Foster's Complete Hoyle: An Encyclopedia of Games / Including all indoor games played to-day. With suggestions for good play, illustrative hands, and all official laws to date

by R. F. Foster

The second method is the most popular, and probably the fairest, and is now the universal rule.

If the false opener does not discover his mistake until he has drawn cards, his action is at least suspicious, and he should be compelled to put up the total amount in the pool, as in case three. In some localities such a player is barred from playing the next two jacks, but compelled to ante his share in each.

Betting Jacks. When a jack pot has been properly opened, and all have declared whether or not they will stay, and have drawn cards, the players proceed to bet on their hands. As there is no age in jack pots, the rule is for the opener to make the first bet; or, if he has been raised out before the draw, the player next on his left who still holds cards. The opener may decline to bet if he pleases; but if he does so, he must show his openers, and then abandon his hand. If no bet is made, the last player holding cards takes the pool without showing his hand. If a bet is made, each player in turn on the left must abdicate, better, or call, just as in the ordinary pool. At the conclusion of the betting, if there is a call, the best poker hand wins, of course. If there is no call, the player making the last bet or raise takes the pool without showing his hand, unless he is the opener, when the whole hand need not be shown, as it is no one’s business what the opener got in the draw, no one having paid to see it. All he need show is openers. But should the opener be one of those in the final call, he must show his whole hand. Should it then be discovered that he has not openers, the false opener is compelled to ante for all the players at the table for another Jack. This is usually called giving them a “free ride.”

The Kitty is now an almost universal adjunct to the pool. In clubs, it pays for the cards, and for an occasional round of refreshments; in small poker parties it defrays the expense of the weekly supper. When the amount is excessive, or accumulates too rapidly, it is often used to give the players a “free ride” by paying all their antes in a “kitty jack pot.”

The kitty is usually kept by the banker, who takes a white counter out of every pool in which triplets or better are shown to the board, and a red counter out of every jack pot. These counters must be kept apart from the other chips, and must be accounted for at the end of the game by paying the kitty so much in cash, just as if it was one of the players.

Gambling houses and poker rooms are supposed to derive their entire revenue from this source, and those of the lowest class invent endless excuses for taking out for the kitty. In many houses there is a sliding scale for various hands; one counter being taken for two pairs; two counters for triplets; three for straights or flushes; and a red for fours, jack pots, and misdeals. It is not uncommon for the proprietors of such games to find thirty or forty dollars in the kitty after a night’s play with five-cent chips.

TABLE STAKES. This is one of several variations in arranging the stakes and the betting limit. In some localities it is the custom to allow each player to purchase as many counters as he pleases; in others it is the rule to compel each to buy an equal number at the start, usually two hundred times the amount of the blind. In table stakes the betting limit is always the amount that the player has in front of him; but no player is allowed either to increase or diminish that amount while he has any cards in front of him. Before the cards are dealt for any pool he may announce that he wishes to buy counters, or that he has some to sell to any other player wishing to purchase; but for either transaction the consent of all the other players must be obtained. No player is allowed under any circumstances to borrow from another, nor to be “shy” in any pot; that is, to say, “I owe so many.” If he has any counters in front of him, his betting is limited to what he has; if he has none, he is out of the game, for that hand at least. As a player cannot increase the amount he has in front of him during the play of a hand, it is best to keep on the table at all times as much as one is likely to want to bet on any one hand.

It is the usual custom, and an excellent one, to fix upon a definite hour for closing a game of table stakes, and to allow no player to retire from the game before that hour unless he is decavé, (has lost all his capital). Should he insist on retiring, whatever counters he has must be divided among the other players, and if there are any odd ones after the division, they must be put into the current pool.

In table stakes, any player may call a sight for what money or counters he has in front of him, even should another player have bet a much larger amount. For instance: A has bet three dollars, and B has only two dollars in front of him, but wishes to call A. B calls for a sight by putting his two dollars in the pool, and A must then withdraw his third dollar from the pool, but leave it on the table to be called or raised by any other player. Should C wish to call A, or even to raise him, A and C may continue the betting independently of B’s part of the pool. Should C have even less money than B, say one dollar, he may still further reduce the original pool, leaving the two dollars aside for settlement between A and B, and A’s third dollar still aside from that again for the decision of any other player.