Quiz 14. Texas Hold’em

Quiz

Answer on page 160

Texas Hold’em

Posed by Matthew D Moss

For this Ruby Quiz, let’s identify and rank poker hands. Say we have the following sample game of the popular Texas hold’em, where you try to make the best five-card hand from a total of seven cards (five shared among all players):

Kc 9s Ks Kd 9d 3c 6d 9c Ah Ks Kd 9d 3c 6d Ac Qc Ks Kd 9d 3c 9h 5s

4d 2d Ks Kd 9d 3c 6d 7s Ts Ks Kd 9d

Each line represents a player’s final hand. The cards of the hand are separated by a space. The first character is the face value of the card, and the second is the suit. Cards have one of four suits: clubs, dia-monds, hearts, or spades. Cards also have a face value that is one of (from highest to lowest) the following: ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two. The ace is almost always high, but watch for the exceptions in the hands.

Some players didn’t make it to seven cards, because they folded before the end of the game, and we can ignore those hands. For the rest, we want to declare the hand they ended up with and indicate a winner, or winners in the event of a tie. We should also rearrange named hands so the five used cards are at the front of the listing. That gives us the following for our sample hand:

Kd Ks Kc 9d 9s 6d 3c Full House (Winner)

Ks Kd 9d 9c Ah 6d 3c Two Pair

Ac Qc Ks Kd 9d 3c

9h 5s

Kd 9d 6d 4d 2d Ks 3c Flush

7s Ts Ks Kd 9d

EggS