Alright, so you've been invited over for poker night, but you've never really played before. What do you really need to know before showing up? The true answer to that is: absolutely nothing! But there are probably a few things to keep in mind which would make your experience more enjoyable.
Hold 'Em poker appeals to different people for different reasons. I like it because it's a brain-teaser (like crossword puzzles, Sudoku, video games, golf, etc.) with constantly-shifting parameters to be figured out. Other people will like it because it gives them a chance to show up their friends and take a little bit of their money to boot, or because it's a low-impact social activity and easy way to kill a few hours with friends a few times a month. Very specifically to Hold 'Em, it's a great mix of simple rules allowing for complex strategies. Tournament Hold 'Em (of the variety we play, at least) has the right mix of rewarding skill and allowing folks to get lucky to keep excitement levels high.
(a.k.a., The Rules, simplified)
There are lots of places on the internet which will tell you the rules of Hold 'Em, but if you dive into the deep end of the pool chances are that you're going to get overwhelmed. Instead, let me talk about a few of the very basic concepts.
Everyone starts with the same number of chips. Different colors are worth different amounts. We use a standard color scheme where white chips are worth one, reds are worth five, greens are twenty-five, blacks are one-hundred, etc. The chip set I have actually has the number printed directly on the chips so it's really easy to keep track of what's worth what.
To make sure the tournament comes to an end in a reasonable amount of time, the amount of chips that are forced to be put in the pot without folks seeing their cards (i.e., the blinds and antes) grows bigger as time goes on. There's a stopwatch or other tournament timer that'll go off every few minutes to indicate that the blinds and antes have gone up. This is known as the tournament structure. When we first sit down to play, there may be 10 chips placed in the pot as blind bets, but a half-hour into the game, each hand may start with 50 chips out there to fight over.
Everyone takes turns dealing (shuffling and passing out cards). For each hand play proceeds from the dealer's seat, so that person is marked on the table with a plastic puck called the button. Frequently the dealer is referred to as being "on the button" or simple as being "the button."
As general advice, it's recommended that you keep an eye on experienced players at the table to see how they carry themselves (both Shannon and Neal are pretty good examples) under common situations such as putting out their antes, blinds, and acting as the dealer. Watching these experienced players during the first few hands should go a long way toward helping you fit in with the rest of the table. And please, if you have any questions, ask! It's always better to discuss possible future situations before they come up rather than letting them happen and having to deal with repercussions on the fly. It's super important to us to make sure that everyone is comfortable playing (or as comfortable as they can be) and having fun, but we're generally not too great at anticipating things which may be affecting new players if folks don't slow us down with a few questions.
The general play of cards goes as follows. The dealer will deal two hole cards to everyone at the table. Folks will then bet on how much they like their cards (there are lots of rules dealing with betting, but let's not get bogged down there yet). Once everyone has either matched the size of the largest bet or folded (giving their cards back to the dealer and waiting for the next hand), the remaining players are considered active to see the flop. The dealer then puts out three board cards which are used by all active players. There is another round of betting (again, folks either match the largest bet or fold). After the flop comes the turn which consists of one more board card (so now we're up to four community cards), which is followed by another round of betting. Finally, the last community card is revealed as the river and the final round of betting takes place. After the river betting has concluded, there is a showdown and the person who makes the best five-card poker hand between the five board cards and their two hole cards is awarded all the chips in the pot.
One important facet of betting is that if you make a bet that's so big that nobody else wants to match it (i.e., if everyone folds) then you win the pot right there. If you make this play while holding substandard cards then you just executed a successful bluff. Nicely done! Knowing when and how to pull off a successful bluff is an important strategy element in poker, one which doesn't really exist in games like chess or Monopoly or golf or video games (or Sudoku or crossword puzzles). As they say "That's poker, folks."
There are many subsets of the game of poker, and everything above is specific to the game of Hold 'Em. (Other poker games include Omaha, Razz, Pineapple, Stud, No-Peak Baseball, Follow The Bitch, Anaconda, and about a hundred other colorfully-named variants.) One constant about all poker games is that the ranking of hands is consistent: a royal flush is at one end of the spectrum and a high-card hand is at the other end — though in some games the pot is awarded to the player who by conventional wisdom holds the worst-ranking hand (Hold 'Em is not one of those games). There are ten categories of hands and it's important to someone playing to know what beats what when they're sitting at the table. (We do have a poster in the basement which lists the ten hand categories, though it may be a bit obvious to see how high up on the list you're looking to figure out the quality of your hand.)
Within Hold 'Em there are various ways to play, mostly relating to how betting operates. Most televised Hold 'Em is of the No Limit variety (which generally leads to the abbreviation: NLHE). The hallmark of NLHE is that in any given hand, on any given bet, you're able to put at risk your entire stack of chips. Other versions of the game are Pot Limit Hold 'Em (in which the maximum bet or raise are limited by the size of the pot), Limit Hold 'Em (there is a fixed bet or raise amount), and Spread Limit Hold 'Em (which has elements of NLHE and LHE).
Details as to how betting works along with many other specific rules and situations which may come up can be found in the Rules & Etiquette link found in the upper-left menu bar at the top of this page. It's worth reading through that page, even if everything doesn't sink in before you sit down to play the first time.
What Beats What: The Order of Hands
There's a poster on our wall, but just in case you want a head-start in remembering what beats what...
Starting with the best and working our way to the worst:
1. Royal Flush - An Ace (A), King (K), Queen (Q), Jack (J), and Ten (T) all of the same suit. Someone who plays poker could go years without ever seeing this hand.
2. A Straight Flush - five cards of consecutive ranks all of the same suit. Examples are 89TJQ of hearts and A2345 of clubs. Again, these are super rare.
3. Four-of-a-Kind - four cards of the same rank (and a random fifth card). An example would be QQQQ5. Also called Quads. Generally we go a few sessions between occurrences of someone having this hand.
4. A Full House - three of one rank and two of another rank. An example is 88833. If two full houses occur on the same hand, the person with the higher ranked three cards has the better hand. For instance 66644 is better than 555AA. It is likely that we would see at least one Full House in the course of the night.
5. A Flush - five cards all of the same suit that don't qualify as a Royal or Straight Flush. An example is K9842 of diamonds. In case two people both have Flushes, ties are broken with the highest ranked card and worked down to the lowest rank, e.g., K9842 of diamonds beats QT842 of diamonds. It is likely that we will see more than one Flush in any given tournament.
6. A Straight - five cards of consecutive ranks that doesn't also qualify as a Straight Flush. An example is 76543 all of mixed suits. An ace counts as either high or low, but there are only two straights with aces: AKQJT (also known as a Broadway Straight), and 5432A (which is known as the Wheel). If two people have Straights, then the one with the highest ranked cards is the winner (the ace in the Wheel is considered the lowest possible card).
7. Three-of-a-Kind - Three cards of the same rank and two other non-paired cards. An example is 222A9. Also called Trips. If you specifically have a pocket pair which also matches one of the board cards, this is known as a Set. When breaking ties between Three-of-a-Kinds, the hand with the higher ranked Trips beats the hand with the lower Trips. If that doesn't break the tie, then the higher of the unpaired cards act as kickers to break the tie. If that still doesn't break the tie, then you'd go to the second unpaired card. 888Q9 is better than 777AK. 444T9 is better than 444T8.
8. Two Pair - a hand with two cards of one rank, two cards of another rank and a fifth unpaired card. An example is 5522T. When breaking ties between Two Pair hands, the rank of the higher pair are considered first, then the rank of the lower pair, and finally the unpaired kicker is considered last. 99772 is better than 7766J and is better than 9966J as well.
9. One Pair - a hand with two cards of the same rank and three cards of unmatched ranks. For example AAT94 is a One Pair hand. If the two hole cards dealt to you match, then you're said to have a Pocket Pair. Ties among One-Pair hands are decided first by the rank of the paired cards, then by the highest of the kickers, the middle-ranked kicker, and finally by the last kicker card. KK987 would beat KK984 but lose to KKJ32. If you deal out seven random cards, the odds of them falling into this category is something like 44%, so there will be lots of One Pair hands made during the course of the night.
10. No Pair - no matching ranks, no five cards of the same suit, and no five consecutive ranked hands fall into the No Pair category. Ties among No Pair hands are broken from the rank of the highest kicker down to the lowest kicker. T9842 is better than T9765. Again if you deal out seven cards, just over one-sixth of the time none of the above categories will be met and you would have a No Pair hand.
Two important things when at showdown and trying to decide if you've got the best hand:
1. If you table your cards (flip them over for everyone to see), then everyone at the table will look and make sure the best shown hand wins the pot. If you think you are beat and don't want to reveal your cards, you can muck them but if you're incorrect then the wrong person (i.e., not you!) is going to win. It's better to look silly and win than to watch chips you should've won get shoved to another player (especially if you're new).
2. You only use five cards to make any hand. The sixth and seventh cards never ever ever play. There is no such thing as Three Pair. Those cards are never used as kickers. Sometimes this makes things a little bit confusing (for example if the board contains a low pair or if it pairs itself twice then there are better chances for players to tie resulting in a "chopped pot").
There is a lot of jargon that goes along with playing poker, and that can feel like a barrier-to-entry for new players. I've listed a few common terms and phrases here that come up in the paragraphs to the left.
hole cards: the two cards the dealer gives you at the beginning of the hand; these are your two personal cards and should not be revealed to your opponents unless you play to the showdown (see below)
the flop: the first three community cards which are revealed are known as the flop, and the round of betting which takes place immediately thereafter is also referred to as the flop
board cards: all the revealed community cards are collectively known as board cards; the flop makes up 3/5ths of a full board
the turn: this is the stage of the hand after the flop, it's the fourth board card and the round of betting which follows
the river: after the round of betting on the turn, one final board card is revealed (called the river), and a final round of betting takes place (also called the river)
showdown: if all bets are called on the river, the active players reveal their hole cards and the best five-card poker hand is awarded the pot
antes: these are forced bets that everyone has to place in the pot without seeing their cards; everyone pays the same amount which grows over time as the tournament structure advances
blinds: these are forced bets that the players to the left of the dealer have to put into the pot without seeing their cards; the general case has a small blind (SB) and big blind (BB)