Poker is a well-known and popular game, played by millions all around the world on a regular basis. If you’ve ever been online and taken a look at how many people are constantly playing, it’s pretty safe to say that you already know that Poker is one of the most popular games to be played on the Internet. The rules of Poker are quite simple: Two people sit down at a table, each with a deck of cards. Then someone throws a die, and the person who gets the last card (called the “high card” in Poker terminology) is the winner.
There are basically two different types of Poker: Regular and Straight. Regular Poker is a game where the goal is to make money by winning the amount of money put on the table. Straight Poker is a game in which players bet (each of them placing a bet of a specific amount) on whether or not a particular card is straight.
There are some fundamental strategies that all players must use regardless of whether they are playing in Regular Poker or Straight Poker. When playing in either version, all players should keep track of their “poker chips,” also known as money, at all times. Each player will receive poker chips equal to the total of all the money on the table. Before the game starts, each player will also need to write down what their “payout” pot is, which is the amount of money that they will get when the game is over.
The first player in a game gets to “lay out,” or place their bet, and the player who has the biggest pot after everyone else has folded also “lay out.” The goal for the player with the biggest pot after everyone has folded is to either “call” (have the highest total bet) or “fold” (have the smallest total bet). In no-limit games, the player with the biggest pot usually “folds,” since the smaller pots will net them more money than the large pots will. In freeroll poker games, a player may fold if he does not get all his money back after being dealt a single card.
Before the game starts, players would be wise to set up their betting strategies, or how they will manage their money, depending on the type of poker game. Most often, in freeroll and low-stakes Hold ’em games, players would use Aces and Kings, or Ace and King Jacks for their bets. Against high-stakes Hold ’em games, most players would raise the majority of their chips before placing any bets. After the flop, a blind may be raised on just Aces and Kings, and sometimes Queens, but rarely Aces and Kings and just Aces. This is called the blinds.
In straight poker games, on the other hand, the big blind antes are used for bets, and not for raising the chip stack. The two blinds together may equal the pot, but only when the player has raised the majority of his chips. Most straight players do not bother with the antes at all. Instead, they wait until they have dealt their last hand, at which point they can then raise the ante to split the pot.