The Basic Rules of Poker

When you think of poker, chances are that you think of some Mafia types sitting around a velvet table smoking cigars, drinking whisky, making ridiculously over the top bets - chancing their wife or their life. The reality of poker is far from this and not nearly as inaccessible as you may have first thought.

Poker includes games with a number of differences as well as similarities. You might say that poker is a blanket term for the family of card games that share the same basic rules and the same hand rankings.

Let's take a look at the very basics to start you off. You will soon see that at face value poker is very simple. The best way to learn the ropes, without a doubt, is to practise. Within a few hands you'll pick up the basics and will hopefully be able to go from there to earn the mega bucks.

The pack

So, to start with poker is played with a standard 52 card pack, you know, the ones you would play snap with. The pack has the four suits as always - spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.

The cards are dealt

To begin a poker game the players are all dealt a number of cards. It all depends on which type of poker you are playing as to how many cards you get dealt and how many of these are concealed.

Forced bets

Each player begins the game with a number of chips (which represent either real or imaginary money). For the game to be worth anything, each player has to contribute to the central pot - to ensure this happens there are 'forced bets' which must be placed. Again how much this is and how it works entirely depends on what you are playing.

The voluntary bets

Once the players have their cards they are then at the point where they make a wager, depending on the strength of the cards they have.

A five card poker hand

Each hand is made up of five cards. If nothing else with poker you need to know how the cards rank. Please see the following page for more information on how the hands rank. Without this knowledge you'll be betting your chips completely at random.

Play begins

After you have made you initial bets, the play begins. The winner is either the player with the strongest hand or the last player left in the game after all the others have folded. Simple as that!