How to Play Bid em Poker

Bid Em Poker is a five card poker game that combines several styles of poker. It uses the basic rules of stud poker, but throws in aspects of auction poker and draw poker as well. This is a game that you should play early in the evening during your home poker game so you are sure everyone is paying close attention to the rules. It might even be helpful to play a sample game without any wagering first.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Playing cards
• Poker table, poker tabletop, or standard table
• Chairs
• Opponents
• Poker chips

How To play Bid Em Poker

1. Gather your friends together for a home poker game. When playing Bid Em Poker you can have up to eight players in the game. Each player will receive five cards and have an option to take one additional card later in the hand.

2. Deal the first card face down to each player. There is no betting round after this first card.

3. Flip the top card of the deck face up on the table. The player to the left of the dealer has an option to bid the minimum chip amount for that card, or take the top face down card for the cost of twice the minimum bet. If the player chooses to bid on the face up card, an auction starts.During an auction the bidding continues clockwise until no player is willing to bid higher than the previous bid. If a player passes during the auction they can not re-enter the auction. Replace the face up card after it is purchased.

4. Give the next player in a clockwise direction around the table the option to bid on this new face up card for the minimum bet or take the face down for twice the minimum. If he bids, another auction round ensues. This continues until each player has received one card in the round. Each player's card is displayed face up, whether it was won in auction or taken from the deck.

5. Conduct a betting round, with the best face up hand starting the betting round.

6. Repeat steps three through five twice more. After that, all players remaining in the hand will have one face down card and three face up cards.

7. Deal an additional face down card to each player. There is no betting round after the face down card is dealt.

8. Allow each player to exchange one card from their hand for the top card of the dealer's deck. If the card they exchange is face down they receive their replacement card face down. If the card they exchange is face up, they receive their replacement card dealt face up.

9. Conduct one final betting round, starting with the player with the best face up hand.

10. All players still in the hand reveal their hands. The winner of the pot is the player with the best poker hand.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are the last player in the round to get a card, you will have the option of getting the face card cheapest as nobody can bid above your one minimum chip wager.
• Be cautious bidding on cards early, keep in mind you will be able to discard one of your cards after you have five in your hand.