Overview

General Information

Pilatch-specific terminology appears in the rules of many games.

Experimenting with rules, and use of optional rules are encouraged. Just make sure there's no question about what house rules may be in effect before the game begins.

For Betting

Inspired by community poker games like Texas Hold'em, Pilatch decks feature improvements over standard poker decks. The biggest difference between a Pilatch deck and a poker deck is their suits. One might think that Pilatch is simply three suit poker, but Pilatch offers much more.

Most of the rules in this section only relate to betting games, which can be quite complex. If you are new to betting games, learn the basics.

A key factor that makes Pilatch betting different from poker games is the ability to bet on unknown cards. In Pilatch games, both face-down and face-up community cards are dealt. Either can be bet on, with each player's bet signified by an Up/Down card. Learn more about Pilatch's unique betting rules.

Pilatch is more than a Roshambo alternative to poker decks. In comparison, poker decks have suits represented by symbols that imply nothing about the relative values of the suits, which vary from one place to the next, can be different for each game, or have no relevance at all. However the intuitive interaction of Pilatch's suits can break tying hands, so one player will hog all the glory.

The absence of a fourth suit also radically shifts the scale of which hands are rarest, and therefore most valuable in poker-like games, causing Pilatch players to handle their chips with a whole new frame of mind. Add in the concept of binary betting, and you'll understand why special care is taken when determining the winner of each hand.