Try to flip the channels on any television in the world and go through the whole repertoire of available shows and for sure you will find at least one poker card game tournament going on, and being broadcast. Poker is the best loved and the most played card game on the face of the earth, and has morphed from the sordid, smoke laden back rooms in saloons in the Old West, to the first choice for entertainment of players everywhere, whether in casinos or family living rooms on a Saturday night.

Any game you play today has rules and regulations, and poker is no different. The basics of the more common forms of poker is that the individual cards are ranked in ascending value from 2 (low) to Ace (high); and unlike some other card games, suits have no value when ranking hands or tallying points. In lowball games of poker, where the best poker hands are the lowest valued hands (just the opposite of the traditional games of poker); Ace plays low only when you are playing lowball games in A to 5, and A to 6, and in 2 to 7 lowball the Ace plays high. But traditionally, the high cards are the Ace, then the King, Queen, Jack, and 10 in descending order; and the best poker hands are those with the highest value in the hand.

Because suits play no part in how a poker hand is evaluated, they only matter when trying to place a hand in a certain framework as in describing a flush or a straight flush. What a flush is, is 5 cards all of the same suit (like 3,6,7,8,9 of spades) and a straight flush is 5 cards in sequence all in the same suit, (like 3,4,5,6,7 of spades). If two players each hold a straight flush in different suits-say one has 2,3,4,5,6 of diamonds and the other has 2,3,4,5,6 of spades; the spades are not considered higher than the diamonds: the hands are identical in value, the outcome of the hand is a tie, and the two players must split the pot. To recognize your dealt hand as being one of the best poker hands at the table, you must understand and commit to memory what the rankings of the card combinations are and in what order. The lowest card combo ranking in poker is high cards (no pair), then 1 pair, 2 pair, 3 of a kind, Straight, Flush, Full House, 4 of a kind, and Straight Flush.

Bidding is all important in a poker game, but you also have to be very aware of what determines the best poker hands, and you must correctly bid the cards that are dealt to you, to the best of your ability. The rest of the players around the table are watching your every move, as they are also watching the other players to see if they can “read” what they all have in their dealt hands, and you must maintain your “poker face” even if your heart is pounding with fear, or pounding with joy because you have one of the best poker hands you have ever seen. Poker is a game of psychology as well as a game of cards.

No one ever became an expert in any field without lots of experience and the same holds true for playing poker. The more experience you have playing with all kinds of different players, watching how they bid, how they move, how they react when they look at their cards; the more prepared you will be for every successive game you get into as you keep on playing. Remember that old western jingle that goes something like “know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em”; well they were singing about poker hands and playing out their hands whether they were the best poker hands or the worst, and that advice is just as sage today as it was way back when.

One of the very best places and most informative places on earth to get the information you need on how to play poker, is on the Internet. There are so many sites there dedicated to the rules of the game and the mechanics of the play, the bidding, and what the best poker hands are, the worst poker hands and how to manipulate them all to your best advantage. There are even sites that tell you how to maintain a “poker face” and use it to sway the game in your favor; and sites telling you how to react to certain hands dealt to you depending on what others around the table have already bid. There are even sites on the Net that let you join a game already in progress online, and you can just play; you do not need to cough up any money, just join in and learn and have fun.

There would be a giant void in this old world of ours if there were no poker games going on and millions of people counting those poker games as their most desirable means of entertainment. Poker has become an integral part of our lives and so much so that expressions have come down through the years that originated with poker and stuck as part of our lexicon; expressions such as “when the chips are down” and “poker face”. Whether you are a seasoned player of poker, or a novice just getting used to the ropes and chasing the hope of getting one of those best poker hands that everyone talks about; you will find that poker has a certain mystique about it for the participants, and packs a wallop as far as fun and suspense go. No doubt about it, poker is the king of card games.