Which game is smarter, poker or teen patti?

T he Hollywood caper The Sting (1973) includes a memorable depiction of a poker game, in which a lot of cheating is going on. Cinema must, however, wait until we are done with the first puzzle of the day. This too is about poker, and the rules of the game now may help you warm up for The Sting later.

In a poker game, every player is dealt a hand of five cards, and the strongest hand still in play wins. So which combination is stronger than the other? In poker’s ranking system, the strongest possible hand is a straight flush, in which all five cards are of the same suit, with their ranks in sequence.

If two players hold a straight flush, the one with the higher top card wins. The above example of A-K-Q-J-10 is the strongest possible, also called a royal flush. It beats all other straight flush combinations, such as 9-8-7-6-5 of one suit. Again, 9-8-7-6-5 is better than 6-5-4-3-2. And so on.

Next in the hierarchy is “four of a kind”, which needs no explanation.

Four 10s (the fifth card can be anything) is a stronger hand than four 9s, for example, while four aces is even better. But each of these combinations would rank l ower than a straight flush, irrespective of whether the cards in the straight flush were l ow or high. In I ndia, there’s a card game similar to poker i n some ways, yet different. Teen patti i nvolves three cards per hand, compared to poker’s five. Also, while teen patti does not allow players to change any of the cards they have been dealt, poker gives them the option to discard cards and draw fresh ones. In teen patti, the strongest combination is taken as the “trio” or “trail”. It means the player has three cards of the same rank, such as A-A-A or 7-7-7. The second-best combination is the straight flush (three cards i n sequence, same suit).