Face card

Abstract: The object of the game is for a player to form a five card poker hand that has the highest poker hand ranking. In the house banked version, all players play against the house and not against each other. The game is played with a standard fifty-two card deck. The game consists of a dealer and from one to seven players. Each player makes a bet and a portion of each bet may be allocated to a progressive jackpot. The dealer deals five cards to each player. The dealer then deals six cards as the community cards which are arranged face down in three rows in a triangle pattern on the gaming table layout. The players may discard from none to five unwanted cards. The dealer turns up the community cards and pre-designated groups of cards from the community cards are used for each player to make a complete five card poker hand. The dealer determines the best hand each player has made according to poker hand rankings. All winning hands will be paid by the dealer according to the odds listed in the pay table. When the progressive jackpot payout is used, the dealer examines the six community cards to determine if one of the predetermined card arrangements has occurred. Any winning payouts from the progressive jackpot are distributed to the players at the table. The method may also be played as a player banked game or as a pot game.

Abstract: The method commences with dealing the player an initial five card poker hand from a standard deck of playing cards and the cards are displayed in five locations on the video display screen. Any cards from the initial deal of five cards that match in card rank are grouped together and stacked on top of each other and positioned at a single card location. Replacement cards for these matching cards are then dealt from the standard deck of playing cards so that all five card locations of the initial deal of the cards are filled. If any of the replacement cards match in card rank, again the cards are grouped together and still more replacement cards are dealt until all five card locations have cards or groups of cards of different ranks. The initial deal stops when the last card dealt does match any of the existing cards. The player then selects which of the cards in the five locations he wishes to discard and which he wishes to hold. Replacement cards for the discarded cards are then dealt and displayed to the player. The final hand is determined using all of the cards shown on the display screen including the stacked cards. Poker hand rankings are used to determine winning hand combinations and a payout schedule is provided to award the player based on a winning hand combination achieved. This method provides the player a greater number of draw poker options to achieve a winning five card poker hand.

Abstract: A system for playing card games remotely includes both a multimedia communication system that allows players located remotely from each other to see and hear each other, and a "card toaster" and associated image recognition system at each game site which receives and manages a physical deck of cards at every site at which the game is being played. The toaster has the capability of (1) reading cards, for example, by scanning them, (2) finding particular cards, and, if necessary, sorting them, and (3) distributing cards, such as by dealing them. The system enables the players to deal and then play a game, such as the game of bridge, in a manner which closely approximates the manner in which a game is played when all players are co-located. Thus, once play is started, the image recognition system reads the cards played on a table at any site, and transmits information regarding those cards to the other sites. At the other sites, the card toaster is signaled and arranged to distribute the same cards, face up on the table.

Abstract: One or more actual hands of playing cards are verified against respective expected hands of playing cards, to determine whether the playing cards actually dealt correspond to the playing cards that should have been dealt based on a starting sequence of playing card values. The starting sequence of playing card values can be computationally pseudo-randomly generated, where playing cards will be ordered, for example by printing or sorting, according to the sequence for distribution to the player and/or dealer. The starting sequence of playing card values can be determined by reading identifiers from a number of playing cards prior to dealing.