Let’s Play Poker!

Play Poker

If you want to play poker, but are new to the game, or have only played a few games with your buddies in the basement on weekends, boy have you got a lot to learn. It’s easy enough to say, “I want to play poker!” OK, but what kind of poker? Do you want to play ring games? Maybe you want to play poker tournaments to see how well you fair. Well that’s all well and good, but there are so many games to choose from. If your only experience is playing poker with your buddies, you probably only know one or two games. Before you go running off to the casino to play poker with the big boys, or sign up and start throwing down virtual chips in an online poker room, it’s a good idea to know what you’re going to find.

Texas Hold-em

Hold-em is the most popular poker game in the world. When most people say, “Let’s play poker!” they mean, “Let’s play Texas Hold-em!” Professional gamblers who play poker as their primary source of income consider no limit hold-em to be the king of poker games.

5-Card Draw

Commonly referred to as draw- Draw is usually the game you’ll find amateurs playing in the living room on Fridays. An under-rated variation of poker, draw relies on bluffing a lot of the time. Players will often try to conceal the hand they are playing by the number of cards they draw.  5-card draw is not the most popular way to play poker in most circles.

Stud

7-Card stud is another very popular poker game. With four cards showing in everybody’s hand, it’s easy enough to see what hand each player is representing. The trick is figuring out if they actually have the hand or not.  You have to pay close attention to the board as well as your opponents when you play poker with stud players.

Omaha

Omaha has been gaining in popularity, and is often the second choice of games for hold-em players. The game is set up much the same as hold-em, but each player is dealt four hole cards, (rather than two) and must make their hand with two of the four hole cards and the community cards on the board. They key to Omaha is to know what a good starting hand looks like.

Now that you know a few of the variations of the game… let’s play poker!