Poker Trivia Question #29

Q: It’s impossible to have a straight in poker without one of these 2 cards. Which 2 cards?

A: You can not have a straight in poker without having either a 5 or a 10 in your hand.

Poker Trivia Question #28

Q: What does it mean to "check it down" in a poker tournament?

A: When a multi-way pot has one player all-in, the others will often 'check it down' to avoid betting another player out, producing a greater number of hands to eliminate the all-in player.

Poker Trivia Question #27

Q: We all know that 2, 10 is known as the "Doyle Brunson" or "The Brunson." There is another hand that is also known as the Doyle Brunson mainly because he never plays this hand. What is it?

A: Ace Queen. He makes it abundantly known that the hand is nothing but trouble.

Poker Trivia Question #26

The first ever World Series of Poker took place in 1970, and the winner was elected by his fellow players. Who was the winner of the first WSOP Main Event?

A: Johnny Moss.

Poker Trivia Question #25

Q: In which year did Scotty Ngyuen utter his famous phrase “You call this one and it’s all over, baby,” before taking home his first World Series of Poker Main Event title?

A: 1998. Nguyen is one of the most active players in professional poker today, and from 2000 to 2004 he finished in the money in more than 100 events. He has 4 WSOP bracelets overall.

Poker Trivia Question #24

Q: Who was Johnny Chan’s opponent, heads up, when he won his record breaking tenth bracelet?

A: Phil Laak. The Unabomber was outchipped and outmatched once they sat down to play heads up. Within 16 hands, Johnny Chan won all his chips and was awarded his tenth bracelet.

Johnny Chan won Event #25 ($2500 Pot Limit Hold'em) on June 25, 2005 and beat out a field of 425 players who were competing for a prize pool worth $977,500.

Poker Trivia Question #23

Q: Who battled Chris Moneymaker heads up for the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet?

A: Sammy Farha. Farha finished 2nd to Moneymaker for $1,300,000. In a rematch between Farha and Moneymaker a few months later, organized by Poker Stars, Farha won.

Poker Trivia Question #22

Q: Who was the first and only woman to have reached the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event?

A: Barbara Enright. She finished in 5th place taking home $114,180, after her pocket eights were outdrawn by 6-3 suited.

Poker Trivia Question #21

Q: What does the term “rabbit hunting” mean in poker?

Poker.com, has the 'Rabbit Hunt' feature. If you win a hand before the river card is dealt, players have the option of clicking the 'Rabbit Hunt' button to see what cards were on the way. The only penalty is that you have to show the table what your hole cards were.

A: A player is rabbit hunting when he/she requests to see what cards would have come up if a hand had continued.

Poker Trivia Question #20

Q: What year was Doyle Brunson's book Super System first published?

A: The “bible” of poker was first published in 1979.

Poker Trivia Question #19

Q: Which actor was knocked out by Doyle Brunson during the first day of the 1998 WSOP Main Event?

A: Matt Damon, who starred in the film Rounders and was accompanied by co-star Edward Norton in efforts to promote the film, was knocked out with pocket kings by Doyle Brunson who held pocket aces.

Poker Trivia Question #18

Q: What is the playing style of a “rock”?

A: A rock is someone who plays very tight and careful. They only raise with the best hands and rarely bluff and are therefore, very predictable; not much action coming from them.

Poker Trivia Question #17

Q: How many one eyed jacks are there in a deck of cards?

A: Two. Jack of spades and jack of hearts.

Poker Trivia Question #16

Q: In Hold’em, when are you “on the button”?

A: When you’re the dealer.

Poker Trivia Question #15

Q: Which professional poker player is a former professional football player?

A: T. J. Cloutier played in the Canadian Football League, once for the Montreal Allouettes and also for the Toronto Argonauts.

Poker Trivia Question #14

Q: In Hold’em, when are you “under the gun”?

A: When you’re first to act – in the earliest position.

Poker Trivia Question #13

Q: Who was the last man to win back-to-back World Series of Poker Main Event Championships?

A: Johnny Chan. He shot to fame in the late 1980s, winning the championship event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1987 and 1988. He almost won a third consecutive title, but finished in 2nd place in 1989 to Phil Hellmuth.

Poker Trivia Question #12

Q: Which professional poker player recently posed in Maxim Magazine and appeared on Fox Sports Best Damn Sports Show Period, where she challenged Paris Hilton to a tournament in which the winner will receive $100,000 (put up by Full Tilt Poker) to award to the charity of her choice?

A: Clonie Gowen. “Paris seems to be a great girl, however, she represents everything that I am not, but now that she has stepped into my world (the poker world) I challenge her to put her poker skills to work for charity; $100,000 will go a long way to helping those in need. Paris, are you in?” Gowen said.

Poker Trivia Question #11

Q: Which professional poker player is a former kindergarten teacher?

A: Dewey Tomko, with almost $3 million dollars in tournament winnings, has been profiled on the World Poker Tour as having once been a kindergarten teacher in Winter Haven, Florida.

Poker Trivia Question #10

Q: Which online poker room sent the most players to the 2005 World Series of Poker?

A: During the last three years, PokerStars.com sent more players to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) than any other source or website. A whopping 1,116 entrants (19 percent of the field) qualified to play in the 2005 WSOP via PokerStars satellites.

PokerStars.com is the site where the 2003 and 2004 World Series of Poker champions won their entries into the WSOP. The reigning world poker champion, Joe Hachem, has also been an active player at Poker Stars since 2001. He joined Moneymaker and Raymer as official representatives of PokerStars.com, thus fortifying the company trademark, "Where Poker Players Become World Champions."

Technorati tags: poker trivia, Poker Stars, World Series of Poker

Poker Trivia Question #9

Q: Which poker and gin rummy legend had a genius level IQ and an eidetic (photographic) memory?

A: Stu “The Kid” Ungar. Ungar, who is still regarded by many poker insiders as the greatest pure talent ever to play the game, won the main event of the WSOP in 1980, 1981 and 1997.

Ungar was also able to keep track of every card in a six-deck blackjack shoe. In 1977, he was bet $100,000 by casino owner and designer, Bob Stupak, that he could not count down the last three decks in a six deck shoe. Ungar won the bet.

In his life, he was estimated to have won over $30 million at the poker table.

Check out the amazing life story of Stu Ungar on DVD.

Poker Trivia Question #8

Q: Who is the tallest professional poker player?

A: Phil Gordon, co-host of Bravo TV’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown” is 6’ 9” tall. Gordon raises millions of dollars for the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation.

Poker Trivia Question #7

Q: Which professional poker player is nicknamed “Robin Hood”?

A: Barry Greenstein, much to his dismay, is sometimes referred to as “Charity Barry,” or “The Robin Hood of Poker.” He gives all of his tournament winnings to charity, some $3 millions dollars to date, and counting.

Poker Trivia Question #5

Q: Which former U.S. president used some of his poker earnings to help fund his campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives?

A: Ex-President Richard Nixon won $6000 during his first two months in the U.S. Navy in World War II, playing poker. His winnings were used to fund his first (and successful) campaign for the U.S. Congress.

Poker Trivia Question #4

Q: The winner of a called hand must show all four of his/her cards in Omaha Hi/Lo split to claim the pot. True of False?

A: True. At the Showdown, a player must show all four of his cards to win the pot. If he verbally misdeclares his hand, and has a better hand than he declares using different cards, then the dealer shall point this out if he notices it, but the dealer's failure to notice it shall not entitle a player to play the higher hand. A player does not need to declare which two cards from his hand he chooses to play. The dealer shall assist any player in reading of hands if the player is unsure of what his best five card hand is or if he misreads what his best hand is. The essence of this rule is the long-standing poker tradition that cards speak.

Poker Trivia Question #3

Q: Which hand in poker is called the “dead man’s hand”?

A: On August 2, 1876, while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's "Saloon No. 10" in Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok could not find an empty seat in the corner, where he always sat in order to protect himself against sneak attacks from behind, and instead sat with his back to the door; unfortunately, his previous caution proved wise, as he was shot in the back of the head with a double-action .45 caliber revolver by Jack McCall.

The saloon proprietor claimed that, at the time of his death, Hickok held a pair of aces and a pair of eights, with all cards black, and this has since been called a "dead man's hand".

Poker Trivia Question #2

Q: Which player went on to win the WSOP with just one chip?

A: Jack "Treetop" Straus (1930 - 1988)

Straus won the 1982 World Series of Poker main event, earning $520,000 and his second WSOP bracelet.

Most remarkable about Straus' 1982 win was that he came back from having just one $500 chip left at one point, which lead to the common saying among poker players, "A Chip and a Chair."

Although accounts vary, the most common story is that he pushed all his chips into the pot, was called, and lost the hand. Getting up he discovered he had one chip left over under a napkin on the table. Presumably because he didn't declare himself, "All-in," the tournament directors allowed him to continue playing. Modern lore says that this feat occurred at the final table, but the 1983 book The Biggest Game in Town, reports that this occurred on the first day.

Poker Trivia Question #1

Q: What is the name given to the best possible hand in high-low poker?

A: The Steel Wheel (A, 2, 3, 4, 5 suited)

The perfect hand in such a game is called a "steel wheel", A, 2, 3, 4, 5 of one suit, which plays both as perfect low and a straight flush high.

Note that it is possible, though unlikely, to have this hand and still lose money. If the pot has three players, and one other player has a mixed-suit wheel, and a third has better straight flush, the higher straight flush wins the high half of the pot, and the two wheels split the low half, hence the steel wheel wins only a quarter of a three-way pot.