Poker wild card II
Use of wild cards in poker games does not follow the standard practice in some home games where exceptions such as the double ace flush rule and the natural wins rule come into play. According to the natural wins rule, if two or more hands end in a tie, then he who has the least number of wild cards would be the winner. This is however not a rule that is followed in casino houses.
Many poker players consider tat playing with wild cards is amateurish. However, if use of wild cards is restricted then instead of being random play without skill, the poker game can become interesting with the cards bringing a twist in the game and chances of skilful gameplay by the experts. In California, 5-card draw poker is usually played with a joker card used as a bug and sometimes deuces fully wild are also introduced. High/low split games of 7-card stud poker also becomes exciting when played with the use of one or two bugs. However, community card poker games like Texas hold ‘em and Omaha hold ‘em are not suited for playing with wild cards and hence they are never used. The greatest drawback of wild cards in poker games is that anyone holding several wild cards becomes most favored to win and other players, even with good cards, cannot play to their strength, a situation which takes away skill from the game.
Moreover, wild cards affect the hand frequencies in poker games. So, if 5-crd stud poker game is being played, weak hands occurs more often than strong hands, making no pair the most common occurrence, followed by one pair, two pair and so on. Using of wild cards increases the frequency of formation of strong hands, since anyone with a pair and a wild card would go for the strong three of a kind hand than the two pair, making the strong hand more common than the weak hand.
