All About Online Poker – A Beginner’s Guide
Poker is the name given to a number of card games where you bet on the strength of the hand of cards that you hold. After all the betting rounds have been completed, all the players remaining in the hand reveal their cards. The ‘pot’ holding all the wagers placed by the players is then awarded to the player who either holds the highest ranking cards or whose wager is not matched by another player.
All the cards in the deck are ranked. Some varieties of poker use a different hand ranking but we will describe the traditional ‘high’ poker rankings here. The Ace is the highest card followed by the King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7 and so on down to 2. An Ace can also play below a Deuce in most games for straights. Sixth cards do not break ties and nor do suits break ties.
- Five of a kind: This is the best hand with five aces (four natural Aces plus the joker) when a joker or wild cards are used.
- Straight flush: This is the best hand when there is no joker with five cards of the same suit in a sequence. The highest possible flush is a Royal Flush which includes the Act, King, Queen, Jack and 10 of the same suit.
- Four of a kind: Four cards of a matching rank with one side card (a ‘kicker’) and the higher the rank the better.
- Full house: Three cards of a matching rank with a pair of another rank. The higher ranking three card determines which full house beats another.
- Flush: Five cards of the same suit.
- Straight: Five cards of different suits in sequence. If there are two straights, the hand with the highest card wins.
- Three of a kind: Three cards of a matching rank with two unpaired cards.
- Two pair: Two cards of a matching rank, two cards of another and a kicker.
- One pair: Two cards of a matching rank and three unrelated side cards.
- No pair, high card: A hand with no pair or any of the other ranking values. The highest card when comparing no pair hands determines the winner.
There are hundreds of variants to poker all of which are readily available any time of day to play in online poker rooms today. The more popular ones include Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi Lo, Seven Card Stud and Five Card Draw (the game most people grew up playing around the kitchen table).
