The Basics of Poker Strategy

Whether you’re dealing yourself a pair of kings or just watching the hands that other players play, there’s always something interesting going on in Poker. That’s why it’s best to focus on the people at the table and their reactions to what’s happening – who bluffed, who smiled, who flinched.

Unlike some other card games, Poker is played with a standard pack of 52 cards (plus one or more jokers). There are four suits in poker (spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs), and each suit ranks high to low. Each player starts with two personal cards and then receives the remaining community cards. The player with the highest five-card hand wins the pot.

The first step in poker strategy is to learn what the different types of poker hands are, and how they rank. This is easy enough to do by simply looking at the cards themselves: There are 13 ranks, and you get two cards for each starting hand, so there are 169 combinations of rank.

Once the revealing phase has finished, it’s time to begin betting. Each player takes turns clockwise around the table, putting money into the pot as they go. Players may fold, check (leave the round without raising a bet), call, or raise a bet by placing an amount greater than a previous player’s bet.

After each player has revealed their hand, the winner is determined by whoever holds the highest-ranking 5-card hand. If no player has a high-ranking hand, then the next highest-ranking hands are considered and so on.