Poker Game Rules

Pass The Trash

Introduction

Players

Object of the Game

Ante

Deal

Each player is dealt 7 cards face down.

Play

After the deal, each player may look at their cards and then the player to the left of the dealer starts with a bet.

Then each player takes 4 cards (of their 7 initial cards) and passes them to the player to the their left. Once the pass is complete, another round of betting takes place lead by the next person to the left of the dealer.

This continues for a total of 4 rounds with successively less cards (4 cards the first round, 3 the 2nd, then 2 and finally 1). If a player drops out during the passing rounds, the remaining players pass across the vacant position.

After the last pass, each player arranges their cards in the order in which they will show the other players (there is usually some bluffing or misdirection going on in the first 2 cards as they are typically the unused cards in the 5 card poker hand -- of course, that can be misleading as well).

Once the cards are arranged and set on the table (the arrangement cannot be changed once the players start showing their cards), each player turns over 1 card and a round of betting takes place.

This continues with each player showing 1 card at a time and a round of betting until the players are down to a single card that is still face down.

At this point the players declare their intentions (high, low or both) typically using the declaring method described in high-low split

Winning

The player with the lowest hand takes half the pot. The player with the highest hand takes the other half of the pot. If two players tie with the exact same hand (usually only happens on the low end) they split their portion of the pot. If all players declare the same intent (say all high), the winner takes the entire pot.

Note that it is sometimes possible to win with a "high" "low" hand (e.g. you were going to go high, then noticed that everyone had a better hand than you and nobody had an obviously low hand and so you went "low" and won) so you need to watch the cards that are rolled before you declare your intent.

Variations

• Passing to the right instead of the left. This variation is often chosen (in fact I would say that we probably play this 50/50 with passing to the left -- it all depends upon who's sitting to the left and the right of the dealer :-)).

• Passing more than one possition to the left or right (such as the 2nd person to the left). We rarely do this.

• A signifcant variation: Pass only 3, then 2 then 1 (only 3 passes), then discard one card (roll only 6 cards), arrange and roll as described above except you stop after 4 cards have been rolled and you declare (with 2 cards left) and then play out the remaining cards.