Poker Book Club

Poker games that do not involve wild cards follow this simple Poker Hands Hierarchy. The winner will have the higher ranked hand in the hierarchy. .

Key – Card Value: A (ace) K (king) Q (queen) J (jack) 10 (I hope the rest are self explanatory!!)

Card Suit: H (hearts) D (diamonds) C (clubs) S (Spades)

1. Royal Flush

The best poker hand and one that is very rarely seen

10, Jack, Queen, King , Ace all of the same suit

e.g. 10H, JH, QH, KH, AH

2. Straight Flush

Any five consecutive cards all, of the same suit

e.g. 5C, 6C, 7C, 8C, 9C, 10C

3. Four of a Kind

Four cards all of equal value plus the highest valued card of the remaining

e.g. QH, QC, QD, QS, 10H

4.Full House

Three cards of equal value in addition to a pair of cards of equal value.

e.g. KH, KS, KC, 9C, 9D (full house kings over nines)

If more than one player has a Full house, first look at the over cards (in our example kings), the highest value will win. If the over cards are the same, look at the pair, again the highest pair will win.

In this example, kings over nines would beat queens over nines but would be beaten by kings over aces.

5.Flush

Any five cards all of the same suit

e.g. 2C,6C,9C,10C,KC

If two players have a flush, the winner is determined by the highest card. This example is a king high flush. If both players have a king high flush, they would split the pot. The only flush able to beat this is an Ace high flush. This Flush beats Queen high flush or anything lower.

6.Straight

Five consecutive cards of any suit.

e.g. 3H, 4C, 5H, 6D, 7S

If two players have a straight, the winner is determined by the highest straight. This example is a straight to 7. Any straight to a higher card would win. This hand would be beaten by a straight to 8 but would be beat a straight to 6.

7.Three of a Kind

Any three cards of equal value plus the next two highest cards available.

e.g. JC, JS, JH, 10C, 8D (trip J’s 10 Kicker)

If two players have three of a kind, the highest valued three would win. In a scenario where two players have the same three of a kind you look at the value of the other cards and the winner will have the highest kicker. So JC, JS, JH, 10C, 8D is beaten by QC, QS, QH, 10C, 8D but beats JC, JS, JH, 8C, 6D (because the 10 beats

8.Two Pair

Pretty self explanatory, Two pairs of equal value plus the next highest value card

e.g. 10C, 10D, 6C, 6H, AD (two pair 10′s and 6′s with Ace Kicker)

If two players have this hand, the winner is decided by the value of the pairs. If the top pair is the same, you would look at the second pair. If both pairs are the same, the value of your kicker will determine the winner so 10C, 10D, 6C, 6H, AD will beat 10C, 10D, 6C, 6H, JD but is beaten by 10C, 10D, 8C, 8H, 2D

9.Pair

Two cards of equal value. In addition, the hand will be made up of three cards of the highest possible value.

e.g. 5D, 5C, AC, 10S, 4S

If two people have a pair, the winner is decided by the highest value pair. If both pairs are the same, the highest value other cards will decide. In this example, 5D, 5C, AC, 10S, 4S beats 5D, 5C, JD, 10S, 4S (Ace kicker is higher than the Jack)but is beaten by JD, JC, AC, 10S, 4S (pair Jacks are higher than Pair 5′s)

10.High Card

The highest card will determine the winner. If equal you move to the next highest card etc.

Chip Leatherby is the main author for http://www.poker-shark.co.uk With years of experience with poker, Chip has now decided to share his knowledge to help people of all skill levels with their game.

Chip’s unique tips and tournament reviews can be viewed anytime at Poker Shark.

Today, poker is considered one of the most skill-testing games in the world. In the past, poker was regarded as a game of luck. However as regular players started winning poker tournaments more often, it becomes clear that poker is a skill-based game that can be learnt. I have personally struggled to learn poker for months without any success, but once I started to dedicate my time to it and found a great role model (he’s Bryan Micon), my poker skill has improved significantly, allowing me to win at least $100s every night.

The most popular type of poker game is the Texas Holdem. To win in this poker tournament, a player needs to form the best 5 card combination. Each player gets 2 cards, which he can combine with another 5 cards that everyone can combine with. To win Texas Holdem, you need to have the best 5 card combination hand, or at least make your opponents think that you have the best hand.

After you learn to play poker for a while, you might realize that winning poker is really not about having the best 5 card combination hand. There is so much more to it, including psychology, aggression and strategy. In theory, it is possible to calculate the most correct move in terms of statistics. This is a good skill to have since it gives you the most chance of winning in the long term. However, you’ll need to realize that there are different stakes involved with every game, which can greatly affect your decisions.

To learn to play poker, you’ll need to have the skill of calculating the odds of the opposing hand. Because you are playing against other players and not against a dealer or a casino, it is possible to have a much greater chance of winning than other players at the table if you have a good understanding of the odds. This is really not hard to learn, as the more you play, the faster you’ll be able to have an idea of the odds.

It really pays to learn to play poker properly before you stake too many chips on it. After reading many poker guides, I realized that it is very difficult to simply read a book and learn poker. To successfully learn good poker skill, I found that the best way to do it is to look for great poker players, observe and model the way they play. There are several great audio and video tutorials on the internet which teach poker step-by-step. My personal favourite player is Bryan Micon, who has created several great poker products that educates people about many deep aspects of poker.

Did you find this information useful? David Gardner is a professional poker player, and has a passion for playing poker for cash. As of today, he has identified several legitimate poker strategy guides, making him near $500 a day. Visit his website at http://www.review-best.com/poker/strategyguides.htm where he exposes the online poker strategy guide scams and identifies the best poker strategy guides on the web. For a limited time only, get a FREE poker strategy e-course at http://www.review-best.com/poker/strategyguides.htm filled with powerful poker tactics!

In the world of online poker, sit n go tournaments have become very popular and are considered to be the optimum way to learn how to play poker, progress your game, and start to build your bankroll online. You can always enjoy the advantage of winning in sit n go’s when you adapt the appropriate poker tournament strategy.

With sit n go’s, you can enjoy an incomparable leisure game that will also provide profitability for the winning players. It offers a lot of fun and excitement as you have to be always in the game. The games usually last less than an hour, so you will have to make your bet and bluff at some stage. You will also encounter numerous ‘all-ins’ and when you are busted, you don’t have to wait for several long hours for the next game to commence. You can sit and go literally.

If you’re playing sit n go’s at an early level, a good poker tournament strategy is to make survival of the game your main goal with acquiring as much chips as possible as your secondary goal. You have to play the hands that you only know, and play with moderate chips. As your primary goal is to survive the game, you have to make sure that you are playing with best cards. If you see that your stack of chips has diminished, you have to adjust your poker tournament strategy and play more prudently with the right timing.

In the middle level, you may loosen your style of playing a bit. You can use some aggression and create an image to your opponents of being a tight player. You can go steal the blinds, pushing with strong hands. But you have to be careful not to do too much aggression as you will have to survive.

Into the late level, you have to make wise use of your position. At this stage, you cannot afford to make small raises and you’ve got to push all-in. It will be better for you to be very aggressive at this point of the game. You just have to go on pushing.

When you are already assured that your cash position is secured, you have to switch your goal from survival to winning the game. Regardless how long or short your stack is, you just have to be super aggressive. Don’t settle for anything less than first place.

In your poker tournament strategy, it is essential that you are able to play effectively well when your stack is at its largest. Your goal of winning can depend on how you effectively you were able to handle your game when you have the large stack of chips. Having majority of the chips will empower you to pressure your opponents without undergoing the same pressure yourself. You will be able to play loose when the poker table is tight, and you can be very tight when the table gets loose.

With an effective and workable poker tournament strategy, you can work your way to become a guaranteed winner in sit n go’s.

Sean Moronse is a professional poker player. Visit his website and subscribe to his free ecourse on how to win using an easy to follow Poker Tournament Strategy at http://www.SitNGoGenius.com

The online PC games market topped $1bn in the West in 2004/5 and is expected to pass $2bn in 2007. Growth is currently being driven by an increase in the speed of broadband offerings, allowing the increase in pay-per-play browser gaming, and multi-player online games which have both improved in quality and variation, and are now reaching a wider audience than ever before.

Coupled with the resumption of growth within the online advertising market which broke the 1$ billion barrier in 2006, as well as the successful introduction of new models such as games service subscriptions, the longer term broadband games-on-demand services are expected to make a huge and ever increasing contribution to online sales and internet growth.

Pay-per-play browser gaming, where users pay to enter skill-based games and tournaments to compete for cash and other prizes, is the hottest of the online gaming sub-sectors.

A $35m market only three years ago, pay-per-play gaming reached $137m in 2003 and is forecast to grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate of 40 per cent to 2007 to become the second largest online gaming sub-sector behind multi-player gambling games; producing a multi-million dollar industry.

The multi-player online market continues to grow, defying industry scepticism. Continued expansion will come from existing online games as well as a range of high profile releases expected over the next two years. Europe, which has a relatively untapped multi-player online game market, will become the largest growth opportunity as the North American market approaches saturation, and has also been disabled by the recent introduction of the online gaming act, preventing banks from accepting monies from players accessing multi-player gambling sites. The increasingly busy release schedule will also lead to over-supply issues and the re-appraisal of current models and pricing strategies.

While most online gaming still remains a predominantly male activity, growth within the casual games market and casual gambling games, is being driven by women, and in particular middle-aged unemployed women. What many have termed the ‘bored housewife’ market! Most single casual online gaming sub-sector is now dominated by female gamers, from pay-per play to casual games subscriptions, with some game operators reporting female to male ratios as high as 70:30.

Some broadband companies are also gaining market revenues through the deployment of streamed games-on-demand services. Lessons are being learnt about how to effectively operate such games-on-demand services and the market should show good growth rates over the next few years, driven by expanding broadband demand.

So where does online poker fit into all of this?

Well, in terms of revenue it is untouched. For example, of the £50 billion in UK gambling revenues, the total online gambling revenues in the UK in 2006 were around £660 million, with an estimated growth for 2007 of around £1.5 billion. Of those online revenues, in 2006 online poker claimed the fastest growth compared to that of 2005, with around £1 billion revenues estimated for 2007. Worldwide, poker turnover exceeded £12 billion in 2006.

Online poker itself is deemed to be a multi-player online game, but it can also be classed as a pay-per-play browser game, as you do pay for each card game you play.

However, should online poker be put in the same brackets alongside other multi-player or browser based games when it comes to the social and psychological effects that come with attached?

This has been a debate that has raged for many years as those in favour of poker deem it to be a game of skill and strategy, not unlike other pc games.

Certainly these types of multi-player games that offer the chance to win money for competing in tournaments are no different to offering a teenager the chance to win a prize for competing against someone during a fantasy game or role playing game. They each entice players to part with their money and both can be seen as skill games.

However, poker has always been classed as a form of gambling. It will remain thus until the problems of gambling addiction and anti-social effects can be understood and tackled.

One thing is for sure; online poker will continue to provide those who operate and form part of its industry with revenues that leave pc games operators drooling.

Written by Morgan Collins for IPNPOKER multi-player Poker Games network of large online brands.

The first thing to note is that whatever betting limits you are using whilst playing poker, you can never lose more money than you have in front of you on the table, so all those films with people playing for a few dollars and someone suddenly loses their house/car/shirt etc, can’t happen!

That said there are huge differences between the different betting structures used in poker, and these are outlined below.

No Limit

This is the most common betting structure for Texas hold’em, and is by far the most popular over all formats, cash, stt and mtt.

Basically it does exactly what it says on the tin – there’s no betting limit, and you can bet anything from a minimum bet (the size of the big blind) up to all of your chips, during any betting round!

This means that at any point you can be put to the test for all of your chips at any point in a hand if your opponent has equal to your stack or more.

Some online poker sites offer capped no-limit cash games, where if a player wages a certain amount he is considered all-in, and can bet no extra over that amount, nor fold out of the hand. In this way the volatility of no limit is reduced.

Pot Limit

This is the format most commonly used for Omaha and Omaha hilo games, both cash and tournaments. It is often used for stud games as well, and occasionally for Texas hold’em.

Under this structure a player can bet anything up to the size of the pot at that point. If a player has a bet to call when it is his turn to act, he may raise by the size of the pot after his call.

For example, pre-flop in a PL tournament, with blinds at 50/100, the first player to act could raise up to 250 more, putting in 350 total, but decides to just call the big blind. The next player to act may call 100, or raise up to 50+100+100+100= 350 more, 450 in total.

If there is no bet for the player to call, then the maximum bet amount is simply the current total of the pot.

In some cash games, for simplicity, the small blind is considered to have “completed” and made up the big blind, and for pot size calculations is treated as a big blind.

Fixed Limit

This betting structure involves fixed sized bets, and is used occasionally in all stud and flop based games, mainly for cash games, although tournaments are also run with this structure.

There are usually 2 set bet limits, one used in the earlier betting rounds and one used in the later ones. For instance a $10/20 fixed limit Texas Hold’em game will allow $10 bets and raises pre flop and on it, and $20 bets and raises for the turn and river bets and raises. This means that the blinds will be 5/10. This contrasts to a 10/20 PL or NL game where the blinds would be 10 and 20 respectively.

There is no option whatsoever of how much to bet or raise, players can either check, when available, fold, call or raise. There is usually a limit of 3 raises, meaning that when someone bets 10, the next player can raise to 20, the next can raise to 30, and finally the next player can raise to 40, thereafter players will only have the option of calling for 40 or folding.

Some live cash games allow an unlimited number of raises when the pot is heads up, until one player is all in.

For more poker articles, beginners guides, and poker strategy, please visit http://www.SharkPokerSchool.com – free poker content to all

Good luck at the tables!