The ante and the games |Poker Strategy|

The ante. The ante should be agreed upon in advance and is usually a function both of the chip denominations and the form of betting. It is a good idea to vary the ante if both open and closed poker are being played. In closed poker, when there are few betting rounds, it is usual to have each player ante one unit; in open poker, only the dealer is required to put in an ante. When the game is such that every player must ante on every hand, it is a good idea to have the dealer ante for everyone. This avoids a lot of fingers protruding into the pot, arguments about whether or not Jones has put his chip in, and so on.

The games. The house rules should state which forms of poker are allowed, or how it is to be determined whether or not a game suggested by one of the players is acceptable. In most games it is customary to let the dealer choose the form of poker for his deal (or, perhaps, for each player in turn to choose for a round of deals). The rules should state either that the dealer may choose from a specified list of games, or that he may select any form of poker he wishes.

(Some more casual games do not always restrict the choice to a form of poker.) If the dealer is allowed latitude, it should be specified in the house rules how many objections must be registered to require that a different game be chosen. Depending on the personalities involved, some poker games will require a rule that one objection vetoes the choice of game; other groups will be more liberal.

Care must be taken with "dealer's choice" in one situation. When both draw and stud poker are being played, the players calling draw poker will be at an advantage if they are given the privileges of the dealer (to bet last) at draw poker. Since this is a considerable advantage (see Chapter 4), it is customary to have a marker (called the "buck") passed from player to player after each hand of draw poker.