Poker School

Learn the Basic Rules

Poker is an adventure that will test your ability and your strategic skills. The goal of poker – like most games – is to win and the best way to learn is by playing.

There are many types of poker games but they all follow the same basic rules:

• Players contribute towards a central pot that contains “play” chips (non-cash) or chips representing actual money.
• Players are dealt cards in what is called a hand. Depending upon the game, some or all of the cards are concealed.
• Players make bets depending on the strength of their cards in each round of betting.
• After the betting rounds are over, the player with the strongest hand – or, the last player left standing after the others have folded – wins.

No matter which type of poker you want to play, it's crucial that you understand the deck and that you know the Hand Rankings.

The Deck of Cards

A deck consists of 52 cards. These cards are divided into 4 suits, each of which contains 13 ranks.

The four suits

The four suits are spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. They are all of equal value. This means no suit is higher in value than any other suit.

The thirteen Ranks

In poker, the ace is the highest card and the 2 is the lowest. In between, as you can see from the above image, there are the king, the queen, the jack, the ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four and three. However, the ace can also be used as a low card to form a straight 5432A.

It’s important to know that the hand rankings determine the winner of a game and there must be more than one player to maintain a bet.