How To Play Trees Poker

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Trees poker is truly a poker game set-up for friends to play with each other due to several of the rules, which we’re going to take a look at in this guide. Trees poker is very similar to five card draw except you don’t draw cards from the deck. Rather then drawing cards in Trees poker like you would in other draw poker games, players actually trade cards with each other during the hand. I’ve never seen any other poker games where players are allowed to exchange cards with each other, so if you’re at a party make sure you bring this poker game up, as it’s tons of fun.

At the very beginning of every hand in Tree poker the dealer needs to shuffle the cards while the two players sitting to the left of the dealer need to place forced bets into the pot. The player to the immediate left of the dealer needs to place a bet in the pot known as the small blind while the player to the immediate left of the SB needs to put in the big blind. In a $1/$2 poker game the small blind would be a $1 while the big blind would be $2.

Trees poker is commonly played using limit stakes, which are really simple for those of you that don’t know how to play limit poker. During the 1st betting round players are allowed to bet $1 and raise $1. In the 2nd betting round players are allowed to bet $2 and raise $2. In a limit poker game each betting round can only be raised a maximum of 4 times total by any players in the hand.

When the small blind and big blind are putting their blinds into the pot the dealer can begin dealing out 5 cards to everyone in the game. All of the cards are dealt face down and only the player whose hand it is can look at their cards during the entire game until the showdown. Once everyone has their cards the 1st betting round begins with the player to the left of the blinds starting the action. You need to call the big blind, raise the blind or simply fold your cards into the muck and sit out that hand.

This is where the game can get a little tricky for those of you that have never played before. Everyone that stayed in the hand is allowed to exchange cards with each other at this point in the hand. Players are allowed to trade as many cards as they want with each other as long as everyone receives the same amount of cards in the trade. There is no limit on the number of trades you can make and the trades continue until everyone is finished trading.

During the trading round all you need to do is ask around the table if anyone would like to trade 1-2-3-4-5 cards with you depending on how many you want to trade. You aren’t allowed to look at anyone’s hands and you definitely can’t ask for certain cards, as this would be cheating. When you’re trading cards there really isn’t a time when you don’t want to trade cards unless you’ve made a straight, full house or flush. Once players begin only trading 1-2 cards it doesn’t take long before everyone is done trading since the same cards begin to get passed around.

When everyone is done trading cards there is a final round of betting in Trees poker using the bigger bet as I’ve described above. When the betting is over players reveal their hands and the player with the best poker hand wins. You use the same hand rankings as you would in any normal poker game. Since players are allowed to trade cards as much as they want the best hand can range from a pair to a straight or flush. It’s important to try and keep track of what cards you’ve traded to players so that you don’t keep giving them the same cards.