The Basics

Now that you know what Poker is, it's time to get started playing the game. Poker is far more than these basics, and I suggest grabbing a group of friends who know how to play together one night to help you play the game. (Don't play for money though!).

With anything in life that one studies, consider purchasing an entry level book or training video to accompany you through learning the basics to play poker. I recommend "Poker for Dummies" from the highly acclaimed "Dummies" series, it's straight-forward and very easy to understand (even for a complete idiot like myself).

Ok then ! To play poker you need a standard set of 52 playing cards. The pack consists of 4 "suits" of 13 cards each. Suit's don't refer to agents or buisnessmen, but to the symbol on the cards. Hearts, Clubs, Spades or Diamonds. In poker none of these suits is superior to the other, they are all equal. In some card games this is not the case.

If you open your pack of poker playing cards, and spread the cards out in front of you (if you don't have any you can order a cheap set here), and order them out like so:

Ace (A), King (K), Queen(Q), Jack(J), 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

You will have 4 rows, with a few left over cards (called Jokers). What you see above is the ranking for cards, from high to low. The ace can play a dual role in some games, though not all. If a low ace is in the game, that means the ranking order is:

King (K), Queen(Q), Jack(J), 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace (A)

Which means Ace is the lowest card. You will find with most poker games, and online poker games, that the Ace is "high" meaning it supercedes the King. Sometimes the Joker is allowed to enter the game as a "wild card". In these games the wild card, based on what the owner of the card wants, can be any card from any suit or any rank. Other cards can be wild cards as well in different poker games.

Poker is a 5 card game, meaning you hold in your hand 5 cards for the game, and winning or losing depends on how high your hand is - if you have the highest, you win. If you recall the What is Poker page, I quickly posted what the highest hands you can have are.

To recall, the highest possible hand in the game is the Five of a Kind (if wild cards are allowed), followed by the Straight Flush, then the Royal Flush, then the Four of a Kind, then the Full House, then the Flush and then the Straight. Failing this lot of usual suspects, the Three of a Kind is the next highest, followed by Two Pairs, then a single Pair, followed by the single highest card.

Ok now you have this in mind, it's time to move on to the structure of the game. In poker, First, decide a player who will be the combination banker/dealer/overlord/player, let's say it's you. Shuffle the cards under your friend's suspicious watchful eyes, and deal 5 cards out to each player, face down.

Collect your cards. Your friends, Travis, Mike and Rick collect theirs and mull over them - watch them closely, there's plenty of time to groan or celebrate inwardly. Mike grins broadly and quickly before he can stop himself, despite telling you earlier he was a seasoned player. Travis audibly groans, while Rick says nothing.