Learn Every Type of Poker with Full Color Examples

Rules of Poker

The first 2 Rules of poker: 1. Your hand will always consist of exactly FIVE cards total. (4 card Badugi, the only exeption, will be discussed later.) 2. The game will always use only ONE 52-card deck. (Jokers added or cards removed are for home games and alter the odds, therefore they will not be considered.)   Even if you are not dealt all five cards at a time, or dealt more, the official end result of your hand will always total five cards Poker is played on a table with 2 to 9 or even 10 players. Even though there are many types of Poker, they will generally fall under three major categories. A “Flop” game, a “Draw” game, or a “Stud” game. In a Flop game you will be dealt all your cards face down, and share them with ‘community cards’, which are face up on the table to make your 5-card hand. In a Draw game you will also receive all your cards face down, however there are no face up community cards for any player to use. Instead you may discard or remove the ones you do not wish to keep and receive more cards in order to make your hand. A Stud game differs in that you receive some of your cards face down and some of them face up. In any Stud game you will always receive 5 or more cards since there are no community cards to share and there is no discarding. Five card Draw Poker and Seven Card Stud Poker already tell you what type of game they are and how many cards you receive just from their titles. The rank order of suits in Poker is shown below. In the rare instances it does matter. 1. Spades 2. Hearts 3. Diamonds 4. Clubs One good way to remember this is that they are in reverse alphabetic order, C, D, H, S reversed becomes Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs.

 What are blinds, antes, and the dealer button?

These are the essential tools that make a poker game work. When the game first starts everyone draws one card and highest draw has a 'dealer' button placed in front of him/her. In casinos the dealer will do this at the start of every game.

The dealer deals the cards one at a time to each player clockwise. The first to receive a card is the player to the left of the dealer button and is called "the Small Blind". The second to receive a card is called the Big Blind. After these two we have 'first position', 'second position', all the way to the last position called the 'button' which is the player with the dealer button in front of him/her.

The small blind and the big blind have to wager in order to receive cards, hence the name Blind. If you fail to put in your blind amount the dealer will skip you and you will not receive cards. Everyone other player receives their cards for free and then chooses if they would like to wager of fold. The amount of the big blind is a full minimum bet established before the game started and never changes. The small blind is normally half of the big blind, but can vary from 1/3 to 2/3 of the big blind. So if you would like to play “2-5 NL Hold’em”, the small blind would be $2.00, and the big blind would be $5.00. However, even though both dollar amounts allow you to receive cards, only the big blind is qualified to play out the hand, the small blind must match the big blind with another $3.00 in order to play the hand.

What are seat numbers? 

When it is your 'turn' to ‘act’ in poker your can either bet nothing by saying 'check', match someone else's bet by which is termed 'calling', raise someone else's bet, or fold your hand. When and why it is your turn depends on your position. The betting starts from the first person to act and keeps going around the table until all wagering is completed. One bet session is one round of competed clockwise wagering. The number of bet sessions from one Poker game to another may or may not be the same.

In a 2-4 Limit Flop game there are 4 total bet sessions. The minimum bet would be $2 and maximum would be $4. So if you want to play your hand you can come in or call with $2. Or you can come in with a raise for $4. You cannot raise to $3 or $6 from the minimum of $2 because in a Limit game you can only raise 1 increment of the previous bet at a time. The reason why you can come in with a raise of $4 even though there has been no previous bet is because the big blind counts as a previous bet. Once you have raised to $4, if the person who is next to act after you wants to re-raise, he can make it $6 even since the previous bet to him was $4. Now if more than two people are in the hand there is a maximum of 4 raises allowed. So at the $2 betting phase the most you could put in would be $2 + 4 two dollars raises, or $2 + $8 = $10. At the $4 betting phase someone could actually put in $20 at once in a 2-4 game. However in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, bet sessions you cannot raise to $8 without someone betting $4 before you, since the big blind counts as a bet only in the first bet session.

A typical bet session in a seven player 2-4 game would be:
Fold, Fold, Fold, Call, Call, Raise, Fold, Call, Call. (9 actions)
What happened here exactly?
First of all you should notice that there were 9 actions made in this one bet session with only 7 players. The first three players folded, the next 2 players called or come in with $2 each, the next player raised them $2 therefore coming in for $4, then the last or 7th player folded. Now from here the clockwise action comes back around to the first 2 players who called for the $2. They must decide either to fold or call or re-raise. Here they chose to call. So you see a bet session must go in correct order, that's why there are 9 actions here
but only seven players.
In Poker terms everything that happened here can be stated very quickly.
”The first 2 players called the 3 player’s raise”. OR
“Three way action, 1 raise.”

Below are the 10 hand rankings of Poker: 10. The worst hand you can have in poker is called ‘NO PAIR’. This means you have no matching cards out of all five, they are not in consecutive order, and are not all the same suit. When a player say’s “I got nothing”, this would be the worst they could mean. Whichever card in your hand is the highest becomes the name of your hand. So if the highest is a ten you have a “TEN HIGH”, and queen would be “QUEEN HIGH”, and so on. The worst no pair hand, a "SEVEN HIGH". (Also the worst possible hand in poker.) The best no pair hand is called an "ACE HIGH". This is the best possible ACE HIGH.

9. The next hand on the ladder is "ONE PAIR". This just means any two matching cards. The worst five cards you can have with ONE PAIR. The best possible one pair hand.

8. After one pair we have “TWO PAIR”. Any one pair plus another different pair. The worst two pair hand. The best two pair hand.

7. Three of a kind is next with its poker name being a “SET” or “TRIPS”. This means any three matching cards with any two different cards. The worst set with the worst two cards. The best possible set.

6. To beat any set you must have what's known in poker as a “STRAIGHT”. This means ALL FIVE of your cards are in consecutive order but they are NOT all of the same suit. The worst straight hand still beats all the hands above. The best straight hand.

5. Every hand above can be beaten by what’s called a “FLUSH”. All FIVE of your cards must be of the same suit for this hand. However, unlike the straight, they don’t need to be in consecutive order. The best flush hand.   The smallest flush.

4. A flush loses to a very powerful hand called a “FULL HOUSE”. Three cards the same with the two others also matching. With a full house your have a set and a pair. So three nines and two jacks would be called “nines full of jacks”, or “full house… nines over jacks”. The smallest full house. The top fullhouse, ACES full of KINGS.

3. Now the top full house ALMOST never loses. You must be dealt “FOUR of a KIND” or “QUADS” to crush a full house. This is naturally any four matching cards with any other fifth card. The worst quads hand. The best four of a kind.

2. If you actually see four aces lose, someone has... A “STRAIGHT FLUSH”. It means just what it says, a ‘straight’ plus a ‘flush’. All five cards in your hand are in consecutive order AND they all have the same suit. The worst straight flush hand. The best straight flush hand.

1. The Ace-through King Straight flush is so rare that it has been given it's own name. Maybe before you die you will have a chance or two to see someone lose with a straight flush. The only way this could happen would be to for someone to have a “ROYAL FLUSH”. The highest straight flush (from 10 to Ace) is given it’s own name because it cannot be beaten. The worst royal flush. The bronze medal royal flush. The silver medal royal flush. The Greatest Possible Royal Flush