BEGINNER’S GUIDE FOR POKER

Poker can be an interesting game for beginners and is the best casino game. Poker is a category of card game in which players gamble based on value and strength of the hands which refers to card combination again a hierarchy of standard hand. The winner of 1 round can either make the combination of highest hand or be the only single player who remains in pot with maximum chips after the opponents have folder which means they have laid all their cards down. There are different categories of poker, but most of them include certain betting rounds, showdown which refers to showing and comparing the cards of players and some types include shared (or community) cards.

It is very simple to know about and learn poker but mastering it requires a lifetime. We need to retain the best hand ranking and card combination for 5 card wins.

The hand ranking in poker is the most important thing to remember. All types of poker involve a deck of 52 cards though most of poker games remove jokers from the pack. Texas holdem is a type of poker and the hand rankings in it are as below:

  1. Royal Flush – The highest hand with Ten, Queen, Ace, Jack all from same suit
  2. Four of a Kind – Any quartet of cards that match numerically.
  3. Straight Flush – 5 cards from same suit in continuous order nine, Ten, Queen, Jack, Ace, Kind all from same suit, or two, four, five, ace, and three in same suits.
  4. Straight – 5 cards in continuous order from any suit
  5. 3 of a kind – Any 3 cards that match numerically
  6. 2 Pair – 2 distinguished card pairs from same hand
  7. High card – The card which is ranked highest in the players hand (Ace is highest and two is lowest)
  8. Pair – Any 2 cards that match numerically. (For example, 2 in diamond and 2 in club)

The game play is always clockwise and starts with player who sits near the dealer button which is a plastic disk usually.

The 2 players who sit left of dealer post the small blind and big blind respectively. Blind is nothing but bet that is mad without seen by players or without dealing with cards. This is usually done for beginning betting process and to build pot.  Players could either raise (increase the bet amount) or call (match the value of big blind) or fold (returning cards to dealer as they do not have any more cards to play). Play continues in clockwise direction until all the players have matched the pot amount or folded. After the play is finished, the dealing of community cards is done.