Poker Tutorial For Beginners
OK so we already looked at the poker hand rankings, now in this tutorial let’s take a look at the game of poker, how it’s played, and how as a beginner you can learn to play quickly.
Poker isn’t actually just one game, in fact it’s a whole family of games which all follow similar rules (and have the same hand rankings, with a few minor exceptions). Some of the poker games you might have heard of a Draw Poker, Stud Poker, Omaha Poker and Texas Hold’em (that’s the one you might have seen on late night TV!)
No matter what style of poker you’re playing, the game always follows a similar routine. First there will be antes of blind bets, these are “forced bets” made by some or all of the players which ensure there is money in the pot at the start of the round, and makes sure there is always something to win.
Each player is dealt a number of cards, some or all of these they keep hidden from the other players, others may be dealt face up for all players to see depending on which variation is being played. There will then be a round of betting, with players choosing whether or not to bet depending on the strength of their cards, and who strong or weak they believe their opponents are. This will be followed by more cards being dealt, which might include “community cards” like the 5 board cards in holdem, and after each round of dealing comes another round of betting.
After the final round of betting, all players still in the hand (i.e. those who haven’t folded their hands) have a “showdown” where highest ranking hand shown wins the pot, and then a new hand is dealt.
The exact number of cards and how they are dealt depends on the type of poker being played. For example, in 5 card draw each player gets 5 cards face down (hidden from the other players) and gets an opportunity to “draw” which means to change one or more cards for new random cards if they wish. In draw poker, you only ever see your own cards.
In Texas Hold’em however, each player only gets 2 face down cards (known as “hole” cards) and another 5 are dealt face up in the center of the table. These community cards can be used by any of the players, who each try to make the best 5 card hand using any combination of their hole cards, and three or more of the community cards.
Two ways to win
There are two ways to win a pot in poker. You can have a better hand than your opponent, and at the end of the hand, at the “showdown” you show the best hand and collect the pot. The other way to win is to make a bet which none of the other players match (call). Let’s say you feel you have a strong hand and bet $20, and all of your opponents think they probably won’t win the pot, so they fold. That leaves you as the only person left in the hand, and you collect the pot without having to show your hand!
That last part is important, and it’s why poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance. It’s why the player with the weakest hand can win the pot, and it’s the reason poker is such a great game. if you make your opponent believe you have the best hand, it doesn’t matter what cards you actually have – you’ll win the pot anyway!
So that’s a very rough tutorial on how poker is played. In the next post we’ll get a little more specific and talk about exactly how Texas Hold’em is played, how the cards are dealt, and how each round of betting works.
Want to learn more about poker history and the different styles of the game? Check out the Wikipedia poker page