Forget the charades, poker gets biggest hand this Christmas
In these rapacious times, the simple pleasure of an innocent board or parlour game is no longer enough. This Christmas, families increasingly will be huddled around the card table, playing poker.
Sales figures from department stores and supermarkets released yesterday show that sets of poker chips are outselling classic board games.
The poker craze is fuelled by the popularity of internet gambling sites, endorsements in television programmes such as Desperate Housewives and EastEnders and the growing number of satellite and cable television channels devoted to the game.
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Useful poker terms:
- COLD CALL - Calling both a bet and raise at the same time, as opposed to calling a bet then later calling a raise made after the call.
- FREEZE-OUT - A table-stakes game that continues until a small number of players (possibly only one) has all the money. The major event in The World Series of Poker is a freeze-out game.
- TOURNAMENT - A highly structured game involving potentially dozens of tables where all participants pay an entry fee and obtain a fixed number of chips. Once a tournament has started, additional players may not enter. As the game progresses players bust out and are eliminated until only one winner remains.
- SET - In Hold'em, three of a kind where two of the cards are hole cards.
- PROP - Also PROPOSITION PLAYER. An employee of the gaming establishment whose primary purpose is to keep enough players at a table to prevent breaking up the game for lack of players. Unlike SHILLs "props" make a small hourly wage but play with their own money, winning or losing based on their skill.
- MILES OF BAD ROAD - Three of a kind. Prefixed with a number, 3*<N>, to indicate 3 <N>s. Thus "24 miles of bad road" is 3 eights, etc. (This obviously doesn't work for face cards.)
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