comprehensive cardroom poker rules
Poker is not a single card game, but a broad class of card games. The specific rules of the game often vary between different casinos or home game settings. There are many different variations and adoptations with adventersome names, such as "seven card stud eight-or-better high-low split" or as simple as "guts". Most common poker variants share a fifty-two card "poker deck" (though the playing card deck itself precedes poker by hundreds of years), and certain rules for hand rankings. Part of the attraction of poker as a game is that the rules can subtly change depending on where you play, but still follow the same basic rules enough to allow anyone familiar with those guidelines to play.
However, there has to be an accepted set of poker rules that all players can refer to in order to avoid confusion and to reconcile all the possible poker game variations according to specific poker game situations.
popular poker variants
The most popular poker variants you will find in casinos and poker rooms worldwide can be divided into the following four groups:
- Draw poker: Games in which players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. The most common of these is Five-card draw.
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Stud poker: Games in which each player receives an initial amount of cards and then one more card in each betting round. The most common of these are Seven-card stud (seven cards are dealt) and Five-card stud (five cards are dealt).
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Community card poker: Games in which each player's incomplete hidden hand is combined with face-up cards from the center of the table, that are common to all players. The most common of these are Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em.
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Miscellaneous Games: Some poker games just don't fit neatly into the above categories, and some have features of more than one of these categories. Games in this category are all poker games that use a standard ranking of hands, but aren't dealt as any of the variations above.
The aim of poker is to win the pot. You can either do this by having the best hand or by convincing the other players that you have the best hand and force them to drop out.
Winning a Poker game depends on the cards you are dealt and how well you actually play them. Convincing other players that your hand is better than theirs has a lot to do with experience and psychology. This does not mean you need to have a doctors degree in psychology, but observing your opponents and your own behaviour is an important part of the game.
Online Poker
Things are a more straight forward and easier when you play poker online. Since your only opponent is a computer there is no need to worry about any psychological issues. You also have as much time as you need to think before making a move. Nobody is pressing you. It's as simple as that: if your hand is higher than that of the computer you win.
The odds of wining are very high. With just one pair you can win at least the amount of money you have bet. The best hand you can have is the Royal Flush.
The poker rules published on the following pages are an adaptation of Robert's (Bob Ciaffone) Rules of Poker.
