Teach me about Poker....

Factual Questions
1

(I’m going to go ahead and put this in GQ. I’m asking several factual questions, here, and hoping it will lead to answers to questions I didn’t even know. If a Mod thinks it’sa better suited in IMHO, please move. -this is my first ‘teach me…’ thread).
There are a few things I think every man should know. One is how to play a round of Poker.

I think I’ve learned the basics of 5 card draw. Ante in, deal cards, place bets, exchange cards, place bets, showdown, right?)

What else should I know?
Is there an easy way to learn the winning hands and what beats what? (I’m sure it’ll be easier to get in practice, it just looks liek a lot to learn on paper).
Once I get the idea of the hands and order of play, what should I do in terms of simple strategy?
Can you share some of the terminology with me?

2

It’s not a lot to learn. I don’t of any mnemonic device or anything, but the list is not daunting:

Straight Flush
A straight (A hand with five consecutive cards) with all five cards of the same suit.

Four of a Kind
Four cards of the same rank.

Full House
Any three cards of one rank plus any two cards of another rank.

Flush
Five cards of the same suit.

Straight
A hand with five consecutive cards. An ace can be high or low.

Three of a Kind
Three cards of the same rank.

Two Pairs
Any two cards of one rank plus two cards of another rank.

Pair
Two cards of the same rank.

Highest Card
If there is nothing better, the highest card wins. If there is more than one player with the same hand, the five highest cards that play is the winning hand.

“Rank” refers to the 5, 7, Q, K, portion of the card. “Suit” refers to the heart, diamond, spade, club part.

In any contest between two like hands – that is, two straights, for example - the straight with the highest rank beats the straight with the lower rank. With two full house hands, the highest three-of-a-kind beats the lower; if they are identical, which can happen with wild cards, then the higher pair beats the lower.

Suit plays no part in comparing winning hands; a 10 of hearts-9-8-7-6 and a 10 of spades-9-8-7-6 will split the pot.

  • Rick
3

Thanks, Rick, That’s a far more succinct primer than I was able to dig up on the web.

4

If I may piggyback a poker question …

Just when is the “call” made? Can anyone still in the hand make the call any time it is their turn to match or raise? Doesn’t this lead to individual players calling frequently to intentionally reduce the potential size of the pots throught a given poker game?

Let’s say you’ve got players A. B, and C still in the hand. A bets, B matches, then C matches AND calls. Can A and B keep raising the stakes against one another despite C’s call, or does C’s call put a halt on the raising?

5

There are many different types of Poker game.

  • Draw poker
  • Omaha
  • Omaha 8 or better
  • Texas Poker (I like this best)
  • low ball
  • Razz

There are too many to list, but my advice is to first learn the hands (what beats what)
I also suggest (if you are serious) purchase a couple of books from the pros, this will save you much time, money, and aggrivation.
A book I suggest is called “SuperSystem” by Doyle Brunson.
It’s an old book, but it covers all the basics, and will give you more than enough info to keep you busy for a long time.

Check out this site for poker books:
http://www.gamblersbook.com/index.html

I’ve ordered many books from them, and all my orders have been filled quickly and problem free.
If you happen to visit Vegas, you can visit their shop and save the shipping fees.

Good luck!

6

Sorry, I meant “Texas Hold em Poker” not Texas Poker.
My bad!

7

Thanks, Crazy. I kinda wanted to learn the basics and play alittle before decicing if I wanted to jump into books by the pros. Hence, I turn to the teeming…

I second bordelond’s question, btw. That’s a good one.

8

Here are the hand rankings: http://www.partypoker.com/games/how_to_play/hands_ranked.html
The best hand I’ve ever got was a 6-high straight flush playing Texas Hold 'em.

The best advice I have is to practice by playing. The site I linked to has “play money” games where you can get a lot of practice in. It doesn’t have 5 card draw, but IMHO that game sucks. :stuck_out_tongue:

Simple terms:
CHECK - do not bet anything, can only be done if your the first to bet or everyone else has checked in front of you
FOLD - you do not want to call or raise. Gets you out of the hand
BET - the first bet; everyone must call or raise to stay in the hand
CALL - if you put the same amount of $$ as the bet
**RAISE **- if you put more $$ than the amount of the bet; everyone else must call or raise to stay in the hand

  • Wulfgar
9

There are two main forms of poker, Draw and Stud, and innumerable versions of each.

One idea of Stud is that players use less cards in one deal, so you can have more players. (Another is that you have more infornation, and there are usually more rounds of betting.)

For example, 5 card stud starts with each player getting two cards. One card is turned faceup for all to see, the other is concealed (and only the player knows what it is).
Highest card bets first, then around the table.
Once that round of betting is over, every active player gets another concealed card, and there is another round of betting.
And so on, until each active player has 5 cards (one shown).

There is also 7 card stud (2 cards shown, 5 concealed).
Then there are a set of games where some cards are shown in the middle of the table, and these cards are shared by all players (who each have some concealed cards which are just for themselves.)

A start on the terminology…

Poker face: to keep your expression neutral, whatever the quality of your cards

Lock: To know you have the winning hand

Raise: put in more money than the previous bettor

Call: match the previous better

Fold: drop out the betting

Go all in: bet all your remaining money

Bordelond,

From my definitions above, you will see that I don’t use the word ‘match’, and you don’t ‘match and call’. I’m pretty sure I’m right.
So in your example, A would bet, B would call and C would call. If there are no other active players, the betting is now over.
If A bets, B raises and C calls, A has the right to raise B. If B then raises, C has no way to stop the betting!

10

Hi bordelond,

When playing poker, each player has the following actions he can select:

  • Check
  • Bet
  • Call
  • Raise
  • Fold

I will use Texas Hold em as an example:
In the games I play in, there’s a limit of 1 bet and 3 raises during each betting round.
So yes, players A and B can put the Squeeze play on player C by forcing him to call 1 bet and 3 raises.

When it gets down to “heads up” play (2 players) the betting is unlimited in most cases.
This means there’s no limit to the number of betting rounds.
This works well because it’s only 2 players, and nobody is ever in a squeeze play here.

11

Are there any good places I can play online (or free) or any lightweight (DOS?) games I can download for practice?

12

Ah, thanks all.

What always fooled me is that whenever I watched a game of poker, it seemed that one player would eventually “call” on each hand, and then all raising pretty much ceased. I thought “call” meant something like “call out the cards, let’s see 'em”.

Come to think of it … I can’t recall a situation where I’ve seen more than one player call on a given hand. Maybe it’s just been selective memory on my part.

13

When you’re talking about the elements of poker don’t forget the most important of all…

The Bluff.

Once you’ve learned how to make other people give you their money by making them think you have a better hand than they do, WITHOUT SHOWING THEM YOUR CARDS, you will have come far in your poker journey, grasshopper.

This is also why most serious players prefer games like Texas Hold’Em to Stud Shennanigans.

14

Eventually, all players in a round will have either called the bet or folded their hands. Once this happens, the betting is over.

Betting continues as long as someone has put in more money than any other player still in the hand.

It’s a big fat game of chicken.

And then there’s betting strategy – betting small /mid / big, betting on good hands vs. betting on bad hands vs. folding, and so on.

The object of poker isn’t necessarily to have the best hand. The object in a single round is to convince people with better hands that YOU have a better hand. The larger object is to make your wins bigger than your losses (assuming that you want to walk away with more money than when you started).

15

This is weird to me. I’ve never played poker with a low ace, has anyone else?

This site seems to agree with me.

16

One good piece of advice that has served me well in games that are beyond small stakes: regardless of the temptation, never draw to an “inside straight”, particularly if the opening bets are substantial.

For those unfamiliar with the term:

Example hand as dealt: 3,4,5,7,10
You discard the 10 and hope for a 6 on the draw. The odds are against you, as there are only four sixes in the deck.

Drawing to an outside straight, on the other hand, is a better prospect.
Example hand as dealt: 3,4,5,6, 10
You discard the 10 and hope for either a 2 or a seven on the draw. Your odds are doubled from those of an inside straight, as there are 8 chances that you may fill the straight.

17

Party Poker and Poker Pages both have free games that use the same software as their pay sites. Note that the games on both are the kinds more generally played in casinos, Texas Hold 'em, Omaha, 7 card stud, etc. I don’t know a good play for five-card draw…

-lv

18

Yes, I have played hands with aces low. You only do this with straights, as it would be stupid to say “I have a pair of low aces,” but if you hold a 2-3-4-5, it’s good to know that an ace OR a 6 will give you a straight.
And then there’s acey-deucy, but that’s another story.

19

Well, an ace is high or low at the choice of the person holding, so the only time they’d want it low is to make an Ace-2-3-4-5 straight. So it doesn’t come up too often, but yes that’s the generally accepted rule.

Things get more complicated when you’re playing a game where the lowest hand also gets a share of the pot. There are several different commonly used ways of defining the lowest hand and when an Ace is high or low, but lets not get into that now.

20

That site does not agree with you.

There is no convention I’m aware of in any poker scheme that would deny that A-2-3-4-5 is a straight. If you have evidence to the contrary, by all means tote it in.

Perhaps you’re confusing the statement meant to apply to the straight hand to other hands - such as winning a hi-lo pot A-2-3-4-6 as a low hand. That is not typically done; your hand is ace-high and someone holding 2-3-4-5-7 would beat you for low hand.

  • Rick