Poker News

Oklahoma Johnny Hale

A few years ago, some of the casinos tried to put in a variety of Red Dog as a table game. They called it Red Dog but that was a misnomer as the game they introduced actually was In Between. In Betweeners is nothing more than just a kitchen table game.

True Red Dog is a four-card poker game in which you don’t play against each other, you play against the money in the pot and against the deck. So it is not a competitive game between the players.

Here is how true Red Dog is played-but before I tell you how it is played let me tell you that it is a game that must have been invented by some idiot who had more money than he knew what to do with and liked gambling and walking on the edge.

Red Dog is a game of survival of the fittest. And that is the kind of game that my father taught me and the rest of our family to play and win so many years ago so that we could survive the bad beat of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression which John Steinbeck wrote about in his book-”The Grapes of Wrath”!

Red Dog is without doubt the wildest, meanest game that I have ever seen played with a deck of cards. Here is how I played the game many years ago. Any number of players (up to 10) may play the game. And the deal rotates clockwise-It can be played where only the dealer ante’s or where each player may ante-say $5-and each player is dealt four cards one at a time.

After each player has been dealt his four cards, the deck is placed in the middle of the table. The first player to act is to the left of the dealer and he may bet any amount up to the size of the pot-Say there are eight players and each ante $5-then he may bet from $5 to $40.

The player may pass-and it is now the next player’s turn in rotation around the table. If a player chooses to play he places his bet in front of his cards, and the dealer turns one card-and then turns up one card in the middle of the table.

If the better has a card in his hand out of the four that he holds that ranks higher by suit than the card turned up in the middle of the table, he wins his bet-If he cannot top the card turned up, then he loses and the pot is increased by the amount of his bet.

The better only gets one action against the pot-and then it is the next players turn to bet against the pot or pass to the next player.

Now let’s take a look at a hand and you decide if you wish to play when it is your turn to bet or pass…

If you hold four aces, you cannot lose-you have a natural. If you hold three aces and a deuce, you have a 75% chance of winning your wager. If you hold two aces and two deuces, you have a dead even bet 50-50.

Now if you are first to act and you hold a A,K,Q,J in four different suits, there will be only six cards in the deck that you could lose to. Your chances are now 42 to 10 that you can top the next card turned up. Or 4.2 to one that you will win any amount that you bet. Using fourth grade math you can calculate how much to bet.

If you are dealt middle cards like 7-8-8-9, all of different suits, you can calculate what percentage you have of winning the pot and you should bet accordingly.

If the pot is still out there when each player has had his turn to play, the cards are picked up and reshuffled by the next dealer and the play is started over again.

Lets say the pot has $500 in it and you have a 75% chance of winning the pot and you bet the $500-but one out of four times you will lose when you can not beat the card that is turned up! The pot has now has increased to $1,000.

The pots get very large and it is a mean game to play-but if you like excitement, this may be your game. Until next time, remember to STAY LUCKY!!!

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