Strip Poker

If playing for money has started to get boring and you want to play for something a little more interesting, why not try a game of strip poker? Rather than playing your friends for cold hard cash, you’re playing for the clothes off their backs, as the aim of the game is to try and win all their clothes until they’re left with nothing on.

Before you try to jam in your big stack, it’s best to learn the rules; you don’t want to go into your first game half-cocked and finish too soon.

Basic Strip Poker Rules

As you may not be surprised to learn, strip poker doesn’t have a particularly stringent rule set; you don’t see many sticklers for rules invited to these games. However, it’s good to have some rigidity to the game’s structure; otherwise, the evening quickly turns limp, and no one has a very fun experience.

While you can use any game to play strip poker, games with fewer betting rounds (like Texas Hold’em and 5 Card Draw) are often the most popular. And let’s get one thing out of the way before we go any further; socks and underwear are clothes, but glasses and jewelry don’t count, OK? If you don’t want to be disadvantaged by showing up barefoot and commando, you can agree on a fixed number of clothes for each person.

Do You Wanna Go Fast or Slow?

There often isn’t much poker that goes on in strip poker – most games won’t have any betting rounds at all! However, depending on how much poker you want to play, there are three commonly played versions of strip poker:

  • Fast Strip Poker
  • Steady Strip Poker
  • Boring Strip Poker

The fast version doesn’t actually have any poker playing at all. Instead, you deal each player a hand, run out the board, and the player who wins gets to keep their clothes on, while everyone else must take off an item of clothing. The game continues in this vein, with everyone but the winner of the hand taking off a piece of clothing. The first person to end up naked is the loser. Depending on how eager you are to get people naked and your plans for the rest of the night, this may be the best option.

The steady version also doesn’t have any poker playing, but it’s a much slower process to complete. This is because the major difference is that the player with the worst hand is the only person that needs to remove an item of clothing.

As the name implies, this game is taken at a steadier pace, particularly when revealing your hands at the end. Slowrolling is allowed and encouraged in these games, but be mindful of what body parts you leave exposed if you do so!

Finally, the boring version is the game for the purists. The ones that would complain that there’s no poker playing in this game about getting people naked. In this game, the game is played as normal with chips, but a player is allowed to bet an item of clothing if they wish to do so if they don’t have enough chips to continue the hand. So if you’re playing with a lot of tight players at the table, it can take a while before anyone shows you their one-eyed jack.

Adding Truth or Dare

Truth or dare is the perfect game to combine with strip poker, as it can add some much-needed length to the shorter games out there (which makes them much more satisfying), or it can spice things up if people insist on playing the boring version.

If you’re playing the shorter versions of the game, you can give people the option to ask for a truth or a dare instead of taking off an item of clothing every alternate round.

This makes the game go longer as people aren’t ending up naked within 10 hands but still enforces some sort of exciting punishment for losing. You can even let players continue playing once they’re naked by making them pick a truth or dare every round.

If you’re playing the boring version, you can add a rule where you have to take a truth or dare if you fold. This punishment for folding means people will lose chips faster and have to start wagering their clothes faster.

In case you’ve been living under a rock – playing truth or dare is incredibly easy. First, you ask the chosen participant (victim) “Truth or Dare,” to which they either respond “Truth” (where they have to answer a question that is often embarrassing or intimate truthfully) or “Dare” (where they have to complete a challenge set by the asker).

Make sure you don’t go too overboard when setting your “Dare” challenges.

Just a Tip (or Two)

If you’re trying to organize a strip poker game with your significant other, friends, coworkers, or cellmates, here are a few tips that will make the game less awkward the next morning.

  • Keep Things Light– You’ll want to make sure the evening is taken in the light-hearted spirit it’s intended, so make sure to make everyone feel at ease with dimmed lights, comfortable places to sit, some music, and lots and lots of alcohol.
  • Get The Temperature Right – No one wants to get naked in a cold room, but no one wants to be sweating either, so try to find a comfortable temperature that will keep people warm, but not too warm!
  • Wear Nice Underwear– Make sure to wear something nice, don’t wear the ones with holes in them as you’ll give everything away before they’ve earned it.
  • Have Fun! – The most important thing to do in these games is to have fun; getting tilted at a strip poker game is not a good look.

Things might get a little tense towards the business end of the game, but if things go right, you may end up with a couple of kings or queens instead of jack king off.

Solo Strip Poker

Play Online

If you’re dying to play strip poker but don’t have anyone to play it with, there’s finally a solution! No, it’s not playing in front of a mirror (those games always end in a tie anyway…); there are plenty of video games and online games that give you the chance to play with virtual partners.

Video Games

As early as the 1980s, video game systems had strip poker games available, with the earliest recorded game being “A Sizzling Game of Chance,” created in 1982 for the Apple II computer. Since then, lots of strip poker games have been made for games consoles and mobiles, with some notable games including Strip Poker Professional (released on DOS in 1994), Sexy Poker (release on mobile in 2004 and WiiWare in 2009), and Strip Poker XXX (released in 2013 on PC).

Google It

As well as dedicated strip poker video games, a host of online games allow you to play right in your browser. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to find these; just Google “Play Strip Poker Online,” and you’ll find thousands of games to enjoy.

History of Strip Poker

It’s no surprise that as long as there’s been poker, there’s been versions of strip poker. When the first poker games as we know them, such as Texas Hold’em and Omaha, were created back in the 1830s, strip poker was born at the same time. Now, many people believe that poker was invented much earlier, and it’s just these modern versions that were created in the 1800s. Even so, I’m sure it didn’t take the players of these earlier versions to realize that they could be having a lot more fun if everyone bet with their clothes rather than their money.

1800s

While many people think of strip poker as a private game (and rightly so – you’re not going to find it running in any reputable casino), its history is more closely tied to public games. For example, it was common for people to end up naked at the poker table, as paying with your clothes was a viable option in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s where most people believe the expression “lost the shirt off my back” came from.

1900s Film

Strip poker has been prevalent throughout our culture, with many films and TV shows referencing it or having strip poker scenes. The earliest example of this is the 1928 film, The Road to Ruin, starring Helen Foster, where the main character’s moral decline is partly shown by her involvement in a strip poker game. Some other examples include the 1932 political satire, The Dark Horse, the 1940 film, Mad Youth, and the 1971 film, Taking Off.

Public Strip Poker Tournament

Fast forward to today, and strip poker is still one of the most commonly known forms of poker. There have even been efforts to bring it more into the mainstream. In 1999, the Naturist Association of Estonia held the first public strip poker tournament. Around 100 people entered, and the winner managed to survive with just her socks on at the end!

Paddy Power

In 2006, the bookmaker and known internet banter site Paddy Power ran an April Fool’s joke advertising a strip poker tournament. The idea came after an online poll showed that 50% of online poker players played naked. While initially just a joke, there was enough interest that Paddy Power organized the tournament, which was held on the 20th of August 2006 at London’s Cafe Royale.

196 players showed up at the World Strip Poker Championship, and each participant was given five pieces of clothing to wear. The tournament was eventually won by John Young, who won around $16,000 in prize money, an entry to the Irish Open, and a vine leaf trophy.

Summary

You should now be ready for your very own strip poker game. Then, when you’re jamming the nuts into you’re opponent’s face, you’ll do so knowing that if they suck out on you, you only have to pay with your clothes rather than your wallet.

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Liam began his writing career in the mid-2010s, starting as a full-time sports journalist before moving into the world of iGaming and poker. In 2020, Liam published his first book, “Stay Lucky: A Complete Guide to Online Sports Betting.” He has worked with many top publications and companies, including Gambling.com, The Game Day, Casino Guru, and more.

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