Pok Deng

Pok Deng
ป๊อกเด้ง
Origin Thailand
Alternative names Pok Kao (ป๊อกเก้า) or Pok Paet Pok Kao (ป๊อกแปดป๊อกเก้า)
Type Comparing-type
Players 2-17
Cards 52
Deck French
Play Clockwise or Counter-clockwise
Playing time 5 minutes
Random chance High
Related games
Baccarat

Pok Deng (Thai: ป๊อกเด้ง) is a Thai gambling card game in which players aim for a hand whose ones digit beats the dealer's, while taking into account pairs, three of a kinds, and flushes. The game is also known as Pok Kao (Thai: ป๊อกเก้า, kao means "nine") or Pok Paet Pok Kao (Thai: ป๊อกแปดป๊อกเก้า, paet means "eight") due to eights and nines being high, desirable values.

Basic steps of play

  1. The players place their bets.
  2. The dealer shuffles and deals two cards to each player, ending with the dealer.
  3. Each player may stay or draw one card.
  4. The dealer may compare his or her hand against select players.
  5. The dealer may draw a card.
  6. The dealer compares his or her hand against the rest of the players.

Setup

Pok Deng supports two to seventeen players, including the dealer, but is recommended for three to nine players. To begin, players designate a dealer. One person may remain the dealer for several rounds or players can agree to switch off being dealer.

Each game is fairly short, lasting several seconds to a couple of minutes. Each player, except the dealer, places a bet using cash, chips, or small objects like wrapped candy and places that bet on the table in front of himself or herself. Each player plays versus the dealer only and is not competing with fellow players. The dealer shuffles a standard 52-card deck of playing cards; determines whether to go clockwise or counterclockwise; and deals two cards face down, one at a time, to each player, ending on himself or herself. The remaining cards become the draw pile.

Playing

Play goes in the same order that the cards were dealt. During a player's turn, that person has the option of drawing a card (hitting) or not (staying). A player may only draw one card from the top of the draw pile, meaning each player ends up with only two or three cards per game. (Because each player can have up to three cards, seventeen is the maximum number of players before cards would run out.)

If the player's starting hand of two cards has a taem (described below) of eight or nine, that person has pok (Thai: ป๊อก) announces it, and immediately shows those cards face-up. This is a good hand, and the player may not draw a card.

The dealer takes his or her turn last. If the dealer has pok, those cards are turned face-up and all players' hands are compared to the dealer's. If the dealer does not have pok, before deciding to draw a card, the dealer may reveal select players' hands and compare them to his or her own and make the payouts. Then the dealer may draw a card and then compare the rest of the players' hands to his or her own.

Card values

Three aspects of a player's hand determine the scoring: (1) the hand type, (2) taem, which is the numerical value, and (3) deng, which is a special aspect that may multiply the bet.

The hand's numerical score, taem (Thai: แต้ม), is determined by the numerical values of the cards in hand. In terms of each card's numerical values, each ace has a value of one. 2 through 9 have corresponding values of two through nine. 10, jack, queen, and king each have a value of zero or ten. Taem, the numerical value of the overall hand, is simply the ones digit of the sum of the cards, which is why it does not matter whether the 10, jack, queen, and king count as zero or ten. For example, a hand consisting of a 3 and a 2 has a value of five taem. Likewise, a hand consisting of a 7 and an 8 has a value of five taem because the sum, fifteen, has a one's digit of five. A hand with a jack and a 5 also has a value of five taem because the sum, either five or fifteen, has a one's digit of five.

The bet multiplier, deng (Thai: เด้ง), is determined by the relationship among the cards in hand:

The hand type may be one of four types, in order of decreasing rank:

Scoring

When comparing, or scoring, versus the dealer, the following rules apply. A player's hand may win against, tie with, or lose against the dealer's hand. Players compete against the dealer only and do not compare against other players. The hands are compared in terms of hand type, taem, and deng, in that order. Generally, hand type then the taem determine who wins. The deng is a tie-breaker and also determines how much is won.

First compare the hand types. If one hand has a better hand type than the other, that hand wins. The amount won is the winning hand's deng times the original bet. If both the dealer's hand and the player's hand have the same hand type, the numerical value taem is compared. If one hand has a greater taem than the other, that hand wins. The amount won is the winning hand's deng. If both hands have the same hand type and taem, the deng is compared. If one hand has a greater deng than the other, that hand wins the payout of the difference of the hands' deng. If both hands have the same hand type, taem, and deng, they tie and the original bet is returned to the player.

  1. Compare hand types. The winning hand wins the bet times its deng.
  2. If tied, compare taem. The winning hand wins the bet times its deng.
  3. If tied, compare deng. The winning hand wins the bet times the difference in deng.
  4. If tied, neither hand wins.

One exception is if one hand has a tong and the other has sam lueang. The hand with tong wins two times the bet. (This comes from five deng minus three deng.)

For example, a pok deng of 9 9, which has eight taem two deng, beats a normal hand of A 4 4, which has nine taem one deng, because the pok hand type beats the normal hand type. The payout is twice the original bet because the winning hand has two deng. However, a pok of 5 4, which has nine taem one deng, beats the pok deng of 9 9. They are both pok, so the nine taem beats the eight taem, and the payout, one deng from the winning hand, is equal to the amount of the original bet.

As another example, a normal hand of 6 4 5, with five taem three deng, beats a normal hand of K 2 A, with three taem one deng, and wins three times the original bet due to the three deng of the winning hand. The same normal hand of 6 4 5 beats a normal hand of K 2 3, with five taem one deng, but only wins two times the original bet because the taem are tied and the payout is the difference in deng. Likewise, the same normal hand of 6 4 5 beats a normal hand of 2 3, with five taem two deng, but only wins one times the original bet.

Additional rules

There are some additional options for betting and dealing:

Examples

The following table starts with the best hand type, pok, and goes in descending order. Examples are shown.

Hand Rankings
Hand Type Number
of Cards
Numerical
Score
Taem
Bet
Multiplier
Deng
Example 1 Example 2
Hand Taem Deng Hand Taem Deng
Pok 2 8-9 1-2 J 9 9 1 9 9 8 2
Tong 3 variable 5 7 7 7 1 5 K K K 0 5
Sam lueang 3 0 3 Q J J 0 3 J Q K 0 3
Normal 2-3 0-9 1-3 A 4 5 2 5 7 7 9 1
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/17/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.