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May 15th, 2008 |
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May 15th, 2008 |
Telesina is something as unusual as a mix of a stud and holdem poker game which is played with a short deck. Mainly, Telesina is a variant of Five-Card Stud.
In stud poker each player receives a mix of downcards (which only you can see) and upcards (which everyone can see) dealt in several betting rounds. All stud games starts with at least one card facing down to start the "guessing game". In all stud games apart from Telesina all cards are individual. In Telesina there is a shared community cards as in holdem games though. Stud games are non-positional games, also Telesina! This means the player who bets first on each round is not predetermined and does not need to be the same throughout a hand. Telesina, as all stud games, uses antes instead of blinds.
In ordinary community card poker games each player is first privately dealt an incomplete hand face down. Then community cards are cards dealt face up to the center of the table, which are shared by all players. In Teresina everyone who sticks around to fifth street gets a complete hand before the single community card hits the board. And the private cards are not all face down.
Telesina is played with six cards, whereof only the first is a downcard and the four other private cards are upcards. Similarly to Five-Card Stud the starting hand consists of one downcard and one upcard. The first betting round starts off with a forced bet from the player with the highest upcard. Thereafter one card in turn is dealt to each remaining player until they have five cards. Each new card is followed by a second, third and fourth betting round respectively. After this one community card is placed on the center of the table and there is a fifth and final betting round. The community card is called the Vela card and can be used by all players to improve their hand. At the showdown, the best five-card poker hand according to the short decked hand ranking – constructed by any mix of the six cards – wins the pot.
Telesina is played with a short deck of 32 cards from Aces to Sevens. In strip-poker the lowest ranked cards are removed from the deck. In Telesina the Twos to Sixes are stripped. A 32 card deck is sometimes referred to as a French deck. With a short deck it becomes easier to get hands higher up on the hand ranking list. Not only that the odds of getting the hands change. The most drastic change is that it becomes easier to get a full house than a flush. Therefore in the short deck, a flush beats a full house. The hand ranking used in Telesina has other minor and major tie-breaking variances involving suits and the Vela community card. With a short deck there are also fewer cards to go around and the games are by necessity short handed; there is a six player maximum in Telesina.
1. Antes Each player must place an undersized forced bet, the ante, before the cards are dealt.
2. Starting hand Each player receives one card face down and one card face up. The downcard is also known as the hole card, and the first upcard as the door card.
3. First betting round The player with the highest ranking upcard (also by suit) has to open the betting. That player has a choice of making the bring-in bet – which is less than a full bet, usually 2 times the ante – or making a regular full sized bet. The action then continues clockwise until the betting is completed for the round.
4. Third street Each player receives another card face up.
5. Second betting round The player with the best poker hand showing (of the upcards that is) continues to start the action for the round. This player now has the option to check.
6. Fourth street Each player receives another card face up.
7. Third betting round The betting advance as before. (In a fixed limit betting structure the bets are now doubled.)
8. Fifth street, river Each player receives a fifth individual card face up.
9. Fourth betting round The betting advance as before.
10. Vela community card The first and only community card is dealt face up in the middle of the table.
11. Fifth betting round The fifth and final betting round advance as before, that is the community card is included in deciding who has the best hand showing and thereby starts the action.
12. Showdown If more than one player reaches this stage, all remaining players show their hands. The first bettor or last raiser shows first, and then only those who beat that hand has to show. If there was no betting the first remaining player to the left of the dealer is the first to show. The highest ranked hand according to the short deck hand ranking wins the pot. Any five card combination out of the five individual and one community card is allowed.
Player As cards
Player Bs cards
Vela community card
Studying the two player's hands in this example shows that Player A must have started the action on the first round of betting as the queen is the highest ranked upcard. Nothing changes regarding the highest showing hand until fifth street when the tables turn with player Bs showing pair of queens. So player A starts the action up to fourth street and player B starts the two last betting rounds.
Player As pair of queens was complemented with a pair of jacks on fifth street. For player B it is vice versa. Both players use the Vela community card to get the best possible kicker. In any other game this would be a split pot, but not in Telesina. As usual the rank of the higher and then lower pair are used to decide who wins. Then the highest kicker (side card) is the tie breaker. All those are the same for player A and B. Now suits come into the picture as they often do in these peculiar situations in Telesina. The player with the highest suit in the highest pair wins. Player B has the Q
and takes home the whole pot! Please refer to the Telesina Hand Ranking article for complete information on tie breakers within same hands.
Player As losing final hand
Player Bs winning final hand
Suits 1 To determine who should start the action on the first round of betting, if two or more players have the same highest ranking card, suits are utilized. The person who brings it in is determined by suit order progressing from hearts , diamonds 
, clubs 
, down to spades 
.
Suits 2 The same atypical suit ranking that determines who starts the betting, determines who wins the pot if several players hold the same hand. Suits in flushes, straights and kickers count in order from best to worst: hearts , diamonds , clubs , and spades .
Position To determine who should start the action on subsequent betting rounds, if there is a tie for the highest hand, position is considered. The player who received cards first, is then also first to act.
Option If a pair is showing on third street, players has the option to make a single or double bet in a fixed limit game. As soon as a player makes a double bet, the following betting is made with these bet increments. When playing online, such rules are not necessary to know by heart as all the legal betting options will be presented on the screen.
Cap A cap is used in fixed limit games. The term cap is used to describe the final raise in a round since betting is then capped and no one can make another raise. A cap of three raises is usually used. Increasing the amount wagered by the opening forced bet up to a full bet does not count as a raise, but merely as a completion of the bet. So after one bet, three raises can still be made before the cap is reached. Heads up the cap can be removed, allowing the combatants to raise until they are out of chips. However, very few online poker rooms adhere to this removal of the cap in heads up situations.