Poker is an extremely
complex card game with many, many
variations. I will explain the
basic rules of the
game here and spell out the different variations that I am familiar with in separate writeups.
Poker is a
betting game. Players need to
wager something on each hand (whether it be real
money, pennies,
poker chips or
pretzels) or the game gets boring rather quickly. Betting plays a huge role in the
strategy of the game; even if you are down on your
luck you can still
win by betting correctly, reading other player's bets correctly, and looking at other player's
reactions (reading their '
poker faces').
The object of most variations of poker is to construct the best possible
hand for yourself. Hands are almost always made up of 5
cards, although a player may have more than 5
cards available to him or her. Both
rank and
suit can be significant to a hand. The best hand is the
straight flush; the worst hand is a hand where no other combinations are made, and there is only the
high card.
Possible Hands
- Straight Flush: Five cards of the same suit arranged in a continuous order of rank. Example: 5♠ 6♠ 7♠ 8♠ 9♠. A ten-to-ace straight flush is called a royal flush.
- Four of a kind: Four cards of the same rank, plus any other card. Example: K♣ K♦ K♥ K♠ 4♥.
- Full House: Three cards of the same rank, plus two cards of a different rank. Example: A♣ A♦ A♥ 8♣ 8♠.
- Flush: Five cards of the same suit. Example: K♦ J♦ 9♦ 5♦ 2♦.
- Straight: Five cards in continuous order of rank. Example: Q♣ J♣ 10♣ 9♣ 8♣.
- Three of a kind: Three cards of the same rank, plus any other two cards. Example: 7♣ 7♦ 7♥ K♣ J♣.
- Two pair: Two cards of the same rank, two cards of a different rank, plus any other card. Example: 4♣ 4♦ 3♣ 3♥ A♥.
- Pair: Two cards of the same rank, plus any other three cards. Example: K♣ K♦ 10♦ 9♥ 7♠.
- High card: If none of the above combinations are made, the hand takes the value of the highest card. For example, the follwing hand would be called high-card king: K♣ 9♠ 6♠ 4♠ 3♠.
Poker Variations
Besides the usual
Five Card Draw poker game, there are several interesting variations on the game:
You also might want to check out
Poker Terminology and Slang in progress.