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  Method of playing a poker gameThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20080012222. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF INVENTION [0001]This invention relates generally to poker games and methods, and more particularly to a method for playing a poker game that is an improvement and variation to the "Texas Hold'em" poker game. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002]Numerous poker games currently exist. Each poker game has different rules and variations thereof and numerous patents have been granted in the field of methods for playing poker games. Some examples of poker games include: Texas Hold'em poker, five card draw poker, five card stud poker, seven card stud poker, Caribbean stud poker and Omaha poker. Poker games can differ in many ways, including whether a player plays against other players or against a dealer, whether community cards are available for all players to use, whether some of a player's cards are exposed to the player's opponents, the number of cards given to each player, whether a player may exchange received cards for new cards and when and how betting occurs. Although there are many poker games, one poker game in particular, "Texas Hold'em" or just "Hold'em" for short, has seen its popularity rise tremendously in recent years. [0003]Texas Hold'em is a community card poker game played with a standard 52-card deck. It is generally played with between 2 and 10 people. Like most other poker games, the objective of Texas Hold'em is to win the pot of money bet by the players by either forming the best poker hand out of the seven cards available or by betting to cause other players to fold and abandon their hands. Play begins with each player being dealt two cards face down, which are called the player's "hole" or "pocket cards." These are the only cards each player will receive individually. A round of "pre-flop" betting then occurs. Then the dealer discards or "burns" one card and exposes three face-up community cards called "the flop." Another round of betting ensues, another card is burned and one card is exposed face-up as a community card called "fourth street" or "the turn." Yet another round of betting takes place, a final card is burned and one final card is exposed face-up as a community card called "fifth street" or "the river." A final round of betting takes place. [0004]Normally a Texas Hold'em hand starts with the player immediately to the left of the designated dealer posting a "small blind" and the player immediately to the left of that player posting a "big blind." These are forced bets to induce action or play in the hand. The amounts of the small and big blind vary depending on the stakes of the game, but the big blind is usually twice that of the small blind. The pre-flop round of betting then starts with the person to the left of the big blind. That person has to decide whether to "call" or match the big blind, raise the big blind or fold the hand. Betting continues clockwise around the table with each subsequent player deciding to call the big blind or, if a prior player had raised the big blind, call such raise, raise or fold. The betting round ends once each player has either folded or called the big blind and any raises. Subsequent betting rounds start immediately to the left of the dealer and proceed clockwise in the same manner, except that since the blinds are now part of the pot, players are allowed to "check" (remain in the hand without betting) if no bet has previously occurred. If all players check on a betting round it is called "checking around." [0005]The type of Texas Hold'em being played dictates the amount of any raise. The three most common types of Texas Hold'em are "Limit Texas Hold'em" (any raise in the first two betting rounds must equal the big blind and normally two times the big blind in the last two betting rounds), "Pot-Limit Texas Hold'em" (maximum raise is the size of the pot) and "No-Limit Texas Hold'em" (player may raise up to all of the chips or money the player has left at the table, which is called going "all-in"). [0006]If a player bets and all remaining players fold, then the player wins the pot and is not required to show his hole cards. If two or more players remain after the final betting round, each player forms the best hand possible using the player's hole cards and the five community cards. Players are not required to use their hole cards (such players are said to be "playing the board"). The remaining player with the best poker hand wins the pot. If multiple remaining players share the best poker hand then they split the pot. Texas Hold'em poker hands are ranked in the following order (highest to lowest) like most poker games: [0007]1. Royal flush (ace through 10, all of the same suit) [0008]2. Straight flush (five cards in a row, all of the same suit) [0009]3. Four of kind (all four of a card, like four sevens) [0010]4. Full house (three of a kind and two of a kind in one hand) [0011]5. Flush (five of a suit) [0012]6. Straight (five cards in a row) [0013]7. Three of a kind (three of a card, like three sevens) [0014]8. Two pair (two of a kind twice in one hand) [0015]9. One pair (two of a card, like two sevens) [0016]10. Highest cards (Ace is the highest card in the deck) [0017]The spike in popularity of Texas Hold'em is traced in part to the improbable victory in 2003 of an unknown amateur player, Chris Moneymaker, at Texas Hold'em's most prestigious event, the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. The excitement generated by Moneymaker's historic victory encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to take up the game with the general attitude being "if he can do it so can I." One indication of Texas Hold'em's increased popularity has been attendance at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker itself: in 2003, 838 people participated in the Main Event; in 2004, 2,576 people participated; in 2005, 5,619 people participated; in 2006, event planners are predicting 8,000 participants. [0018]Another leading generator of growth of Texas Hold'em has been its increasing availability on the internet. Although fifteen years ago one could not play Texas Hold'em on the internet, today there are numerous internet sites such as www.partvpoker.com and www.pokerstars.com, where players can learn the game and play against other people on the internet for free or for real money. Because of the relative ease of playing on the internet as opposed to finding and traveling to traditional venues for playing poker, like brick and mortar casinos and poker rooms, Texas Hold'em play has exploded on the internet. The remarkable rise of internet poker is illustrated in Party Gaming's 2005 Annual Report (Party Gaming is the parent company of PartyPoker, the operator of www.partvpoker.com) where reported revenues of PartyPoker increased from $153 million in 2003 to $977 million in 2005: "On average, PartyPoker handles around 32 hands of real money poker per second, every hour, every day, every month. Over $45 billion was wagered on the site in 2005, or $1,454 per second." [0019]While there have been many positive effects of Texas Hold'em's increased popularity, notably greater coverage of the game in both print and televison and increased opportunities to play, there have been negative effects as well. In short, the phenomenal growth of Texas Hold'em has ushered into the game (both live and internet games) large numbers of inexperienced players who now dominate the poker landscape. Their presence and resulting poor play have led to countless frustrations and "bad beats" among more experienced and sophisticated players, fundamentally altering the nature of the game for the worse. The problem is particulary acute online where the faceless nature of playing on the internet has reduced the normal reputational costs of poor play and immature behavior present in live play. [0020]Examples of typical types of poor play include: [0021]1. Chasing Cards. Inexperienced players like to chase cards. For example, if a flop includes two cards of the same suit and an inexperienced player's hole cards are both of that suit, then such player often "chases" a final card of the that suit to make a flush, typically calling large bets after the flop and after fourth street to do so. Experienced players usually do not call large bets (especially large bets into small pots) to chase cards because the odds (often called the pot odds) of being successful do not warrant the play. Similarly, inexperienced players often chase cards to make a straight. [0022]2. Playing Too Many Hands. Inexperienced players like to play too many hands. That is, inexperienced players call or raise pre-flop with weak or "garbage" hole cards. Although experienced players sometimes play weak hole cards to keep their opponents off-balanced, they usually do not play weak hole cards often and they normally try not to play too many hands generally. This is because as poker professional Phil Hellmuth stated "the plain fact is that if you play too many hands in a pro-level poker game, you just cannot win, certainly not in the long run and probably not even on just one given night, no matter how lucky you are." [0023]3. Excessive Bluffing and Going All-in-All-the-Time. Inexperienced players like to bluff (calling or raising large amounts with poor hands) too many times, often going "all-in" in doing so. While strategic bluffing is undoubtedly part of Texas Hold'em, experienced players do not bluff or move all-in excessively because it diminishes the power of their future bluffs and "all-in" moves and increases the likelihood that their opponents will call on future hands. [0024]The fundamental problem with these and other poor Texas Hold'em plays is that poor play is rewarded too frequently in Texas Hold'em. That is, while the odds of a poor move paying off are low, they are not low enough to discourage the ubiquitous inexperienced player from making them. For example, even if a player can only be helped by one card left in the deck on the river (say the ace of spades for instance), that player still has a 2.2% of getting the card (calculation: 1 divided by (52 cards in the deck minus 2 known hole cards minus 3 known flop cards minus 1 known fourth street card)). Similarly, if a player attempts to chase a flush on the river with two hole cards of the same suit and two cards of that suit on the board, the odds the player will be successful in making a flush are 19.6%. If an inexperienced player plays hole cards of 7 and 2 of different suits against a player with pocket aces (not of the same suits of either the 7 or the 2) (pocket aces are the best starting hand in Texas Hold'em), the pre-flop odds on the inexperienced player winning are 12.4%. [0025]In the long run over hundreds of hands against hundreds of different opponents, such poor and inexperienced play is not profitable. However, in the short run on any particular hand against any particular opponent such poor play does in fact pay off 2.2%, 19.6% and 12.4% of the time in the examples above. In such cases, the player beaten by a poor play is said to have had a "bad beat" or have been unlucky. Given the sheer magnitude of inexperienced players playing today bad beats are all too familiar when playing Texas Hold'em. Such bad beats are particularly problematic in No-Limit Texas Hold'em because a player's entire chip stack or money can and often is at risk, and many experienced players have lost all of their chips or money because of such "bad beats." Thus while poor play is not profitable for the inexperienced player over the long run to the benefit of the entire field of players, it can and does result in disaster to individual players who receive bad beats. The plight of individual players subjected to bad beats has resulted in the creation of several colorful and derogatory names for their inexperienced but lucky opponents: "fish," "donkey," and "suckout." Although occasional bad beats have historically been part of the game, the domination of the game by the inexperienced, making poor play after poor play, has altered the nature of the game: bad beats are too common and some players fearing bad beats elect not to follow usually optimal strategies. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method of playing a poker game Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method of playing a poker game patent application. Patent Applications in related categories: 20080290600 - One card pot game with tiebreaker options - This is a one card game designed for the novice player. Each player makes an ante bet. The dealer will collect the bets and place them in the pot. Each player receives one card. The player having the highest card will win the pot. In the event, two or more ... ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like Method of playing a poker game or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Blackjack/baccarat variants with alternate count game component Next Patent Application: Players choice blackjack Industry Class: Amusement devices: games ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the Method of playing a poker game patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 1.06743 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Daimler Chrysler , DirecTV , Exxonmobil Chemical Company , Goodyear , Intel , Kyocera Wireless , |
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