Holding "threes," the player may please himself whether to draw two cards or one only, but the
latter is preferable, as giving less information to the enemy.
With "fours," the odd card should always be exchanged, for the same reason. The hand cannot be improved by the exchange, but the adversaries are left in uncertainty as to its value.
Holding four of the needful cards to make a flush or straight, the player should go in, and exchange one card, in the hope of completing the desired combination. With less than five cards, the attempt has but little chance of success.
The Straddle.
In Poker as originally played, there was no "raise" prior to the filling of the hands. Each player who went in simply put up the double ante, and all further staking was suspended until the hands had been filled. But such a comparatively slow procedure did not suit the more go-ahead players, and the "straddle" was invented to accommodate them. This queer term is another name for "doubling." The privilege of starting a straddle was confined to the player to the left of the Age. Assuming that the Age had put up one counter by way of ante, the next player, instead of putting up two, would put up four, saying, "I straddle you." The next player may in like manner "straddle the straddler," putting up eight counters, and so on, up to the "limit," which must not be overpassed. Should any player, however, omit to exercise the right in his turn, it is thereby extinguished, and cannot be exercised by any subsequent player.
Where it is permitted to players to raise on the
ante before filling the hand, the straddle ceases to have any importance, and is not usually recognised.
Jack-Pots.
This is one of the latest innovations in the game of Draw Poker, and in New York is accepted as an integral part of the game. It was invented to meet the not unfrequent case of the whole table declining to "go in," in which case the Age simply repocketed his ante, and the deal passed, nobody being either the better or the worse. In such a case, instead of the Age withdrawing the ante, each of the other players puts up a like amount (single, not double). The cards are then dealt by the next player. There is in this case no Age, but any player who chances to hold a pair of jacks, or anything better (according to the scale already given), puts down any stake he pleases; thereby "opening the jack-pot," as it is called. The player to his left must either make good the stake or go out, and so on round the table in the usual way, any player having the privilege of raising, in which case the raise must be made good by the other standing players. And so the round proceeds, till some one brings it to an end by "calling," i.e. declaring that he will "see" his predecessors, when the best hand wins. Should no one "go in" save the original opener of the jack-pot, he takes the pool; but in this case he is bound to show, to preclude fraud, that his cards really did include a pair of jacks, or some higher combination.