King's Pot Rules

King's Pot was contributed to pagat.com by Alan Kross-Vinson. It is for three to twenty-two players with a standard 52-card deck. Hands rank as in standard poker. Aces are high but may be low in a straight.

The dealer deals twenty-five cards face down in a grid of five rows and five columns, then five more cards face down in a single pile to one side. The pile is the king's hand.

The grid contains twelve five-card hands: five rows, five columns and two diagonals. Each hand is named after a rank, and a player's cards show which hands they are backing:

1.3(a) The rows, from top to bottom, are the ace's, two's, three's, four's and five's hands.

1.3(b) The columns, from left to right, are the six's, seven's, eight's, nine's and ten's hands.

1.3(c) The diagonal from top left to bottom right is the jack's hand, and the other diagonal is the queen's hand.

1.3(d) The king's hand is the separate pile of five cards.

The lines may be marked with cards from another deck to show which rank each one belongs to.

Twenty-two cards remain after the layout is dealt. Players are dealt only from these.

Each player in turn says how many cards they want, up to the maximum for the number of players, and pays the agreed ante for each card. A player needs only one card to play.

2.1(a) Three players: up to seven cards each.

2.1(b) Four players: up to five cards each.

2.1(c) Five players: up to four cards each.

2.1(d) Six or seven players: up to three cards each.

2.1(e) Eight to eleven players: one or two cards each.

2.1(f) Twelve or more players: one card each.

All antes paid for cards go into the king's pot, which is kept beside the king's hand and is separate from the betting pot.

Each player is dealt the number of cards they paid for. The rank of each card shows which hand that card backs; for example, a seven backs the second column and a king backs the king's hand.

The five cards marked 1 are turned face up. There is then a round of betting, beginning with the player to the dealer's left.

Bets go into a pot separate from the king's pot. Players check, bet, call or raise in the usual way, but each stake is paid once for every card the player holds. A player holding two cards who calls a bet of 5 puts in 10.

A player may fold any or all of their cards. Folded cards are removed, and no stake is paid for them.

The five cards marked 2 are then turned, followed by a second round of betting, and then the five cards marked 3, followed by a third round of betting.

No card of the king's hand is shown before the showdown.

If more than one player remains after the third betting round, every card in the grid and the king's hand is turned face up, and the players show the cards they have not folded.

The winning hand is the highest of the lines backed by a card held by a player still in. It need not be the highest hand on the table: a line that nobody backs cannot win.

The player holding the card for the winning line takes the betting pot. If several players hold cards of that rank, they share the pot, each card taking an equal share.

4.3(a) A player may be dealt two cards of the same rank. They would normally fold one at once, to avoid paying twice on the same line. If they keep both and share the pot with a player holding one card of that rank, they take two-thirds.

If the king's hand wins, the player holding the king takes both the betting pot and the king's pot.

If the king's hand does not win, the king's pot stays on the table and grows with the antes of the next deal. As it grows, a player who holds a king has a strong reason to stay in to the end.

King's Pot Optional Play. Four cards of each line are revealed instead of three. Before the first round of betting, the cards marked 1 and 2 are turned (ten cards). The cards marked 3 are turned before the second round. Before the third round, a fourth set of five is turned: row 1 column 2, row 2 column 5, row 3 column 3 (the centre), row 4 column 1 and row 5 column 4.