Most people who are new to the game want to learn moves first. The trouble is that every move rests on knowing what you hold and how it compares to what the board allows. This site starts at the bottom and works up: the ten rankings, then position, then the four betting rounds, then showdown.
There is a particular kind of confusion that comes from learning this game out of order. Someone picks up a few phrases about bluffing, reads a thread about bet sizing, and ends up with techniques that have nowhere to attach. The techniques are not wrong. They cannot be applied by someone who still has to work out whether a flush beats a full house.
So the order here is deliberate. Hand rankings come first because every other decision depends on them. Position comes second because it changes the value of the same two cards. The four betting rounds come third, as a structure to hang both on. Showdown comes last, because most hands never reach it.
None of this is complicated. It needs to be learned in a sequence where each part rests on the one before it, which is what the sections below are for.
Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. Learn them until you can recite the list without pausing. The pair that causes most trouble is flush and full house — the full house wins.
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When two players hold the same ranked hand, the next highest card decides it. That card is the kicker. It is why ace-king and ace-queen are different holdings even though both are ace-high. If the five best cards are identical, the pot is split.
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Your hand is the best five cards from your two plus the five on the table. Sometimes those five are all on the board, so everyone still in has the same hand. Asking what the board alone makes, before looking at your own cards, removes a lot of mistakes.
Read more →Position means how late you act in a betting round. Acting last is worth more than most beginners believe, because you make your decision knowing what everyone else chose to do. The same two cards are a comfortable hand on the button and an awkward one under the gun, and nothing about the cards has changed.
From early position, play fewer hands and play them straightforwardly. From late position, you can widen considerably, because you will have information nobody else has. The blinds are the exception that confuses people: you have already put money in, which tempts you to continue, but you will be first to act for the rest of the hand.
For one session, before every decision, say where you are sitting and who is still to act. People who do this for a few hundred hands report that half their difficult spots stopped appearing, because they stopped entering pots from awkward seats.
Position is an advantage, not a licence. Being on the button does not make a weak hand strong; it makes a marginal hand playable. The mistake that follows is playing far too many hands from late seats, on the grounds that position will rescue them. It will not.
Rankings until they are automatic, position until naming your seat takes no effort, the four rounds as a structure to hang both on. In that order. Everything else gets easier once those three are solid.