I went with an old friend to an art gallery opening last night, and she reminded me that we had had played a few hands of poker with the artist years ago. I think that was the only time I played poker in the last thirty years, and it was a pleasant evening during which I probably lost a few bucks.
But my friend and the artist got into a conversation about that night, and got all excited by the idea of starting up a poker game again. I’m okay with that, but I know so little about the rules of poker, it will be all I can do not to slow things down to a crawl while I try to remember what beats what, what simple strategies I should employ, how you bet, etc. I’m really a poker ignoramus, who used to know a very little bit and now doesn’t even remember that.
My friend assured me that we’d be playing a simple game of Seven Card Draw, I think, but I have no idea how to play even that.
Anyone familiar with the basic rules and strategies or a good place to learn them? It’s pretty low stakes–I think it will be hard to drop more than fifty bucks over an evening–but mostly I’m concerned with slowing down the game while I try to remember the basics.
most of the online poker site have free play options where you can practice
I like PokerRoom, but most of their free tables are Hold’Em
also - the game is probably either 5-Card Draw or 7-Card Stud - I’ve never heard of a 7-Card draw game - the onlyway to play that with more than 3 people is with a reshuffle midgame, and most poker players intensely, violently, dislike reshuffles midgame
Start using non-trivial amounts of real money as soon as you learn the rules. The betting is what makes it interesting because strategies have costs. When there’s no money, nobody takes it seriously. Playing poker without money is like playing one-on-one baseball. Yeah, you go through the motions, but there’s no point to it.
Don’t play Texas Hold 'Em. It’s totally brain-dead and without strategy, the poker equivalent of slot machines. Some people swear this isn’t true, but la la la, stick your fingers in your ears and don’t listen to them. If you start with Texas Hold 'Em there’s a good chance you will never enjoy poker in your entire life.
Poker isn’t that hard (at least rule-wise - getting to play well is a real challenge I never succeeded in).
Start with 5 card draw. It’s the basic version with the fundamental rules, and all you need to know to understand it are more or less (1) the various hands, and (2) the way a betting round works - five card draw isn’t really much more than a bet on who has the highest hand. You’ll get both of this pretty quickly.
Once you mastered this, start playing other versions, such as stud versions or high/low.
Awesome. Would you like to play sometime? You name the stakes. If it’s totally brain dead and without strategy, what have you got to lose?
Okay, back to reality land. Texas Hold-em is, in fact, one of the most difficult card games there is to play well. It has very complex, very nuanced strategy. Why do you think the pros play it? Why do you think it’s by far the most popular poker game in the world?
If there were no strategy, professional players would have no advantage, and could not make money playing the game.
Brain Wreck is entitled to his opinion, of course, but I have to agree with you. That said, I think Hold Em is not much fun as a beginner’s game. 5 card Draw or 7 card Stud are excellent introductory games. Later, Hold 'Em can be introduced, and they’ll go “a-ha!” as the subtleties become apparent.
I said I hate Texas Hold 'Em, so why would you think I’d like to play?
Erm. I didn’t say “easy to win.” I said it’s as brain-dead as playing the slots, meaning that too much of it depends on blind luck. I prefer to have a little more influence over the outcome.
Well see, you’re wrong again. In fact, Texas Hold’em has less luck involved than almost any other poker game, for several reasons. One is that there are many betting rounds and the early rounds have smaller bets. Therefore, you don’t have to commit money until you have more information about where you stand. (unlike five card draw). Second, any game with a community flop is much harder to come from behind in, because everyone shares part of the same hand. As opposed to something like stud, where you can be going for a flush draw and wind up with a full house.
Another reason there is less luck is because, unlike stud games, the last card dealt is visible to all. On 7th street in stud, a player can be holding almost any hand without it being visible on the board. He can have a full house without a pair showing, or a flush with only two flush cards showing. In Hold’em, this isn’t possible. You always know where your hand stands in comparison to the best possible hand.
For that matter, a community card game gives a good player lots of opportunity to read the behaviour of other players as they react to the cards coming out. A lot of ‘reading a player’ has to do with looking at the flop, and knowing what kinds of cards the other player is likely to have based on his position and how this particular flop may have helped him. In a draw game, this is impossible because you never get to see any of the cards the person has. The only inferences you can make are based on how many cards the player draws, and against good players that is of little use because good players know how to mix up their drawing behaviour to prevent ‘reads’. For example, you won’t often see a good player drawing three cards, even if they have nothing, because you can then eliminate whole ranges of hands they are almost certain not to have (flushes straights, full houses, etc). So you wind up in a game where everyone is drawing one or two and playing pairs and two pairs mostly, and there is almost no information you can gain. In addition, with only one betting round before the draw, it’s hard for good players to maximize their strong draws or good made hands.
Also, position stays fixed for each round in Hold’em, allowing a good player to make better decisions. If I know I’m going to be last to act in the next round, it gives me all kinds of strategic options in the current round, such as raising for free cards. In stud, position is determined on each round by the best hand showing. So without a guarantee of when you will have to act on the next round you can not make ‘anticipatory’ moves.
I was going to respond to him to explain to him why he was wrong, but it occured to me that I had no idea what his thought process was so I didn’t know where to start.
My only guess is that he’s comparing something like play money hold em, where it IS a slot machine, because no one is playing for money and therefore not realistically at all, to something like 5 card draw, where you at least have a decision in the process.
Of course, that’s an absolutely silly basis from which to make a judgement like that, but it would be consistency in that his assessment is pretty silly in itself.
