Guts poker is not a certain game, but rather is a game structure that can be applied to different poker games. Classical Guts poker is a two card game, where the best hand is a pair of aces. There are many variations of this game and many games that use a mixture of Guts poker rules and attributes of other games.

What is Guts Poker?

The main conception of Guts poker is the following: When players receive their cards they declare In or Out. Those who declare Out, fold their cards and leave the game round, and those who declare In compare their hands. The player who declares In and has the best hand, wins the pot. Other players who declare In, but lose must match the pot for the next round. If more then two players go In, the pot is multiplied. If only one player goes In, he empties the pot and all players must re-ante in the next round.

One delicate thing about Guts poker is the declaration phase. If it is done in the clockwise order like standard poker betting rounds, it gives a great advantage to the player who declares last, because he already knows how many players will go In this round and can base his decision on this fact. To solve this, players can use so called Coin Declare in Guts poker games. Coin Declare is done with the help of a coin or a chip. Players hide their hands under the table and put the coin into one of the hands, while other players can not see it. Then all players raise one closed hand above the table and open their hands simultaneously. The players who have a coin in the hand above the table declare In, those who raise an empty hand declare Out. With Coin Declare, players declare their decisions simultaneously. This eliminates advantages and disadvantages of playing positions and makes the game fairer.

As you can imagine, multiplying the pot various times can make it really large in a couple of rounds, and, taking into the account the rule that obliges players who go In and lose to match the pot, declaring In may mean risking really big money at a certain stage of the game. To stimulate players go In more often, Guts poker can be played with caps. Cap is the maximum amount a player can lose in one round. When playing with caps, players follow standard Guts poker rules as long as the pot does not exceed the Cap limit. When it exceeds it, players who declare In and lose do not match the pot, but match the Cap. On the other hand, the winner does not win the entire pot, but only the amount equal to the Cap. In such situation, the remaining pot stays in the game together with the money placed by losing In players. If the pot exceeds the Cap significantly, going In becomes really advantageous, and only situations when only one player goes In and clears the pot become rare. So, with Caps the pot grows slower, but more consistently, and can reach larger sizes than in a game without Caps.

Guts poker can also implement a rule, according to which all players regardless of what they declared in the previous round, re-ante in the beginning of each new round. This does nothing else, but makes the pot grow even faster than normally.

Guts poker can implement a kitty, which is an additional hand that belongs to the pot. If the kitty is the best hand at the table, none of the players wins, and all players who go In match the pot.

These and other poker stipulations applicable to Guts poker can be used separately or all together to create an endless variety of Guts poker games.