Push Rules

Push is played with a standard 52-card deck with no jokers and no wild cards, by four to nine players. It plays best with five to seven.

Each player ends with five cards, one face down and four face up. The best five-card hand, ranked by the standard poker hand rankings, wins the pot.

Before play, the players shall agree the price of a push. A typical price is five times the minimum bet. Money paid to push goes into the pot.

Each player antes. The dealer deals one card face down to each player. This is the player's hole card, and it cannot be pushed.

There is no betting round after the hole card. The four up-cards are then dealt by the pushing procedure in Article 3.

The dealer turns a card face up and offers it to the first active player to the dealer's left. That player may:

3.1(a) accept the card free of charge; or

3.1(b) push it, by paying the agreed price into the pot. The dealer then deals the player the next card from the deck face up, and the player must accept that card.

The next player to the left is offered the card pushed by the previous player. If the previous player accepted their card, this player is offered a fresh card from the deck instead. The player has the same choice to accept free or pay to push.

Each player in turn has the same choice. A card may therefore be pushed several times as it moves round the table.

If the last player (the dealer, or the last active player) pays to push, the pushed card is discarded face down.

In every later round of pushing, the first active player to the dealer's left is always offered a fresh card from the deck. Pushed cards never carry over from one round to the next.

There is a betting round after each round of pushing, begun by the player with the highest card or hand showing.

After the fourth betting round, the remaining players show their hole cards and the highest five-card hand wins the pot.

Roll your own. All cards are dealt face down and pushing is free. A player offered a card either keeps it or pushes it and must take the next card. After the first card everyone has one hole card and there is a betting round. In each of the next four rounds, whenever a player acquires a new card, they must turn one of their two face-down cards face up, so that each player always has exactly one card in the hole. This version may be played high, low, or high-low with declaration. See also Roll Your Own.

Substitution. After the betting round in which each player has five cards, each active player in turn, starting to the dealer's left, may pay an agreed price (for example ten times the minimum bet) to discard any one card and receive a replacement face down from the deck. If an up-card is discarded, the player has only three cards showing. A final betting round and showdown follow. See also Substitution.