Banana Poker Game Review

Banana Poker Game Background

This is a cartoony take on the classic card game. The game pits a single human player against up to five formidable cartoon opponents, each with different personalities and play styles. Play your cards right or bluff your way to victory. The choices are yours alone.

The game has two parts: Texas Hold’em Poker (the “main game” for the rest of this article) and High or Low. High or Low is only available on the welcome screen after you’ve played the main game at least once. To select, left click with your mouse or select with your fingers.

How to Play Banana Poker

The main game consists of players taking turns doing the following moves:

• Folding, which rejects any bet. Folding at any time other than the beginning of a round means you lose the money you’ve bet
• Calling, which places the same bet as the previous player
• Raising, which increases the player’s bets
• Checking, which allows a player to pass on betting on their turn

If you fold, you can breeze past the game by pressing the skip button on the bottom center of the screen.

The turns continue until either all other players fold or all the cards are dealt. Throughout the round, the dealer will reveal up to five cards. During this time, the players can call, raise, fold or check. When the round ends, the player with the highest valued hands wins.

Each time a player places a bet, the value of the credits go into the pot. The player who wins the round gets the entire pot unless another player ends with a tie. In these rare cases, both players split the value of the pot. You have the option to keep playing until you run out of money or beat the other players in the table. Should you defeat all the other players, your final pot would be 5,000 credits.

Basic Gameplay Advice

A hand consists of the two cards already with the player and the cards dealt throughout the round. The winning hands of Texas Hold’em Poker are as follows, ranked according to value:

• The royal flush consists of an ace, king, queen, jack, and 10 of the same suit. This is the best hand in the game.
• A straight flush is a group of five cards in numerical order (e.g. 7, 8, 9, 10, jack) of the same suit.
• Four of a kind refers to getting cards of the same value from every suit in the game (e.g. all four 4s).
• A full house refers to three of one value and two of another, such as a pair of kings and three 3s.
• A flush refers to any group of cards of any value (e.g. 2, 5, 7, 9, queen) of the same suit.
• A straight refers to any group of five cards in numerical order of any suit.
• Three of a kind refers to a trio of cards of the same value from any suit (e.g three 3s)
• Two pairs refers to a two identical pairs of cards from any suit (e.g. two 2s and two aces).
• A pair is two identical cards of any suit.
• A high card refers to any hand that has no combination. In the absence of any combination of the above, the card with the highest value wins. The values are based on the highest-ranking card, followed by the next highest, and so on.

The following table visually represents the above rank order, while also showing the approximate odds in a 7-card poker game. Odds are higher in Texas Hold Em than in 7-card play because a player is not required to discard cards to receive the final 2 cards and can play any 5 of 7.

To win a round, your hand must have the highest valued hand. If you and your opponent both have pairs, it is the one with the higher valued pair (e.g. two kings vs. two 4s) who wins. The game helpfully indicates the state of your current hand throughout the game.

Each player begins with two cards before the flop begins. You have the option of folding (quitting) before the flop if you don’t think your cards can win (e.g. if your hand is a high card with low valued cards). Once you do call or raise your bets, the game cycles among the players until the flop begins.

Players start each game at the table with 1,000 chips. Players periodically get saddled with small blinds and big blinds, which would require them to lose chips when folding before the flop. This is dictated by the button that moves clockwise around the table. The player next to the one with the button is the small blind and the player next to the small blind is the big blind. The blinds must bet a specific amount, which goes up as the game goes on. The starting values for the blinds are 5 for the small blind and 10 for the big blind; these start to increase after 10 hands. All other players can fold without chip cost, though if either blind folds they lose those initial chips. As you progress through the game the blind amounts increase every 10 hands to force the game toward a conclusion.

The flop involves with 3 cards. It is followed by the turn, which deals one more card, and the river, which deals the last card. You and the other players can fold or increase bets at any point between the flop and the river.

The following table shows the approximate odds of obtaining various hand upgrades on the flop.

The following table shows the odds of upgrading your hand on the turn.

The following table shows the odds of upgrading your hand on the river.

Poker has a concept called "outs" where you consider how many potential cards left in the deck will allow you to likely win the hand. Your hand may be close to a flush and a straight, or have a pair which may become part of a 3 of a kind. Count the potential cards which would likely secure you a victory, and then divide that number of cards by how many cards remain in the deck.

Use the slider on the bottom right to change the value of your bets. You can raise the value until you use up all your credits (all in). In some cases, going all in is your only option. Usually, we recommend raising the stakes a little at a time. Raising the stakes drastically, however, also serves as an intimidation tactic. A significant raise can bluff players into folding, which makes you win the pot uncontested. Alternately, it can goad them into going all in, putting them at risk.

Take advantage of pot odds when considering your bets. If you fold you are guaranteed to lose whatever chips you put in on the hand. If you place an additional wager your additional potential downside is only the additional call or raise. If you are bluffing and get countered by a large raise you may want to fold rather than pressing your luck.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

The most important piece of advice in poker is to know when to fold. While folding means you lose the round, it also allows you to retain some or all of your funds. Look at your cards and see if you think you have a good starting hand. If you have low-valued cards, it’s best to skip the round and play again later. If you have higher-valued cards, consider sticking around for a few rounds.

The computer players have individual playstyles as indicated by the star ratings on their profiles. Some are more analytical and will take very little risks, while others are aggressive but impulsive. You can goad aggressive players into going all in if you think you have a good chance at winning. Likewise, you can bluff more conservative players regardless of your ability to win by raising the bets to about as high as their remaining credits. To stay in the game, they’ll be forced to fold in your favor. The following table shows the computer player attributes.

Bluff with caution, as this could easily backfire if your opponents’ hands are good. Analytical players will only go all in if their odds are good, so play conservatively and reconsider bluffs when taking them on.

How to Play High or Low

In High or Low, you must guess whether the oncoming number is higher or lower than the previous card. The game begins by drawing a card. To guess, select the respective button. Answering correctly will add 100 tokens to your score, whereas answering wrong deducts 100. A number below the deck indicates the number of cards left to deal. If you finish off all the cards with at least one remaining heart, you win.

You begin the game with three hearts. Each incorrect guess will take one heart. Lose all your hearts before all the cards are dealt and it’s game over. You will earn an extra heart if you guess five consecutive cards correctly.

Each time you win, you earn in-game credits to play the main game. Should you lose all your lives while in the negative, no points are deducted from your balance. Your web browser automatically saves your token balance.

High or Low Basic Gameplay Advice

Probability and range limits are your main allies. The lower the value of the card, the more likely it is that the value of the next card is higher, and vice versa. For this minigame, the 2 card is the lowest number while the ace is the highest.

To use an example, let’s say you draw a 3. There is a 11:1 chance that the number is higher, so a safe choice would be to select higher. This becomes more challenging as you reach middle-valued numbers such as 6 or 7.

Another thing to remember is to pay attention to the cards that have already been dealt. They will not appear again. For instance, if you draw a 7 and have previously drawn a 3, a 9, and an 8, you must remove these numbers from your tally of higher and lower numbers. This leaves you with a 5:4 chance in favor of a higher number. Consider tracking your numbers on a piece of paper or a text file to help you out. Likewise, if you’ve already drawn a 2 and 3, then get a 4, the only correct answer must be higher.

Educational Aspects

Both Poker and High or Low teach vital skills in probability and risk-taking. Understanding the likelihood of victory and defeat can help players learn when to take risky maneuvers or be aggressive, and when it makes sense to be less aggressive.

Player Age Recommendations

We recommend this game mainly for adults. That said, older children who can follow along can still play this game with no consequence as this does not involve any real money.

This game is meant to be played for fun and should not be taken as an endorsement of gambling. We would like to remind everyone that minors should not gamble and also caution adult players to play responsibly when gambling in real life. If you do gamble with real money do so within a strict budget; it’s smarter not to gamble at all. Remember, a lot of people ruin their finances and relationships through uncontrolled gambling addictions. How dopamine works in the brain requires players to make larger and more ridiculous wagers to get the same level of rush.

Every breaking wave on the shore
Tells the next one there'll be one more
And every gambler knows that to lose
Is what you're really there for
- intro to the U2 song Every Breaking Wave

Online gambling houses have taken advantage of innumeracy to spread their margins by promoting parlays with low odds:

Like Wall Street stock traders studying geopolitics and economic indicators, the math experts that operate sportsbook trading desks scan sports news and social media in the days leading up to a big NFL weekend. They examine which players and teams fans are talking about, turning that chatter into bets that customers use to build their parlays. FanDuel’s algorithm simulates each play of a football game 10,000 times to predict outcomes. With sophisticated models and dozens of traders, the house almost always wins.

Moreover, we warn that, unlike this game, playing against real people in Poker is much more difficult. A lot of the game involves reading people’s verbal and nonverbal cues - while not letting them read your tells. Mastering this game is no guarantee that you’ll be able to beat your friends in Poker, let alone take on professional players.