Say “poker room” and most people will conjure up images of a dim and smoky back room, with a faded green felt table, and a circle of slightly disreputable folks around it, hunched over their cards and guarding their chips. In fact, most people will picture that famous cheesy painting, Dogs Playing Poker, but with people in the place of the dogs. It’s an old cliche.
And like most cliches, there’s a touch of truth to it. You can find poker rooms like that in the backs of bars, or in guys’ basements and bachelor pads, or anywhere that a regular game is going strong. But that’s not all there is to poker rooms.
Over the last few years, as martini bars, cigars, and rockabilly swing music have made a comeback, poker rooms have come along with them. In some ways, it’s a natural marriage; some things just fit together well. Poker and martinis are among them.
Not surprisingly, the rise in poker’s popularity has also marched hand-in-hand with the rising popularity of online gaming. Games of chance, even skill-based games of chance like poker, have done well on the Internet, and poker is not exception. Most of the bigger online casinos have associated poker rooms.
Online poker rooms obviously lack the ambience of a bar or casino, but they do offer some advantages. You can play them at any time of the day or night, from the convenience of your own home. The social aspect of the game is retained by the medium of an online chat feature, and it’s impossible for any player to keep an ace in his sleeve when playing online.
How Does a Poker Room Work?
Very simply, actually. When you find a game that you want, and are able, to join, you’ll need to buy in. “Buying in” just means that you put a specified amount of money into the pot before you start playing. Obviously, the higher the game stakes, the higher the buy in. The purpose of a buy in is to ensure that every player has a stake in the game, and that the pot is generous enough to entice new players.
Now that you’ve bought in, you trade the rest of your cash for poker chips. Poker chips are clay or plastic discs used to represent fixed sums of money. Some have denominations ($1, $5, $10, etc) printed on them, and some are left blank. Poker chips come in a variety of colors, with green, red, blue, and black being common. Blank poker chips, without a printed denomination, are more versatile; they can be used in penny ante games, or $100 minimum games, or anything in between.
At the table, where you sit can be important. Usually, the player to the dealer’s left will cut the cards, and the player to the dealer’s right will start the hand. Play continues moving to the dealer’s right, with the dealer being the last person to play in a given round. After a hand, the player to the dealer’s left takes over as dealer, and the game continues. There are an infinite number of variations on this scenario, however, so either observe a game, or ask questions, before you join to the poker game.