behavior after observing that of all others.

In the next hand the dealer is the first player left of the previous dealer.

 

Dialogues

In the interactive game, every time the user must make a decision on what to do, the form shows buttons, which, activated with the mouse or the keyboard, allow the user to communicate his decision to the program.

The sets of buttons are of three types:

• Bet, with the choices BET, CHECK, FOLD.
• Response to a bet with the choices CALL, RAISE, FOLD.
• Chips. Show buttons representing the available chips. Clicking on a button several times the sum increases. If the bet is not allowed, click reset and start over.

 

Elimination

When, at the end of a hand, the stack held by a player is less than twice the minimum bet, so that a player is no longer able to post blinds and bets, the player is eliminated.

When the number of players decreases, the value of the chips increases.

 

Chips

The chips are the coins of different values that each player has to make bets and raises or to accept those proposed by another player.

The value of the chips varies depending on the number of players in the game, and increases when the number of players decreases.

 

Player

The number of players at the start of a game can vary from 2 to 10. The default value is set to 10. To change the default you can use the setup section of the form.

Each player is characterized by the following properties:

• Serial number. Each player has a specific ordinal so that it is possible to determine who precedes him and who follows him in the course of a hand.
• Location. The representation of the cards, of the money and of the decisions of each player is inside a frame of the screen.
• Name. The program assigns each player a default name.
• Mood. The program assigns a random mood to each player, so that the behavior of two different players is not identical in the same situations. Each mood corresponds to a different background color in the frame of the player and can change depending on the luck of the player. In the interactive games the background of the player No 1, which represents the user, is neutral (light gray).

• Stack. Each player has initially an amount of 1000 monetary units with which to make bets or accept bets from other players.

  During the game this amount varies depending on the outcome of the bets. When, at the end of a hand, the amount held by a player is less than twice the minimum bet, so that a player is no longer able to post blinds and bets, the player is eliminated.

  In this implementation of the game, a player can accept bets made by another player even if it does not have the corresponding money. In this case he is ALL-INand if he does not win the hand, is eliminated at the end of the hand. Otherwise he can take from the pot only the money he has paid for.

• Visibility. In a simulated game the user can see all players' cards, because he is a curious spectator who wants to see how the players play and the evolution of their fortunes. In a interactive game the user sees only the cards of the player No.1, which represents himself; the other players' cards will become visible only at the end of hand if there is the showdown and the comparison between ranks.

The simulated players make their decisions by referring to data in a database. In the interactive game, the player's No.1 decisions are taken by the user with an appropriate dialogue.

 

Game

The setup section of the page BigHoldem allows two different ways to use the game:

• Interactive game
• Simulation

 

Interactive game

The interactive game takes place with the participation of the user who controls the behavior of the player No 1, if the field name of the setup section contains characters that are interpreted as the user's name.

In this game mode, which should be the usual one, the user sees only his two cards and must submit its decisions to the program through appropriate dialogues.

The cards of the other players will remain hidden unless, at the end of the RIVER, two or more players remain in the game. In this case they make the SHOWDOWN, that is, they show their cards and compare their hands to see who wins the pot. If two or more players have the same score, they divide the pot in equal amounts.

 

Maximum duration

A game usually does not exceed a predetermined number of minutes, 30 by default. If the user wants to change this time, he must use the setup of the game and select another duration.

 

Deck

The deck is a standard 52-card deck containing no jokers.

The cards are divided into groups of 4 suits: hearts ♥, diamonds ♦, clubs ♣, spades ♠, each consisting of 13 cards with value increasing from 1 to 13.

The value 1 is called Ace, abbreviated as A; the value 11 is said Jack, abbreviated as J; the value 12 is said Queen, abbreviated as Q; the value 13 is said King, abbreviated as K; the other values are indicated by corresponding number.

 

Pot

The pot is the amount of money that accumulates in the course of a hand, from the small and big blind, plus the sum of any subsequent bet and raise.

At the end of a hand the pot is usually won by only one of the players; the pot is reset with simultaneous increase of the stack held by the winner. If any player is ALL-IN and has the best score, he can get from the pot only the amount he has paid and the remainder goes to the players which have paid all the bets.

 

Bets

The bet is the amount of money a player puts in the pot and that all other players have to equal or exceed if they want to have the chance to win the pot.

During the FLOP, TURN and RIVER, the first player who has the right to bet is that on the left of the dealer.

This player can make three choices, that are automatic in the simulated games, and that are submitted by a dialog in the interactive games.

These choices are:

• BET

  The player puts in the pot a certain amount of money usually, but not necessarily, proportional to its probability of winning.

  A bet must be greater or at least equal to the last of the previous bets, starting from the big blind.

  A bet can not exceed the pot.

  A bet can not exceed the amount of money held by the player, so if a player does not have enough money to equal or exceed the previous bet or raise, he must CHECK or FOLD.

• CHECK

  The player, either because he has little chance of winning or because he intends to bluff, decides to see how their opponents play and gives the right to bet the player on his left. The player remains in play and will make a final decision after all the other players.

  If during the FLOP all players check, all are admitted to the TURN. Similarly, if during the TURN, all players check, all are admitted to the RIVER.

  If, during the RIVER, all players check, they show their hidden cards and who has the highest rank wins.

• FOLD

  The player believes that he does not have enough chances to win and leaves the hand. If has an amount of money greater than the double of two minimum chip, he will participate in later hands, otherwise it will be removed from the game.

If the player who has the right does not make a bet, the right passes to the player on his left and so on.

 

Ranking of hands

The ranking of hands from highest to lowest is:

1. Straight Flush: five cards of the same suit in sequence
2. Four of a Kind (or Quads): four cards of the same rank
3. Full House (or Boat): three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank
4. Flush: five cards of the same suit but not in sequence
5. Straight: five cards of mixed suits in sequence
6. Three of a Kind (or Triplets or Trips): three cards of the same rank plus two unequal cards
7. Two Pairs: two cards of equal rank plus other two cards of equal rank (obviously different from the previous)
8. Pair: two cards of equal rank and three cards which are different from these and from each other
9. High Card (or Nothing): cards are all of different ranks, not consecutive, and contain at least two different suits

When comparing two sequences, the one with the higher rank top card is better.

In a straight, an ace can count high (14) or low (1).

In order to have a single winner for each hand, in this implementation of the game, the following rules are adopted:

• If two ranks are equal, we compare the remaining cards. For example, between two pairs of axes, the winner is the one that has the highest card among the remaining cards.

• If the best hand for two players have identical rank, we compare the initially hidden cards of each player.

 

Response to a bet

When a player follows, in the clockwise direction, another player who has made a bet or a raise, he can make three choices that are automatic in the simulated games, and that are submitted by a dialog in the interactive games.

These choices are:

• CALL

  The player accepts the bet or the raise by putting in an amount of money of equal value.

  A player can accept a bet even though he has no money to cover it all. If he does not win the hand, he is excluded from the game. Otherwise, if he shows the best rank, he can get from the pot only the amount correspondent to what he has paid and the remainder goes to the players which have paid all the bets

• RAISE

  The player increases the bet by putting in the value of the bet plus an additional amount (the raise).

  All the other players, starting with that on his left, not to be excluded from the hand, will have to put in the pot an amount equal to the sum of the bet and the raise.

  A player can make a raise only if he has money enough to overcome the last bet. If he does not have enough money, he can only call.

• FOLD

  The player believes that he does not have enough chances to win and leaves the hand. If he has an amount of money greater than the double of two minimum chip, he will participate in later hands, otherwise it will be removed from the game.

 

Money

At the beginning of each game, each player has 1000 monetary units, Euro by default.

Using the setup of the game you can choose another monetary unit.

A player can draw from this budget (his stack) to make bets, to accept bets from other players or to raise. Obviously, this amount decreases when the player loses and increases of the amount of the pot when he wins.

If this amount, as a result of losses, becomes less than the the double of the minimum chip, the player loses the possibility to play and is eliminated.

 

End of the game

The game ends when one of the following conditions occurs:

• when all players but one have been eliminated;
• when the maximum number of hands is reached;
• when the maximum time of play is reached.

At the end of the interactive games the ranking of the winners is updated. The score is the average win per hand, that the total winnings divided by the number of hands.