Now that your poker player account is set up, you are able to start playing texas holdem. Well, except for one small detail: the ranks of hands and the various actions a player is able to take while playing. If you know these things, then by all means skip this page. If not, read on! By the end of this page , you will know :

•  The ranking of Texas Holdem poker hands.

•  The purpose of antes and forced bets.

•  The various actions available to you during the poker hand.

•  The concept of “table stakes�? and its application to texas holdem.

Texas Holdem Poker Hands’ Rankings

The good news is that you’ll be able to learn in the play money games until you have this and the other basics mastered to an appropriate comfort level. Please don’t play for real money until you know this and, preferably, more about the relative strength of your hand at the various stages of the hand. It’s not only about the strength of your starting cards; each new betting round brings a new opportunity to evaluate where you are relative to the remaining players and to decide which action is best (discussed later in this chapter).

We’ll get to the Kenny Rogers “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em�? analysis later! As for what beats what, here it is from high to low:

•  Straight Flush . All cards are of the same suit and are in sequence. Another way to think of it is as a “suited straight.�? An Ace-high straight flush is the “Royal Flush,�? and it beats all other hands. Example: T♠ J♠ Q♠ K♠ A♠. As a slightly bitter aside, Doug lost with a Queen-high straight flush at the PokerStars poker room a few weeks before this page was written. The other guy had a Royal Flush. Ugh. Congratulations, by the way, as you may have just been subjected to your first “bad beat�? story! A bad beat is when you have a winning hand but lose when someone gets very lucky or when your 400-lb. gorilla hand loses to an 800-lb. gorilla hand. The result: People get to hear about it for hours and hours and weeks and weeks and years and years. Doug’s had his fair share of giving other players bad beats, though. If you’re good, maybe later on we’ll tell you about how he hit the longest odds possible to win a hand.

•  Four of a Kind . Also known as “quads,�? this hand is another “monster�? and will win the pot 99.9999 percent of the time. Example: A♠ A♥ A♦ A♣ K♠.

•  Full House . This hand features three cards of one rank and two of another; it is also known as a “boat�? or a “full boat.�? The proper way to describe the hand is to say the rank you have three of is “full of�? the rank you have two of. Example:A♥ A♦ A♣ K♠ K♣ is read “Aces full of Kings.�? There will at times be two or more players with full houses. In this case, the first tie breaker is the rank of the three-card “set.�? Thus, A♥ A♦ A♣ 2♥ 2♣ beats K♥ K♦ K♣ Q♦ Q♥. When both players have the same set of three cards, you look to see what the players are “full of.�? (OK, keep it clean!) For example, K♥ K♦ K♣ Q♦ Q♥ beats K♥ K♦ K♣ J♣ J♥. If you’re noticing each player is using the same three Kings to make their hand, and you don’t see how this is possible, be assured that it will be explained later. (Preview: It’s possible in Texas Holdem and Omaha , but not Stud).

•  Flush . This is when all five cards comprising your hand are of the same suit but are not in sequence. Example: A♥ T♥ 9♥ 5♥ 3♥. A flush is properly read as a(n) “___-high flush.�? In this case, the example is an Ace-high flush. The person with the highest card wins. In case both have the same high flush card, one looks at the next-highest card in the players’ hands until the tie is broken.

•  Straight . To make a straight, the player must have five cards in sequence but not all of the same suit. Example: 5♥ 6♣ 7♦ 8♠ 9♥. A straight is properly described as being “_____-high.�? The example given is a Nine-high straight.

•  Three of a Kind . Also known as “trips�? or a “set.�? This is when a player has three cards of the same rank. Example: 2♦ 2♠ 2♥ K♥ 6♣ would be declared as “trip Deuces�? or “a set of Deuces.�?

•  Two Pair . For this hand, a player has two cards each of two different ranks.

Example: A♥ A♦ K♦ K♣ Q♦. This hand would be read as “Aces up�? or “Aces and Kings.�?

•  One Pair . This hand is two cards of a single rank. Example: K♦ K♣ Q♦ T♥ 4♠.

This hand may be read as “Kings�? or “Kings with a Queen.�?

•  High Card . This hand has no two cards of the same rank and not all are of the same suit. This is a very common hand, unfortunately. Two particularly annoying examples are A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 2♦ and 5♥ 6♣ 7♦ 8♠ T♥. Get used to seeing these hands and others like them. The first hand is read “Ace high,�? and the second is “Ten high.�?

One final point to address is how ties are broken when the poker hands are otherwise identical.

Say, for instance, that the following poker hand occurs:

Player 1: K♦ K♣ Q♦ T♥ 4♠

Player 2: K♠ K♥ T♠ 4♦ 3♦

In this case, Player 1 is the winner, as the next highest card she holds is higher than Player 2’s next highest card (a Queen being of higher rank than a Ten). The next card after the “made hand�? (the pair of Kings) is known as a “kicker�? and comes into play in hands in which a “five-card hand�? (a straight, a flush, a full house, or a straight flush) has not been made. Player 1’s pair of Kings with a Queen kicker beats Player 2’s pair of Kings with a Ten kicker.

Table provides a summary of the hand rankings.

Table of Poker Hand Rankings

Mandatory Action

One of the ways a poker room guarantees it will be able to generate revenue through the rake and ensures the game will not simply be one in which everyone folds every hand is by forcing some players to put some money in the pot each hand. For this action, there is no choice on the part of the affected player as to whether they’ll put the money into the pot. There are four kinds of mandatory spending: antes, bring-ins, blinds, and time.

Antes are chips each player must put into the pot before the cards are dealt. The chips go into the center of the table and add to the amount of money that hand’s winner will collect. Antes are typically found in Stud games, and most poker tournaments for any type of game, and typically range from 5 cents to $5 in real money games.

Blinds are forced bets for players in Holdem. Because all betting is done with each player’s cards unseen by the other players, there is no way to have a bring-in. The solution to this problem is to force two players in each hand to put money in the pot “blind,�? that is, before they see their cards. A plastic disk called the Dealer button rotates one seat clockwise around the table after each hand. The player immediately to the left of the button must put up half the small bet, and the next person must put up a full small bet. As an example, if the game is $2–$4 Holdem poker, in which the first two rounds of betting are in $2 increments and the second two are in $4 increments, the “little�? or “small�? blind must put $1 in front of himself before the cards are dealt, while the next person, the “big�? blind, must put $2 at risk. To stay in, all other players must also put in at least the $2 the big blind posted. As opposed to an ante, which is “dead money�? in the center, these blinds are “live�? in that the blinds count toward their total obligation to stay in. If there is no raise to the big blind’s $2, the little blind must only put in $1 more to stay in (or raise to $4 by putting in $3). If there is no raise, the big blind may choose to “let them live�? and not raise or raise as they wish.

Time is an alternate means for the poker room to generate its income. Rather than taking a percentage of each pot, each poker player is required to give the dealer a specified amount of money at a prescribed time interval. Paying time generally starts at the $10–$20 level and replaces the rake. We doubt you’ll see this online, but if you ever sit down in a brick-andmortar card room, don’t be surprised.

Player Actions

Now that we’ve talked about what happens before a hand is dealt, we can now move on to what happens once you’ve got the cards in your hot little virtual hands.

•  Check . When a player checks, it means they take no action, neither putting chips into the pot nor folding. It is not possible to check during the first round of betting because of the mandatory actions described in the previous section. There will always be some bet you’ll need to match to stay in the hand. In the other rounds a player may decline to bet if no player acting before them has bet.

•  Bet . This is when you like your hand to the point that you’re willing to put some money behind it. Betting amounts may be fixed or may vary, depending on the game.

•  Call . You like your hand enough to stay in and match the current bet. If the big blind is $2 and no one has raised to $4, for example, it will cost only $2 to stay in. If one or more raises have happened, you must match the total amount it is “to go.�?

•  Raise . When you feel it is in your best interest to force your opponents to put more money in the pot, you may raise. Raising says to your opponents “I have a good hand! How good is your hand?�? If someone “re-raises�? you, they’re saying “My hand’s better than your hand!�? Of course, that may not always be the case. Bluffing is a very common tactic, especially at the higher-dollar and no-limit games. Future chapters talk about when to bluff and how to go about deciding if your opponent is bluffing.

•  Fold . Living to fight another day, you give up your hand and all the chips you’ve put into the pot to that point. Fresh cards, please…

•  Check-raising is allowed. In this case, a player wanting to make the pot larger will decline to bet at their first opportunity, hoping another player will bet. When it comes to the player who originally checked, they raise! Traditionally, check raising was frowned upon in “friendly�? games. For some, this is still the case. In any brick-and-mortar or virtual poker room, however, it is allowed and is seen as a legitimate tactic.

Table Stakes

A final important concept for this page is the concept of “table stakes�? in Texas Holdem poker. In short, table stakes means that the number of chips you have on the (virtual) table at the beginning of the hand is what you are eligible to wager on the hand. Two critical points arise from this rule:

•  First, a player may not “go into their pocket�? to bring out more money during the hand. One reason, obviously, is that it is unfair to the other players for one player to be able to decide how much they like their cards before deciding how much they’ll put at risk. Many decisions as to whether to bet and (where applicable) how much to bet are made based upon how much money an opponent has left to risk. Playing table stakes means there is no money-related camouflage.

•  Second, because a player isn’t allowed to bring out additional money during the hand, they do not automatically lose if they run out of money during the hand. For example, if the bet is $10 and you only have $5 left, your hand is not folded. Instead, you may put your final $5 into the pot. If there is only one other player in the hand, the betting is over. The player takes back $5, and the hand is completed with the pot going to the winner. If another player decides to match the $10, your $5 and the other players’ $5 are put into a “main pot,�? while the extra $5 from the other players are put into a “side pot,�? which you are not eligible to win. The players with money remaining play the hand out and “showdown�? for the side pot. After the side pot is awarded, your hand is shown and compared with the side pot winner’s hand, with the main pot going to the better hand.

An easy way to understand the idea behind the second point is that you may only win as much from other players as you had when the cards were dealt. If you have $20, the most you can win from any other holdem player is $20. If you and nine other players put in $20 and you win, you have $200! Good work if you can get it, but don’t count on it.

When a person is new to an activity, they are often able to understand conceptually what they read the first time, but they sometimes lose that knowledge when a situation comes up where that knowledge must be applied. OK, maybe it only happens to us, but if it happens to you as well, don’t feel badly about coming back to review this, and any other page of this section, to brush up on the information. We read and re-read several poker resources all the time. As our games have improved, we’ve been able to review more and more complex material, but every now and then it helps to look at the basics. It’s really amazing what a person can forget over time, and looking back helps a lot.

Good luck.

To be continued…

Also recommended:

1. Scoring Practice for Omaha High Poker Hands
2. Texas Holdem Practice Hands
3. Choosing Starting Hands in Seven-Card Stud
4. Reasons Not to Play Texas Holdem Poker Online
5. Online Texas Holdem Poker: Legal or Not?