Let’s say two hands in poker come out exactly equivalent, e.g., both players have a pair of fives, a king, an eight, and a two. I thought ties were broken by suit … highest to lowest being spades, hearts, diamond, clubs, but it appears I was mistaken. So what happens? Do the two players split the pot, or do they fight to death for it?
Split the Pot
I have never known a serious poker game where suits mean anything. There are ties all the time in Texas hold’m.
An Ace high straight is equal to any other Ace high straight. No matter who has the Ace of Spades.
hee hee.
i remember the first time i went to vegas about 30 years or so ago. i had something like a jack high spade flush. dude next to me shows something like a king high club flush. i was going to grab the pot (thinking that spades meant more than clubs) when everyone at the table looked at me aghast. fucking played keno after that.
oh, when we were young.
The only time I’ve ever seen suit order matter in poker, and not always even then, is when you draw cards for seat order or to determine who gets an odd chip in tournaments.
So where does the expression “she could steal their hearts while they’re paying in spades” come from? Panguingue ?
There is a poker game, played at Poker Stars, called badugi. IIRC, it is a multi draw game where you are dealt four cards, and the goal is to get the lowest ranking cards, unpaired and unsuited.
The best hand possible is something like 5 clubs, 4 hearts, 3 diamonds, 2 spades. But I think ties are possible and still split.
Suit also matters with the bring in bet in 7 card stud.
I have played (a couple of hands of) badugi (aka padooki and various other spellings), and I agree that ties are possible - because suits are not a tiebreaker. It is the case, though, that your cards need to be of all different suits to get a “badugi” - the best possible hand. You are also not allowed pairs for a badugi. But in the version I played, aces were low, so the best hand was A, 2, 3, 4, as long as they were all different suits. Which card is which suit doesn’t matter.
You can play poker by any set of rules you can get people to agree on. But using the rank of suits to break ties is pretty much unheard of.
As notfrommensa notes, they split the pot without rancor. This is reasonably common, especially in games like Hold 'Em that use “common” cards (shared by all players).
In order for straights to be equal, all five cards must be the same in both hands: AKQ76 beats AKQ75.
Since when is an AKQ76 a “straight”? :dubious:
I almost made the same Flush-related post before smelling my brain fart and hitting “back” on my browser.
Oops!
I guess it’s a bit late - I somehow had flushes on the brain.
I mentioned Panguingue earlier and KQ76 is indeed a straight (“rope”) in that game: the 8’s, 9’s, 10’s are removed from the deck.
However A only ropes with 2,3 …
I was in an online hand once that played out rather oddly. I had something like A-9 (definitely one ace). The first four common cards were 6-6-6-6. There were four players still in the hand, and everyone kept betting and raising.
Now, I knew that there was no possibility that anyone could beat my hand. I had four 6’s with an ace kicker. With each player holding two cards, and four 6’s on the table, there’s no chance to make a higher four-of-a-kind or a straight-flush. So I kept betting right along with them.
At the showdown, two of us turn over aces, and the other two players had something like a 10 and an 8 as their high cards. What the hell were they thinking? All I can figure is that they saw four-of-a-kind and thought they had killer hands; not realizing that the fifth card comes into play.
The two of us with aces tied and split the pot, the other two got nothing.
This is almost certainly the reason (the only other, much less likely possibility I can think of is some sort of collusion). Lucky for you!
I’ve seen that kind of thing with the justification: “But four of a kind is a killer hand - I can’t fold that!” These guys probably go home muttering about the bad beat they suffered.
See, those are the kinds of players who keep professional poker players in business. Or as one of Heinlein’s characters put it, “I paid my way through college by tutoring math. I taught probability. Mostly, teaching students not to draw to an inside straight”.