How to Play Progressive Poker Card Game

The progressive poker card game is a poker game for players that enjoy the game of poker but do no necessarily want to risk their own money. In the progressive poker card game players are in the game until they are out of personal cards. These personal cards have a special value as they allow players to improve their hands during the game with cards they already know the values of, unlike relying on the luck of the draw.

Things You'll Need

• Deck of playing cards

Instructions

1. Organize a group of friends to play the progressive poker card game. The minimum number of players is two and the maximum number is six. The ideal number of players for the game is either four or five players.

2. Deal three cards face down to each player. These cards are considered each player's personal cards that he can use later in the game, and also are contributed toward the winner's pot each hand.

3. Direct each player to discard one of her personal cards into the winner's hand pot, which is claimed by the winner of the round. These cards should each be played face down and are flipped face up for everyone to see after each player has contributed a personal card to the winner's hand pot.

4. Deal five cards to each player face down at the table. These cards should be kept separate from the personal cards for each player.

5. Allow each player to exchange any number of cards from his playing hand with cards from his personal hand, the number of cards in the personal hand and playing hand for each player must remain the same as they were before the exchange was made. In other words a player can not have any more or fewer than five cards in his playing hand after the exchange.

   There is one exception to this rule. The player with the most personal cards is not allowed to exchange any cards between his playing hand and personal cards. If multiple players are tied for having the most personal cards, none of them involved in the tie can exchange personal cards with their playing hand. If all the players have the same number of personal cards though, players are free to exchange cards between their playing and personal cards.

6. Permit each player to discard up to three cards from her playing hand. These cards are replaced by an equal number from the unused cards in the deck of playing cards. If you run out of cards in the deck, shuffle the cards that were discarded and use those. To keep it fair, each player should discard before the replacement cards are dealt.

7. Reveal the five-card hand each player has remaining. The player with the highest ranking poker hand collects the cards in the winner's pot hand and adds them to his face-down personal cards in front of him. These can be used in future hands.

8. Collect all the cards that are not part of each player's personal pile. Shuffle these cards and repeat steps three though seven. When a player cannot contribute a personal card to the winner's hand pot, she is eliminated from the game. Continue playing until only one player remains.

Tips & Warnings

• If you wish to add a gambling element to the progressive poker card game, have each player ante an amount of money into the pot before the game begins, with the winner of the game collecting all the money in the pot.

• Be careful not to pitch cards into the winner's hand pot that split up combinations in your own hand that can form straight flushes or pairs that can contribute to a full house. These are very powerful hands in the progressive poker card game.