Buzz Gnosis

The river, also known as ‘fifth street,’ is the fifth community card dealt to players in a hand of poker such as Texas hold ‘em or Omaha poker, where over the course of dealing five community cards are laid out for all players to use in correlation with their two hidden hole cards. The river is the last chance for a player to make his or her draw, as no further cards are dealt to the table after the river is laid. The finality of this card has developed for it a bit of a notorious reputation, as it is often here where a hand of poker is finally decided: the draw makes it or it doesn’t, the made hand stays made or gets caught. After the river is dealt there is a final round of betting, after which the players who are still in the hand and have put their money in the pot expose their hole cards and the player with the best five card hand is awarded the pot. All speculation and prospecting at this point is over and the players are now betting on their hands that have been made or perhaps will try to bluff with their hands that failed to get there. Barry Greenstein made use of the term ‘the river’ famously in his book ‘Ace on the River,’ which refers to the concept of a hand that had been behind through the rest of the online poker hand suddenly caught up and won by catching its winning paired ace cards against the odds, which further speaks to the fickle nature of this final shift in the playing out of a poker hand.