So you’ve downloaded the PKR Software, set up your account using the special code provided by us here at Betfanatic, (which is BF01 by the way) and claimed your free $10 bonus – now you need a Beginners Online Poker Guide to help turn that $10 into some real money.
This article is going to be the meat and bones of how to play poker. This is not an advanced strategy guide and is, as the title suggests aimed at the total beginner. If you already know how to play Texas Hold’em you may want to skip to some of our other poker articles, or keep reading to make sure you’ve not missed anything when first learning the game.
During a game of Texas Hold’em poker each player is dealt two cards known as the hole cards, which only the player is allowed to look at. During a hand the dealer will reveal a maximum of five more cards, called the community cards. The aim is to make the best five card hand using any of your hole cards, and any of the community cards. For a full list of Poker Hands check out the article highlighted.
Once all players have received their hole cards, two players known as the small blind and the big blind (we’ll come to that later in this article) put a small number of chips into the middle of the table. Then starting from the left of the big blind all players decide to either match the number of chips the big blind has put into the pot, raise the number of chips the big blind has put into the pot, or fold their two cards without putting any chips in the pot.
Once all players have either folded, or put their chips into the middle – the dealer will reveal the first of the three community cards, known as the flop to the entire table of players. This time, starting with the small blind players, each player either bet chips into the pot, or fold their hand – depending on which hands they have made from the five cards they have available and how likely the player thinks it is that they have the best hand at the current time.
This process repeats with the dealer revealing the next community card, called the turn, and again where the next and final card is displayed – called the river, then a final round of betting takes place. Not all hands reach the stage where all five community cards are displayed though, as, if all players fold – the last man standing wins any money in the pot, so bluffing can be used to win a hand.
I think this is most easily illustrated in a video, so have a watch of some good players, playing on the PKR Poker Room. Pay attention to where the small blind, big blind and dealer button are, how the dealer button moves around the table, changing which players are in the blind positions – and which two hole cards the players tend to bet on, or fold. This is great information to see which kinds of cards you should be playing.
There are two fundamental concepts that I want to discuss straight off and these are position & the blinds. The blinds are crucial to the game of poker, without them there would be nothing to play for in each hand. Players could just sit and wait for the perfect cards before coming into play and always win with those best cards. The way the blinds work is simple, each hand two players must place a number of chips into the middle of the table and into the pot before looking at their cards. This rotates around the table with each hand so it is always fair and always gives something to play for.
Beginners Online Poker Guide: Why Is Position So Important?
Playing your hands when in position is one of the most powerful advantages you can get at the poker table, in-fact, it is said that if a world champion poker player was forced to play an amateur – but play all his hands out of position the amateur would certainly win.
There are 4 positions that you can be in at the poker table, early, middle, late and the button / blinds. At it’s most basic level poker is a game of incomplete information. You know what cards you hold, and you can see what cards are out on the board – the skill is using the bets you and your opponents make to work out which cards they are likely holding, and adjust your play accordingly. As you will see this is more easily done when in late position at the table as you have more information to base your decision on.
Position At The Poker Table
The image above should help you visualise where each position is at the table, don’t forget that as every hand finishes the dealer button moves one place to the left, and as it does so each position also shifts one place to the left. Lets talk about early position first.
Early Position: Playing any hand when you are sitting in any of the early positions puts you automatically at a disadvantage. Why? Lets take a look at an example starting hand and see what could happen. You are in the earliest of the early positions (one to the left of the big blind) and are dealt:
You raise the pot to $200 because a pair of queens (as you will see below) is a great starting hand. The other early position players fold their hand, a player in the middle position re-raises you to $600, and a player in the late position re-raises to $1000. You now have a tough decision to make, fold and lose the $200 you put into the pot as one of the two other players might have you beaten. Or put in another $800. The player in late position, their bet tells you they are almost certain to have a pair of Kings, or a pair of aces. They are not scared by two, quite large opening bets, and the player in the middle position also is showing a lot of strength.
Can you see here, how if you were sitting in late position with this hand it would be much easier to fold two queens to some heavy betting action, or make a tactical decision to play on with caution knowing that the other two players are likely strong.
Middle Position: Lets take a look at another hand played this time from one of the middle positions. You have been dealt:
A player in the early position calls for $25, a player in the middle position also calls. Here you don’t have a very strong starting hand, but as no one has shown any real strength so far you too can call, or even raise a small amount, there are flush possibilities with your hand and also straight possibilities and it’s not costing you a great deal to see the flop.
If there is any serious betting action from the players in late position you can still fold the hand without investing too many chips, and if you do get to see the flop for cheap you might end up with a monster hand to dominate your opponents.
Late Position: In late position you have the maximum amount of information available to you. Lets say we’ve been dealt:
All the other players have either folded or called the blind. (If we were in the early position we wouldn’t know that, so we would probably fold this low pair), however, in late position we can see that no one has really shown any strength and this would be a great call to see if we can hit a set of three’s on the flop – which could be a really powerful hand.
Once you have your head wrapped around “position” and how the “blinds” work, then you should join us in the next part of this guide, Poker Starting Hands.
We suggest before you do this, you boot up the PKR Software that you really should have downloaded by now, and open up one of the tables there, don’t play – just watch a few hands being played -get a feel for the game and how it all works, and then read on for some more advice.
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I really enjoyed reading this – I think there are several good points here that I Will try in my play this evening, thanks.