How to Play Poker – The Ultimate Poker Guide

Figuring out how to play poker might seem daunting, but it’s a pretty straightforward game. As the late, great Mike Sexton once said, poker takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. We’ll walk you through the basics and get you started.

Learn How to Play Poker

The first step in understanding how to play poker for beginners is to get to grips with the basic terms and concepts of the game. This part is a complete poker tutorial for beginners, so if you’re already familiar with how chips and bluffing work, you can skip ahead to the next section – or check out the best US poker sites to start playing some low stakes events.

Players

Unlike most casino games, poker is played among players. You can’t play poker alone, like you would a slot game, or with a dealer, like at a baccarat table. If there aren’t enough players, the games stop running.

Poker tables consist of anywhere from two to 10 players plus a dealer. However, if you’re in a tournament, there can be hundreds of tables of players all competing with one another.

Whenever you’re reading poker guides, keep this in mind: you’re not competing with the house, you’re competing with other players. This differentiates poker from roulette, blackjack, and any other casino game which has a house edge. In poker, the prizes always end up in the players’ hands.

Chips

If you’re trying to figure out how to play poker based on movies, you might think you need huge wads of cash to place bets. In reality, all you need is a stack of chips.

After making a deposit and joining a table online, your cash will automatically be swapped for chips. You then use these chips to place bets based on the strength of your hand.

Chips may or may not have a monetary value, depending on whether you’re playing a cash game or tournament. You’ll learn more about that later in this poker guide.

Cards

Poker is played with a single deck of 52 cards. The number of cards you’re dealt depends on the game. Most commonly you’ll get two face-down cards, but it could be three, four, five, or even more, depending on the game.

There are also face-up cards, called community cards. These can be shared by any player at the table. They’re the ones which are dealt in the middle of the felt.

In some poker variants, you’ll be dealt face-up cards which are just for you. But, for the most part, the rule is: if you can see a card, you can use it in your hand – just not in games like Stud.

Bluffing

A bluff in poker is when you pretend to have a better hand than you do with the aim of getting your opponents to fold. This is often in the form of a confident bet, when in reality you know you have very little chance of winning the hand.

Bluffing is one of the most important aspects in the game, but it’s also one of the biggest mistakes you can make when first figuring out how to play poker for beginners.

Unlike James Bond films, most bluffs are not elaborate, all-in, bet-the-house-and-kids-with-nothing wagers. Instead, the best bluffs are often small, nuanced, and perfectly timed.

When you first learn how to play poker, leave bluffing out entirely. Then, once you get familiar with the rules and how it works, you can bring it into your game more and more.

Poker Rules

Before you can sit down at a table, you need to thoroughly understand the basic poker rules. This will stop other players from detecting your inexperience, and it’ll help you know what’s going on around you.

The Deck

The deck consists of 52 cards, and the house will never use multiple decks in a single game.

In live games, you might see the dealer using two decks. These aren’t used in the same hand, though – they’ll alternate between the two. This is simply to speed up the shuffling process.

Bet Limits

Certain types of poker have betting limits while others don’t. There are three main types:

If you’re beginning your journey of how to play poker online, it’s easy to see the betting limits before you take your seat. All of the information will be in the lobby. Study it as long as you need to before getting involved.

All In

Going all in means you’re putting all of your chips on the line for that particular hand.

If you’re learning how to play poker, going all in may seem scary. But it’s an essential move which you’ll need to use repeatedly in a tournament if you have any chance of winning. In fact, even if you keep folding, you’ll end up all in by default!

One thing which is often confusing to new players who are looking at the rules of poker is how an all in works when two players have different chip stacks.

Here’s a simple example:

• Player A has 3,000 chips and Player B has 5,000 chips.
• Player A bets 1,000.
• Player B raises all in to 5,000.
• Player A doesn’t have enough to call – but that doesn’t mean they’re out of the hand. Instead, Player A calls all in for their remaining 2,000.
• The pot is now 6,000, which is 3,000 from each player. The additional 2,000 chips are returned to Player B. There is no further betting in that hand. Any remaining cards are dealt, and the winner is declared.

Jokers

When you’re playing poker online or at a live tournament, there are no jokers in the deck.

This can sometimes present a learning curve for players who are used to home games, where you might be used to playing with jokers which are wild. Home game rules don’t always carry over, and this is one common example.

Types of Poker Bets

No online poker tutorial for beginners would be complete without clear explanations of the different types of bets you can make. If you don’t learn these, you won’t know what your options are at the table.

When You Can Bet in Poker

If you’re following our beginners guide to poker, you now know all the different types of bet you can make. Next, it’s time to learn when you can make them.

When you’re learning how to play poker online, you’ll usually only be given options which you’re allowed to make, which makes it impossible to make a mistake such as acting out of turn.

There are some variations based on which poker game you’re playing. For now, we’ll stick to the five most common rounds (or “streets”) in common game types.

Pre-Flop

This is the first round of betting in a hand. Each player receives their face-down cards (known as “hole cards”) and views them in private.

Action then moves round in a clockwise direction. All players should base their action based on previous actions and their poker positions. Each player can choose to exit the hand by folding, or stay in by calling the minimum bet. They also have the option to raise, charging other players more in order to see a flop.

Flop

Once the pre-flop action concludes, community cards are dealt. In Texas Hold’em, this means three cards face-up in the middle of the table. All players can use these cards in combination with their hole cards, which remain hidden from their opponents.

Whether you play live poker or online poker, the round of betting moves clockwise from the player left of the dealer button.

Turn

After the flop betting is completed, the next card is dealt – the “turn”. Action again begins from the left of the dealer.

In any of these streets, if all players except one fold, the hand ends and the remaining player wins the pot.

River

A final card is dealt and then the final betting opportunity starts. If you’re bluffing, this is your last chance to push your opponent off of their hand before you get found out. If you have a strong hand, it’s your last chance to win some extra chips.

Showdown

Finally, if two or more players are still in after the river, it goes to showdown. This is when you flip your cards on their backs and the best hand wins.

Don’t worry if you just found out how to play poker, because this part happens automatically online. If necessary, the poker dealer will flip your cards over for you and award the chips to the winner.

Poker Variants

Once you know how to play online poker and you’re browsing the online lobby, you’ll see lots of different versions of poker, each with their own poker game rules. It might be tricky knowing where to start.

When you’re new to poker, Texas Hold’em is definitely the safest starting point. You can learn it quickly, then develop your game at the best poker training sites. You can add other poker variants as you become more experienced, with some concepts actually boosting your Texas Hold’em skills as well.

Here’s a brief explanation of the different types of poker you can play.

Texas Hold’em

This is by far the most popular version of poker and the one most players play when they learn how to play poker.

You’re dealt two hole cards followed by three community cards (the flop), a fourth (the turn), and a fifth (the river). Your goal is to make the best five-card hand using whichever cards work best.

Omaha

There are significant similarities but also differences in how to play Omaha versus Hold’em. In Omaha, you’ll receive four hole cards instead of two. However, you must use precisely two hole cards and three community cards.

Betting rounds work the same way as Hold’em. However, it’s more common to find Omaha in a pot limit format. This helps limit too many all ins, which is needed because Omaha hands are often packed with potential for future streets.

These are three common variants of Omaha, with the most popular being Omaha Hi:

3 Card

3 Card poker is one version of casino poker. You play against the house instead of other players, and so you can’t apply bluffing or other poker skills to this match. The house also has an edge, so you’ll lose over time.

We’re including this on our list because many players who have just learnt how to play poker might mistakenly think 3 Card poker is just another variant like Hold’em or Omaha.

Stud

Seven-Card Stud used to be the go-to game in poker, but has been overtaken by Hold’em and it’s now much harder to find stud events with huge guarantees. But it’s still available, and many players love this format.

Unlike Hold’em and Omaha, there are no community cards in Stud. Instead, you receive a mixture of face-up and face-down cards. Your opponents will be able to see some of your cards, adding an interesting nuance to bluffs.

Draw

Draw poker is where you’re able to throw away cards and collect new ones to improve your hand strength. This may be one of the ways you first figure out how to play poker, as it’s popular for home games.

Learning how to play Five Card Poker is a good starting point, but there are tons of draw formats in poker, including:

Short Deck Poker

Once you’ve mastered the rules of Hold’em, learning how to play Short Deck poker is pretty straightforward. The two are very similar, except Short Deck – also known as 6+ Hold’em – has fewer cards and a slightly tweaked hand rankings chart.

With all of the 2s through 5s removed, there are way more action hands, which explains why many pros love this format.

Mixed

Mixed games is not a specific type of poker per se, but – as the name suggests – a mixture of other games.

H.O.R.S.E. is one of the most well-known mixed games. Here’s what it stands for:

In mixed games, you’ll play one version of poker then move on to the next after a certain amount of time or number of hands.

Poker Hands

There are a lot of poker game rules you need to learn to get started, but it’s also important to have a proper understanding of poker hands. We don’t want to overload you in this poker guide, but if you’re ready, you can find out more in our poker card guide .

If you’re in a hurry, you can see our poker guide sheet below which shows you the hand rankings for the most common version of poker.

Tournaments vs Cash Games

Poker is split into two categories: cash games and tournaments. When you’re just discovering how to play poker, tournaments are the safer option. Later, you can add cash games to your repertoire.

Tournaments

Even though there are all different types of tourney, you can still quickly learn how poker tournaments work on a basic level.

In a tournament, every player pays a fixed fee called a buy-in and receives the same number of chips. These chips have no direct monetary value. You then play until you’re eliminated.

A standard poker tournament payout structure will award prizes to the top 10-20% of players, and the best online poker tournaments have some huge guarantees.. There are two main reasons tourneys are better when you’re learning how to play poker:

• Limited losses. You know exactly how much you stand to lose as soon as you sit down. If it’s a $5.50 tournament, you can go all in and lose and you’ve only lost the price of a cup of coffee.
• Fair fight. Every player starts with the same number of chips. This is different to cash games, where one player will usually have more money than the other.

Cash Games

When you play cash games, each chip has a dollar value. When you win, you’re winning straight cash you can take to the bank. But when you lose, that’s actual money draining from your account.

• Higher risk/reward. This can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it, but it’s certainly risky if you’re only just figuring out how to play poker.
• No time limits. In cash games, you don’t have to wait until you’re eliminated. You can come and go as you please – even after a single hand, if you like.

How to Play Poker at a Casino

If you want to join a live poker event at a casino, you’ll need to head to the venue and approach the poker desk.

If there’s a tournament starting, you can pay them to register. You’ll be allotted a random seat and table number which is usually displayed over the table or on the table itself. You may have to ask a floorman to point you to the table.

For cash games, you can either take a free seat or be added to a waiting list, depending on how busy it is.

You’ll also see casino poker. This is played against the house and, despite the name and similar rules, it’s a totally different game.

Alternatively, you can play all types of poker online at any of the best offshore poker sites site such as CoinPoker.

Poker Tips for Beginners

Here are a few basic tips to keep in mind when you’re starting out at the tables:

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