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Poker Rules

Poker is not nearly as daunting as it may appear on the surface. Most of the various games of Poker share the same basic premise.

The primary goal of playing Poker is to outlast and win money from other participating players, by making bets on the projected strength of the cards that have been dealt to you. Poker rules are generally quite simple, but the subtleties of the game can be quite involved.

Poker follows some very simple basic Rules:

• Players are dealt cards (known as a "hand"), some which may be hidden from other players. Bets are made on the strength of the cards in a number of rounds of betting. Hands take hold and develop as more cards are dealt to a person. The strongest hand wins a showdown for any remaining players, or if all players but just 1 has folded. Ranking of hands determines winners for all remaining participants in a given game. Ranking do not vary across different types of Poker games.

• Omaha and Texas Hold'em have between 2 to 10 players in a game, while Seven Card Stud games have anywhere from 2 to 8 players.

• A standard deck of 52 cards is used for Poker, with no Jokers included in any of the games. The Ace is the high card, although in hi/lo games it can be treated as either the highest or lowest ranked card, and at either end of a sequence.

• Poker moves around the table clockwise, which includes the dealing of cards and the placing of bets, as necessary. Each player must make a decision when it is his turn. There is a theoretical "dealer" in each hand, which is represented by a"button") and which rotates around the table clockwise after each hand. When you are in the dealer position (or "on the button"), you do not actually manually deal the cards - you are just the last player to receive your cards, and the 2 players to your left post the blind bets, which effectively initiate the pot. Thus, each player's relative position at the table, rotates with each hand.

• Position is extremely important in Poker, and especially in Texas Hold'em. The later you are required to act on your hand, the more information you can collect and mentally process about the relative strengths of your competitor's hands. It is best to have a "late position". The dealer position rotates around the table after each hand. to ensure that each player will have an equal opportunity to be in this latest position. Similar analogies can be made for the blind bet positions.

• When it is your turn to act, you have the option to fold, to check, bet, call or raise.

• Blind bets initiate the pot. The 2 players that posted the blind bets have their own money at stake even before the 1st cards are dealt.

• Betting rounds occur to share the burden of putting money into the pot. The players that fold during the game relinquish their claim to winning the pot. Additional cards are dealt at each round of betting as well, which add further complexity to the betting process, and inevitably force the weak-handed players (or those not interested in bluffing) to fold. As participating players raise bets, the other players who stay in the hand must call a bet to make each players' stake in the pot even. Alternatively, they can choose to re-raise. There are a finitie number of raises allowed every round of betting (with the exception being in "no-limit" poker.

• Players are only allowed to use their existing chips in play at the beginning of a hand. You are not allowed to get apply for extra monetary funds in the middle of a hand. You can get more chips between hands.

• Each type of Poker games requires different strategies. There are different numbers of "hole" cards (the non-visible-to-opponent cards that you hold) and community cards (those cards shared by everyone at the table) Start in the low limit games to ensure that you are matched fairly. As your skills improve, you can progress to higher and higher stakes' games.

• Bluffing is the strategy of attempting to mislead your opponents into believing that you have a hand different and usually stronger than the one you actually hold. This is a major part of the Poker strategy arsenal. If the best Poker hand always won every hand, then Poker would be a simplistic game of chance. To be a winning Poker player you need to employ bluffing and strategy. Recognizing when to play hands to begin with, and when to risk bluffing, are things that are necessary and skills that are acquired as your knowledge of the game increases.