How to play poker

The Basics

It takes luck, chance and a bit of psychology to play poker, but the rules of the game are fairly simple to learn, and once you’ve played a few rounds you will have learned the basics. Usually, poker uses a standard, fifty-two card-deck although there are some variations of the game that require more than one deck or joker/wild cards. Each of the four suites in the deck range from ace to king and each is of equal value. The ace can either have a value that is greater than the king or less than the two. When used, jokers or wild cards can be used to substitute for any suit or card rank. There are some games that use the joker as the wild card and other games that use one of the regular cards as the wild card. The game determines which card will be the wild card.

Placing a Bet in Poker
Before the dealer can deal the cards, each player must ante up. In other words, he must place a bet before he can start playing. The ante can differ between games. After the players receive their hands they must then place a bet into the pot. The game is concluded when only one player is left holding his hand. This is the player with the most valuable online poker hand (or who has successfully bluffed the other players into believing he has the most valuable hand). The winner of the round gets to take all of the money in the pot.

Each round goes in a clockwise direction and begins with the player seated immediately to the left of the dealer.

As each player gets his turn, he must decide what he will do. The options are described below:

Place a bet: The bet goes into the pot and, if it is a limit game, must be within the game’s imposed limits.

Call: This is the option where you place a bet equal to the amount of the first player’s bet.

Raise: If you raise a bet, you are matching the amount of the first player’s bet and then adding to that amount.

Fold: This is the final option and is taken when a player decides his hand is not strong enough to win. By folding, the player can get out of the game and does not have to add any more money to the pot.

Odds and Rank
The objective in poker is to acquire the highest possible rank. To do this you need to know what the odds are for building your hand. The odds for each of the possible hands are listed in the following paragraphs:

Five of a Kind: This is only possible when the game is using wild cards. This hand has the highest possible rank. The chances of receiving this hand are 1 in 600,000.

Straight Flush: This hand has the second highest ranking. It is composed of five cards in consecutive order from the same suit. An example of this type of hand would be 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, and 6H. The possibility of obtaining this type of hand is 1 in just over 72,000.

Four of a Kind: Following the straight flush in rank is the four of a kind. This hand is composed of four cards of identical rank from each suit. An example of four of a kind is a hand with 7S, 7C, 7D, and 7H. The chance of obtaining a four of a kind is 1 in 4,000.

Full House: The chance of getting a full house is 1 in 694. A full house is made up of three of a kind plus a pair. A hand holding 2D, 2S, 2C, QS, and QH is an example of a full house.

Flush: Composed of five cards from the same suit, the possibility of forming a flush is 1 in 508.

Straight: A straight is made up of five cards in consecutive order but they do not have to be from the same suit.

Three of a Kind: Composed of three cards of identical rank.

Two Pairs: As the name implies, this is a hand composed of two different pairs of cards that are of different value.

One Pair: The chances of getting a hand with one pair are the highest making this hand of the least value.

A crucial part of strategizing and of the psychology of play is to know the meaning of set limits and their implications. If it is a no-limit game, it means there is no limit imposed on the value of a bet a person can wager. (All players have a personal limit, however, which is the number of chips they have at the table).

A pot limit imposes a limit on the bet value a player can make. Fixed limits have structured betting. For example, a fixed limit may look like $5/$10. This places a five-dollar limit on the initial wager and a ten-dollar limit on all wages to follow.

Low Hands
This is the most commonly used system of weighing up a player’s hands. Essentially, when you use this system, you invert all of the values of the hands. There are a few basic points to keep in mind with this system.

First, hands with pairs and triplets are looked at as if they have no value so that a hand with no pair will win over a hand with a pair. In the same vein, a hand with one pair wins a hand with two pairs.

Moreover, cards with low rankings are in higher demand than that of cards with high rankings. Thus, one of the best hands would be composed of A, 2, 3, 4, and 5. This hand is known as a wheel. Also considered desirable are hands with little order, sequence or connections between suits. The most desirable cards are those with the lowest ranking sequence.

The High Low Split
A similar variation of the low hand theme, the high low split is generally not hosted at casinos and is, therefore, primarily played at home games. To qualify, a player needs a low card, generally considered around the 8 or 9 high. If a player is holding such a hand, he may very well end up taking home the upper and lower half of the pot. When this happens it is usually known as scooping or as hogging the pot. As mentioned previously, the classic hand example used to demonstrate this type of game is the A-2-3-4-5 hand. It is a hand that can be played as both a high straight flush and a low one. It is next to impossible to get this hand without a joker or wild card.

Community Card Games
One of the most popular community card games currently is Texas Holdem poker. The game originated in the 1970s and already several different variations of the game have evolved. One reason the game is so popularity is that the rules of the game are simple to understand and follow. Of course, like all card games, luck and poker strategy is still an important part of winning.

Below is a list of the different versions of Texas Hold’em.

Texas Hold'em Poker
Six-Pack Poker
Pinatubo Poker
Cincinnati Poker
Iron Cross Poker
Courcheval Poker
Tic Tac Toe Poker
Omaha Hold'em Poker
Lame Brain Pete Poker
Double-Board Hold'em Poker
Manila Poker (Seven-Up Poker)
Pineapple Poker (and Crazy Pineapple, Tahoe)

In community card games, each player is dealt an “incomplete” hand or a hand that has “hole” cards. The community cards are the hole cards and they are shared with the other players to complete each player’s own hand. Community cards can either be laid straight out or in a certain pattern. The dealer starts the hand by dealing out the cards. The player seated immediately to the left of the dealer is dealt the first card.

Different online poker games have different limits. Casinos often have fixed limit games whereas home games tend to spread their limits. Of course, there are games without any limits at all, but these games are more rare (albeit very interesting). Generally speaking, later bets have higher limits than earlier bets.

With most community online poker games, you lose the round with lowball game cards. Sometimes, there is an advantage to be gained with a high low split, which can win the player both halves of the pot. Occasionally, a minimum qualifier hand is expected from the high-low split.


Texas Hold ‘em
As stated earlier, Texas Hold’em is the most popular community card game played today. The basics of the game are easy to learn and are explained in the paragraphs below.

Texas Hold’em is designed for ten players and there are four rounds in the game. The rounds are referred to as pre-flop, after the flop, after the turn, and after the river.

Additional terms worth learning follow:
Blind Structure: These are the bets that are placed before any cards have been dealt.
Small Blind: The bet placed by the person sitting immediately to the left of the player with the dealer button is called the small blind.
Big Blind: This is the player seated immediately to the left of the small blind.
Dealer Button: Used to indicate the player that is the last one to play for a particular round. At the beginning of each round, the dealer button gets moved one place to the person on the left. The dealer button is most often made from a white puck.
Fold: As in regular poker games, a player can fold once he decides that his hand is not strong enough to win, or even to continue playing. The player folds by placing his cards on the table. When you fold, you lose any bets you may have placed.
Fourth Street: This is the term used to refer to the 4th card placed on the community board. This takes place after the flop round.
Fifth Street: The term fifth street, similar to fourth street, refers to the fifth card placed on the community board. It is also placed after the flop round.
Rake: The rake is the commission on the winnings that the house takes. The rake is usually a set commission.
Under the Gun (UTG): This term is used to refer to the first player to make a move in the first round of the game.
The game proceeds as follows:
Before the cards get dealt out, the big blind and small blind must first place their bets. If the big blind bet is set at twenty dollars then the small blind bet will need to be ten dollars.

The first round is called the pre-flop. Here each player receives two cards. The player located immediately to the left of the big blind makes the first move. He can either raise the big blind's bet or fold. If he chooses to fold, he won’t lose anything. After this, each player gets a turn to play in order of seating. Play continues until it returns to the Big blind. The Big blind is the final play of each round.

Next, the second round begins. This round is called the flop. The dealer button gets moved one place to the left and each player is dealt three cards instead of two, as in the pre-flop round. The cards are dealt on the community board and the play continues once again until the circle is completed. From this point onward, the small blind is the first person to play and the last person to play is the person with the dealer button.

The turn, also called the third round, then begins. Fourth Street or the fourth card is dealt onto the community board and betting proceeds in the same manner as in previous rounds.

The fourth and final round, also known as after the river, then begins. The fifth card (5 th Street) gets placed on the community board and betting commences. When this round ends, all of the cards are displayed and the player with the highest hand takes the pot.

Pineapple Poker, Tahoe Poker and Crazy Pineapple
The games listed above are all variations of Texas Hold’em. While the foundation of these games is similar to that of Texas Hold’em, the variations lie in the execution of the game. For example, where in Texas Hold’em the first round begins with two cards, the first round in these games begins with three cards. In Pineapple, one of these cards then gets discarded and in Crazy Pineapple, the third card gets discarded following the second round. In Tahoe Poker, players get to keep all three of the cards until the end of the game but they are not allowed to count all three cards. Instead, a certain number of community cards must be used to calculate the hand total.

Draw Poker

Draw poker, a game designed for two to eight players, has been declining in popularity over the years and is rarely seen in casinos or tournaments anymore. Today, draw poker is usually played in home games.

Examples of draw poker games are named below:

Q-Ball Poker
Four-Before Poker
Draw Poker Variations
Spit in the Ocean Poker
High/Low with Declare
California Lowball Poker
California High/Low Split
Johnson Poker (and Jacks Back)
Pass the Trash / Anaconda Poker
Gardena Jackpots (Jacks to Open)
Double Draw and Triple Draw Poker
Shotgun Poker (Roll'em Out and Skinny Minnie)

To begin playing, the dealer deals out a card face down and one at a time to each player. The first card is dealt to the player seated immediately to the left of the dealer. Once the cards have been dealt out, the players can then look at their cards, taking care not to reveal anything about their cards to the other players. Next, betting commences. At the end of this round, there must be at least two players in the game in order to reach the draw phase of the game.

At this point, those players planning to remain in the game are supposed to discard the cards they don’t want and replace them with new cards. The discarded cards are known as the burn cards. Play then resumes. Note that players maintain the same number of cards throughout the game.

In casinos, it is common practice to give no more than four consecutive cards. In other words, if a player chooses five cards, he will first be given only four and will only get the fifth card after the other players have received their cards. If the other players don’t want any cards, the dealer will first discard a burn card before giving the player his fifth card.

It is considered taboo to use the last card in the deck because other players may have seen it, making it possible for them to use that information to their benefit. When a situation does arise where the last card in the deck would normally be dealt, the player that is supposed to receive that card has the option of randomly selecting a card from the deck of cards cast aside.

Stud Poker Games
In stud poker games, the series of combinations that occur during the various betting rounds determines whether the cards are dealt face up or face down.

In contrast to most other poker games, the person that begins the game is the person that is holding the best combination of face-up poker cards. Five-card and seven-card stud poker forms the basis of several other poker games that also fall under this category of game. These include Auction Stud Poker, Baseball Stud Poker, Chicago Stud Poker, Cowpie Stud Poker, Draft Stud Poker (or Socialist Stud Poker), General Stud Poker Variations, High-low Stud Eight or Better, Kentral Stud Poker, Mexican Stud Poker, Mississippi Stud Poker, Razz Stud Poker (and London Lowball Poker) and Six-Card Stud Poker.

The various structures for setting up stud poker are affected by the number of betting rounds. When the number of rounds is high it is better to play with a spread limit or a fixed limit. Conversely, when the number of rounds is low, the game can be played with a pot limit or no limit at all. Stud poker games get their name depending upon the number of cards in a player’s hand.


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