“Knocking” or “tapping” the table is a visual signal that you are checking your hand. Most all actions in a casino environment are done with gestures of some type in Blackjack you move your hand towards you or point to your cards to take a hit, and brush your hand away or wave it back and forth across your cards to indicate no card. You can use the check-raise to knock players off pots regardless of the cards you’re holding. Even novice poker players know they should be continuation-betting the majority of the time when they raise pre-flop, so it’s possible to turn the tables on them with a well-timed check-raise.

Posted on 2015-08-12 Comments (0)

Made this a few years back. Wood is red oak, finished natural with lacquer topcoat. Legs fold up for easy storage. Table has room for 8 large adult players, with each side having a recessed chip tray, drink holder, and ashtray. Combining aspects of the card games poker and rummy, Knock Poker can be played with as few as two and as many as six players, though the ideal Knock Poker game is usually limited to between three and five players. Although somewhat similar to Knock Rummy, the hands are ranked in the same order as in poker.

Whiskey Poker (sometimes spelled Whisky Poker) is an older variant of poker, commonly played in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but fairly obscure today. Whiskey Poker was so named because it was often played for refreshments, and John Scarne asserts in Scarne on Cards that Whiskey Poker is, in fact, the ancestor from which modern Rummy games are descended. If you like Knock Poker, you’ll probably like Whiskey Poker too.

Object of Whiskey Poker

The object of Whiskey Poker is to end the hand with the highest possible five-card poker hand.

Setup

As with the majority of poker games, Whiskey Poker requires the use of one 52-card deck of poker cards, like Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards. You will also need chips to keep track of betting; each chip can represent a nominal value, or a defined amount of money, as agreed upon by the players. Distribute chips as appropriate.

In place of betting, each player may also be supplied with an arbitrary number of chips (e.g., five) and whoever has the lowest hand at the showdown must surrender one chip to the bank. Whoever runs out of chips first pays for the next round of drinks. (If you decide to play this way, ignore instructions below regarding betting.)

Shuffle and deal five cards to each player. Between the dealer and the player to their right, deal an extra hand, called the widow. Move the widow to the center of the table, keeping it face down.

Game play

After players have looked at their hands, the first betting round occurs. Betting is conducted according to the typical norms for betting in poker. After the betting, the turn goes to the player on the dealer’s left. This player has the right to exchange their hand with the hand on the table, in its entirety, without being able to see it ahead of time. After this, the next player to their left may do the same, and so on. If you decide to keep your cards, you have two options: you may simply pass, or you may knock; knocking allows everyone one last opportunity to exchange hands, with this phase of the game ending when the turn gets back to you.

The second betting round happens now. After that wraps up, the widow is exposed. The player to the dealer’s left has the first chance to play. Each player may take one card from the widow, then discard one card from their hand, face up, to the widow. Players also have the option to exchange their entire hand for the widow, but they may not exchange, say, three cards at once; it must be one card or all of them. Players do not have the option to pass; they must knock if they wish to not exchange any cards. As before, play ends when the turn gets back to the first player to knock.

The third and final betting round now takes place. After this comes the showdown. The player with the highest-ranked poker hand takes the pot.

See also

Knocking On Poker Table Game

Photo credit: Atom Supplies, Ltd. (licensed CC-BY-SA 2.0).

Knocking On Poker Table Covers

Posted in Game Rules Tags: card games, commerce games, poker, whiskey poker