Heyang: Hello, everyone! Welcome to RoundTable's Word of the Week. This week, John and myself Heyang are going to talk about playing cards.
John: Yeah, and we're just talking about cards, we will look at a specific card game called poker. Because usually in Chinese, when you guys refer to cards, you use the Chinese term “扑克牌”. But actually, poker is a very very specific type of game that we play. So we'd be looking at some of the suits, and we'll be looking at how to play poker.
Heyang: 在英语和中文有一个小小的矛盾就是我们说的纸牌并不是老外说的poker，纸牌是cards，是总体的一个大的一个类别， poker是其中的一项游戏。

John: Exactly, and so first, take a look at the type of suits. There is the diamond.
Heyang: 方片儿。
John: There is the heart.
Heyang: 一颗红心。
John: There is the club.
Heyang: 草花或梅花。
John: And there is the spade.
Heyang: 黑桃。
John: There you go, so it's actually very very simple. Let's take a look then at poker, so poker actually has many different types of variations. There are actually many different ways to play poker. Right now, the most popular way to play poker, if you watch it on the TV like the World's Series of Poker, and things like that, is Texas Hold'em. But bottom line for any poker game, you basically have five cards and you want to make the best hand possible out of those five cards in order to win. It does get a bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes here we're just going to try to keep it simple.
Heyang: 在世界上，最受欢迎的扑克牌游戏应该是得克萨斯扑克。
John: Exactly, so we are going to look at what types of hands that you can make in poker, which one's are the worst, which one's are the best. So we are going to start from the bottom and work our way up. The lowest hand, the worst hand you can have and still win, is called 'you have a high card.' You have the highest card out of everyone else.
Heyang: 所谓的“高牌”，由单牌不连续且不连花的牌来组成。
John: There is 'one pair.'
Heyang: 比高牌要强一些的就是你有一个对。
John: There is 'two pairs.' So rather than having one pair, you in fact have two. It can be two pairs of anything.
Heyang: 就是你有两个对。
John: So you have to remember lots of this based upon the probability of getting these cards. So, the lower the hand, the higher probability, right. So actually you have a lower probability of getting three of a kind, which is higher than two pairs.
Heyang: 嗯，这里其实也是一个概率统计的一个玩法。
John: Right. And there is the 'straight.' So basically one, two ,three, four, five or four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or anything that is for one number in a series of five, all the way to the highest.
Heyang: 哦，这就是我最喜欢的“顺儿”。
John: And there is 'flush.' So all five cards are of the same suits, either all diamond, all heart, all club or all spade.
Heyang: Flush就是同花，就是所有的花色都是一样的牌。
John: And there is 'fullhouse.' This is actually one of my favorites, mostly because it's so hard to get. And a 'fullhouse' is one pair plus three of a kind.
Heyang: Fullhouse就叫“满堂红”。It sounds so hard to get.
John: It's actually very difficult. But even more difficult is the 'four-of-a-kind.' Now we're getting into the area where it's actually very very rare to see this type of hands. Once you get pass the 'fullhouse,' it's very difficult. There is 'four-of-a- kind,' so you have to remember there's only four cards of one number in each deck. So 'four-of-a- kind', somehow you'd been able to get all four cards of the same number.
Heyang: 现在我们进入大神级别的玩法了。
John: And even more difficult, I honestly have never even seen one of these whenever I play poker. It's a 'straight-flush,' so it's two, three, four, five, six all of the same suit.
Heyang: 那就是“同花顺”。Is there anything even better than this?
John: Oh, there is actually. And I'd never seen this either. This is like, you know, the white whale of poker hands. It's the 'royal-flush.' It's ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.
Heyang: 这就是终极的同花大顺，最高为Ace，也就是一点的同花顺。
John: Exactly. So they're very very difficult. I think it's important just to point out very quickly, you know, in many Chinese card games used two decks. In poker, you're only ever going to use one deck when you are playing. That's why 'four-of-a-kind' is very difficult because it's going to be four of each number.
Heyang: 在中国，我们玩牌常常使用的是两副牌。
John: One of the interesting things about Texas Hold'em, again it's a variation on poker. It's that normally when you are playing poker, there's an ante. And in most card games, if you got Los Vegas for example, there is going to be an ante. An ante is basically what you have to pay, to play. Texas Hold'em is a little bit different because you have the ideas of the blinds. There's the small blind and big blind. Only two people have to put this in and this happens before you get your cards. That's why it's called a blind.
Heyang：赌注呢叫ante。
John: Before the game's starts, to determine what the blind is, let's just say it's a dollar. And so the big blind puts a dollar before they see the cards. The small blind puts in half of that. So that's 50 cents and goes from there. Again unfortunately, I don't think we have enough time to really going into how you play Texas Hold'em, but certainly, if you get a chance to play, you'll very quickly realize why it's the most popular.