Let’s start by putting Sports Poker in context with poker games you already know, before we get into the rules. Here’s a simple question: What is poker? Nowadays, most people immediately think of Texas Hold’em, but everybody knows there are lots of other poker varieties – Stud Poker, Draw Poker, and other community card games like Omaha, just to name a few. So, today, poker is a collection (a genre) of different betting games, and not a single game. I will refer to these games collectively as “traditional poker”.
Traditional poker games originated in the United States, but the early history is a bit murky. Variants of Stud Poker may have been played during the Revolutionary War. A common movie cliché has outlaws playing poker in Old West saloons in the 1800s. The outlaws were probably playing something like Draw Poker. Texas Hold’em had its start in the early 1900s, and since the 1980s it’s been the most popular poker game in the world. This progression of poker varieties is an exquisite example of memetic evolution!
These traditional poker games have common ancestors, and are therefore all “cousins”. What do they have in common? For one, they all use the standard 52-card deck, and have the same 5-card hand categories (pairs, straights, full houses, etc.). The number of betting rounds in a hand of poker, and the rules for who starts each betting round differ from game to game, but the betting rounds in all traditional poker varieties are structured similarly. Players make decisions sequentially (starting somewhere, and then moving clockwise around the table). The basic choices are check, bet, call, raise and fold. Of course, not every choice is always available to you. I’m assuming everybody here knows how these betting rounds work! The point is that they follow the same basic logic in every traditional poker game. Are there other ways to structure betting rounds? Yes! But it requires a “mutation” in the rules.
Does every poker game have to use the standard 52-card deck, with the standard 5-card hand categories, and traditional rules for betting rounds? Obviously the answer is no! It’s needlessly restrictive. What if the 52-card deck in its modern form was never invented? Would there be no poker? Rephrasing: Are there poker games (real or imagined) that are not traditional poker?
Well, if there are, maybe we shouldn’t call them poker! It turns out there is a term for this bigger set of games, although it is not very well known. According to Wikipedia:
Vying games are card games that involve betting on who has the best hand. When a bet is announced or raised, other players must match the bet or drop out, losing their stake. They may involve bluffing.
Based on this definition, the cards in a vying game don’t have to come from the standard 52-card deck, so hand rankings can have nothing to do with pairs, straights or flushes! It also doesn’t say anything about making betting decisions sequentially around a table.
Actually, I don’t like that definition of vying games! Why does a vying game need to be a card game? In other words, why do hands need to be made of cards? More importantly, the definition downplays bluffing. Bluffing is really the key! Any betting game that involves hands and the possibility of strategic bluffing is a vying game. (My definition!) Most card games are not vying games - there is no bluffing in Gin rummy, Bridge, Blackjack or Cribbage. Sports betting is not a vying game either. You can’t bluff the house! Fantasy sports games are not vying games. Neither are bracket games. But all traditional poker games are vying games.
There are lots of old vying games like As Nas and Primero, but they are rarely played any more. Today, the only vying games commonly played are traditional poker games. That’s about to change! (I hope.) Sports Poker is a new genre of vying games. You have to be watching live sports to play Sports Poker. Sports Poker games do not use the standard 52-card deck, and in fact, some Sports Poker varieties don’t use cards at all! Betting rounds in Sports Poker do not proceed sequentially around the table. In some Sports Poker varieties, you are allowed to choose your own hand! Obviously Sports Poker is not traditional poker! But Sports Poker games are all vying games. It’s a new “species” of vying game. In the next post I will start to explain how Sports Poker works.