Texas Hold Em donates proceeds to Gateway Green

Are you a poker fan? Well, every year the University of Missouri-St. Louis holds an annual Texas Hold 'em Poker game in Provincial House's Museum room.

This year, the tournament started at 7:30 p.m. while 23 students and faculty played their hand at four rounds of poker until around 10:00.

The Catholic Newman Center sponsored the poker game and does so every year as a part of Social Justice Month through March.

Each week a different activity is arranged and has its own theme. This past week was "Environmental Week." Next week, March 11-Friday 16 is Homelessness Awareness Week.

Last year's theme was "Hold 'em for Hunger," this year the new theme was changed to "All in for the Environment."

"The program is to raise awareness. It's a means to get out information and the students to enjoy themselves while they play poker," Mike Ruzicky sophomore/junior, English said.

Poker is played all over the world and originated in Germany as a bluffing game called 'Pochen.' It was then adopted by the French and called 'Poque' and brought over to New Orleans.

Obviously, poker is a game of both luck and great skill. It is said to be a game of math and require concentration and patience as well.

In a game of Texas Hold 'em, two to 14 players are dealt two facedown cards, known as "hole cards" from a 52 card deck and they all share five community cards.

Then the betting begins.

The objective of the game is to have the best five-card poker hand at the end of the game. In each round the players can choose to forfeit (fold), call (someone's bluff) or raise when it is their turn to bet.

After the first round, the dealer discards the top card of the deck, called 'burning,' just to make sure no one has seen the top card and prevents cheating. The dealer then flips three cards face up on the table. These cards are called the "flop cards."

The challenge of Texas Hold-'em is to determine which cards will appear, how other players will play and how to use the cards. After the flop, another card is burned and the dealer turns over another card called "fourth community." This is called "turn" or "fourth street" and the third round of betting begins.