Just Poker Talk

The following are a ranking from worst to best (in the order of top to bottom in this post) in a LOW game of poker. Low as opposed to high. These hands apply to many games of poker including Omaha High/Low and Stud High/Low.

General info:

When going for low, you want just that… LOW cards. Only cards that are an 8 or lower can even qualify for low. Anything higher is a bad card to have when going for low. Straights and flushes do not help or hurt a low hand, it is only card value that matters.

The hands:

Eight high: The worst possible hand for low. Eight high consits of an eight and then four lower cards. This hand will very rarely win a pot. If two players both have an eight high hand, then the person with the lowest next highest card wins. If I have 8,7,3,2,A and you have 8,6,5,4,3, you win the pot. The only other card that matters after the eight is the next highest card, my low cards (3,2,A) do not help me when I have a 7 and you have a 6 as your next highest card.

Seven high: Another not so hot hand for low. It will beat eight high, but runs into trouble often due to 6 and 5 high hands. If two players both have seven high, the next highest card determines the winner, just as with eight high listed above.

Six high: A pretty good hand for low. It can only be beat by a lower six high, or a five high hand. If two players both have six high, the next highest card determines the winner, just as with eight high listed above.

Five high/Wheel: Five high or a “Wheel” as it is sometimes called is the best possible low hand. Nothing beats it. Because you need to use five cards in a low hand, the only possible combination for a Wheel is a straight from Ace to 5 (A,2,3,4,5). If two player both a wheel, they split the pot as there can be no better version of a wheel than another.

I hope this helped you in your understanding of ranked hands for a low game. If you need/want any clarification, please let me know via a reply to this post, or via email.

Good luck at the tables!

Poker hand rankings, best poker hand for low, worst poker hand for low, order of poker hands, best low hand, worst low hand

The following are a ranking from worst to best (in the order of top to bottom in this post) in a HIGH game of poker. High as opposed to low. These hands apply to many games of poker including Hold’em and Omaha. (They also apply to the high in Omaha High/Low).

Kickers:

No matter what the hand, kickers can come into play. Kickers are used when two players both have the best hand at the table. For example, if I have two Aces and you have the other two aces, then we tie. The next highest card in our possesion becomes our kicker. If my next highest card is a ten and yours is a queen, then you win the pot. If we both have the same kicker, we look to the next highest card and so on, with a pair of completely the same hand (very rare) resulting in a split pot (we each get half).

Trips/sets do not have kickers, the highest set wins. Your tens over my fours. Flushes and straights are decided on the highest non community card in them. If you have a ten high straigh and mine is an 8 high… you win. If we both have a spade flush, but you have the nuts in the form of the ace of spades, then you take the pot.

The hands:

High Card: High card applies to the highest card in your possession when making a hand. If you have King, Jack, Five, Four, Two in your hand, your best hand is “King High”.

Pair: A pair occurs when you have two of the same card in your five card hand. Two twos would be the worst pair, and two aces would be the best pair.

Two Pair: Two pair is just that, two pairs. If four cards out of your five card hand form two sets of pairs, then you have two pair. The higher set determines the winner if two players both have two pair and no one has a higher ranked hand. Your aces and twos beat my kings and queens. If we both have aces, then the rank of the second pair determines the winner.

Three of a kind: Another easy on to guess. Three of a kind occurs when you have three of the same card, such as the two of diamonds, two of spades, and two of hearts. The higher ranked set of three wins the hand if two players have trips and no one has a higher ranked hand at the table.

Straight: A straight occurs when all five of your cards are in sequential order, such as: 7,8,9,10,J. The suit of the cards do not matter, though if they are all the same suit, say spades, then you have a straight flush which is a higher ranked hand then a normal straight. If two players both have straights, then the highest card in the series takes the pot. Your 7-J over my 6-10.

Flush: A flush occurs when all five of your cards are the same suit. No suit is better than another, as is the same with all poker hands. If two players both have a flush, then the highest card in the flush wins, ace of course being high. If both players have the same highest card, the next highest is used, and so on.

Full house: A full house occurs when you have both a pair and a set in your five card hand, such as: three sevens and two threes. If two players both have a full house, the rank of the set in the full house determines the winner, with ace once again being high.

Four of a kind: A rare feat, but one which gives a great feeling. This occurs when four out of the five cards in your hand are all the same, such as the two of diamond, the two of hearts, the two of spades, and the two of clubs. If two players have quads, the highest ranking quad takes the pot, with ace being high.

Straight flush: Another rare feat. This occurs when all five of your cards are not just in sequential order (7,8,9,10,J), but ALSO of the same suit, such as 7,8,9,10,J all of hearts. If two players both have a straight flush, the highest card in the sequence (J in this case) determines the winner.

Royal flush: The best possible hand in poker, and an EXTREMELY rare find. It takes some serious luck to pull this one off. A royal flush is the same thing as a straight flush, but instead of ANY sequence working, a royal flush MUST be Ace to ten, and all of the same suit, such as: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, all of spades.

Hopefully this helps in your understanding of hand rankings. If anyone wants/needs clarification on anything, feel free to reply to this thread or email me. Enjoy your poker playing!

Poker hand rankings, best poker hand, worst poker hand, order of poker hands

Texas Hold’em is the king of poker. It is the game you most often see being played on televised tournaments including the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, the biggest cash prize in the poker world.

Learning the rules can be easily done just by reading this entry, but it takes much longer to learn how to win, and a lifetime (if you are lucky) to master.

Before I start with the rules, it is important to first grasp what hand will be the “winner”.

The winner:

First off, in order to make a winning hand, you can use one, both, or none of your two hole cards, and anywhere from 3 to all 5 of the community cards to make your 5-card hand. Even if you only make a pair, you still have a 5 card hand, the three highest cards left would fill out your hand and they would act as kickers.

The hand ranking is the same as any poker match, from high card to a royal flush.

A low pair will rarely win, but a flush or even a set will give you some great odds.

The best hand at the conclusion of the final round of betting takes the pot.

The start:

Before any cards are dealt, the blinds are posted by the players after the button. The button is just that… a round button which moves one space to the left each hand. The person directly to the left of the button is the small blind, and the next person is the big blind. So in a “5/10″ game, the blinds are 5chips and 10chips. Blinds exist to induce action.

Here is an example: Note that the second stack of 10 chips is a Pokerstars (and other places) rule where if you are playing your first hand at the table you must post the amount of the big blind no matter where you are in relation to the button.

Hole cards:

Next, each player is delt two cards face-down which only they can see. This is also shown in the above image. Based on how good your cards are, you may wish to either fold, check, call or raise. The following image shows my two hole cards, and that someone raised the blind up to 50, and that the following person re-raised the bet to 140. Raises and reraises can occur at any time, and is the most important part of the game. Knowing when to bet, raise and fold is eveything in poker. My Q-10 would not be call-worthy in a cash game, but since this is playmoney and I wanted to try and win to show off, I stayed in. =)

Here is the raise and re-raise:

Community cards:

Now that everyone has recieved their two hole cards, and bet the pot up to their heart’s content, it is time to throw some more cards down. The method of doing so is referred to as “burn’em and turn’em”. The card on top of the deck is “burned” and discarded, never to be looked at or used. This occurs before both the flop, turn, and river. The next three cards are taken out and turned over for all to see in the middle of the table. These are the first of 5 total community cards. In Hold’em you can use all or none of the community cards to make your best 5 card hand. After the flop, a round of betting ensues before the turn.

Here is an example of a flop:

The Turn:

After another card is burned (the second in total), a fourth card is added to the community cards. This fourth card is referred to as “The Turn” or “Fourth Street”. Another round of betting ensues before the fifth and final card is added to the community cards.

In this example, there is a King and a set of 7’s on the board (communty cards). With three people in the hand and a nice size pot going, the odds are someone at least has a king, if not the fourth seven, so unless you have a king, the seven, or pocket aces to beat the King full house, now is the time to get out of the hand.

Here is the image:

The River:

The fifth and final community card also comes after a burned card (the third and final one), and is called either “The River” or “Fifth Street”. Once in play, it is time to size up you and your opponent’s hands and decide whether it is time to take part in this final round of betting.

When the betting is complete, if there is more than one person left in the hand, their hole cards are turned over and the winner is given the pot. If only one person remains due to a fold, then they only need to show their cards if they feel like it (most commonly done when showing off a bluff on a large pot to try and get your opponent on tilt), or otherwise they can Muck their cards which means they keep them face down while tossing them to the dealer.

In this example, both players had the king to give both the same fullhouse. Because of this, the tied the hand and split the pot equally. You can also see that one of them is displaying the “All-in” message, which means he pushed the last of his chips into the post during the hand.

Here is the image:

Conclusion:

I hope this helps in your understanding of the rules of Texas Hold’em. It is a rather straight-forward game that can be picked up after only watching a few hands. As with all forms of poker, the best way to learn is play.

I will cover the strategy of the game in a later post, but since everyone has their own way of thinking, it is best to get out there now and find your own. Get the family or friends in a friendly game, or hop online and learn with playmoney chips (which I do not recommend aside from learning the rules, as learning strategy is near impossible with the reckless play exhibited by people who play with playmoney).

Poker, Texas Hold’em, Texas Hold’em Rules, Hold’em Rules, Poker Rules

Full Tilt Bonus Code POKERKING is good for free money.

Did bad at the tables the other day so I switched over to tourneys. I won some money, I lost some money, you know how it goes. =)

I ended up down a bit (though I did win a decent chunk of FPPs), and decided I won’t really be playing for a few weeks, as I will be very busy with the holidays and other things going on. I also need a break from the addiction. This will also serve the purpose of giving me time to write up entries describing all the things I promised about a week ago. The first few of which should be up later today, if not very soon after this one.

Keep your eye out for them, because they are coming soon!

Starting Funds: $100
Current Funds: $110.35
Current FPPs: 134

Poker, Poker Tourney, Poker Tournament

Poker Guide

Before I even start writing this I know it is going to be long. But like I stated before, I will only include the commonly used terms, many of which you probably already know.

Poker Terms:

Ante: A certain number of chips which are put into the pot by every player at the table before the cards are dealt to build up the pot. Normally the only time Antes appear in Hold’em are in late tournament play to speed things up.

All-in: Not much to this one. All-in is a term used for a player who pushes their last chips into the pot, whether they have five or five thousand, if the chips are all-in then the person is referred to as being all-in.

Backdoor: When the last two community cards give you the winning the hand. This is also referred to as “runner runner”. For example, having three spades post flop to see spade come on fourth street and then another spade on fifth street to give you the flush would be you catching a backdoor hand.

Bad Beat: Something that makes you swear and leave the table. =) Seriously though, it is when a great hand gets beat by rags. Rags of course being poor cards/hole cards. When someone with 7-2 goes all in pre-flop and you call with AK suited and hit your flush only to see them hit a full house, THAT is a bad beat.

Blind: They come in the big blind and small blind variation. The person sitting next to the button is the small blind and the person directly after them is the large blind. The large blind is almost always the smallest amount that can be bet. The blinds HAVE to be posted by the player, and they exist to induce action on the hand.

Boat/Full Boat: A full house.

Calling Station: This refers to a player at the table. If they see a lot of flops and a lot of turns and rivers, and will call no matter how good or bad their hands are, they are a calling station.

Community Cards/Board: The cards that are displayed in the middle of the table that everyone can see and use. They consist of the flop (3 cards), the turn (1 card) and river (1 card).

Connectors: Connectors refer to your hole cards. Connectors are connected numerically, as in A-K or 2-3.

Draw: If you are “on a draw” it means you do not have a hand, but you are going for one. As in you have 4 spades with cards left to be turned and are shooting for the flush, but at the moment you have nothing.

Drawing Dead: No matter what card/s come up next there is no way that you can win the hand. Your opponent has already won with his superior hand.

Flop: The first three of five cards which are turned over in the community card area. They are turned over at the same time.

Gutshot Straight/Inside Straight: When you need one more card for your straight and only one card will work. For example: you have a J and 10, and the flop is an 8 and 7. The only card that will get you the straight is the 9. It is a form of draw.

Heads up play: This refers to when their are either only two people playing for the pot out of a table of more people, or to the play in general when their are only two people on a table.

Hole Cards/Pocket: These are the two cards you are dealt that only you can see and only you can use, as opposed to the community cards which everyone can see and use.

Kicker: The card used to determine the winner if their main hand is tied. For example: I have A Q and you have A K as hole cards. At the end of the hand we both have a pair of aces. Because your K is higher than me Q I am out kicked and you win the hand.

Muck: When you lose a hand you are given the option to muck your hand. This means that you simply throw your hole cards away and no one else sees them.

The Nuts: The best hand possible given the cards on the board. If you have the nuts you CANNOT lose the hand.

Offsuit/Off: Hole cards that are not of the same suit. For example: A of hearts and K of spades.

Open-Ended Straight Draw: This occurs when two card values can complete your straight. For example: you have 7 8 and the flop is 9 6 A. Either a 10 or a 5 can complete your straight, as opposed to only one card in the inside straight/gutshot straight draw.

Out/s: The number of cards that someone has left in the deck that can give them the winning hand. If the flop comes and you have Ace high and your opponent has a pair of kings, only an ace can give you a higher pair/winning hand. Because you have one of the four aces, there are three left. You have three outs.

Rainbow: A flop where each card is of a different suit.

Rake: The amount of the pot that the casino/gaming site takes for themselves. It is a percentage of the active pot.

Rock: The opposite of a calling station. A rock plays very tightly and normally only calls/raises with a very good hand.

Set: Three of a kind.

Side Pot: If there are more than two people in the hand and one of them is all-in but the other two continue to bet, there is a side pot created. Because the short stack (all-in stack) hasn’t contributed to the side pot, he is not eligible to win it. It instead goes to whoever has the best hand out of the two people who still have chips, even if they are both beat by the short stack.

Sit and Go (SNG): A form of tournament. Smaller than most tournaments, it can be anywhere from two players to a few tables worth. You join if there are spots open and it starts when there are no more spots.

Slow Play: When someone who has a very good hand/pocket pair plays as though they have a bad/lesser hand. Pocket aces may check a poor flop, knowing they are the top hand, and wait until they feel someone else has hit before betting, hoping to induce a call and win more chips.

Split Pot: This occurs when two or more people share the pot and each get an equal share. This can occur when the board is a straight.

Suited: When your two hole cards are of the same suit.

Tell: A sign that someone is bluffing/has a bad hand/has a good hand, etc. It can be a blink, a shake or anything else.

Quads: Four of a kind.

Tilt: The poker player’s worst nightmare. Normally occurs when a player loses a large pot, normally to a bad beat. They are mad and will play poorly, namely pushing it all in on an inferior hand out of frustration.

Under The Gun (UTG): The person who is directly after the big blind. The person first to act on the hand.

*Feel free to reply in a comment or via email with terms you feel should be on this list. Try to keep it to somewhat common terms. There are many many terms I intentionally left out becuase 1.) I don’t want to type too much, lol and 2.) You don’t NEED to know them.

Poker, Poker Talk, Poker Terms, Poker Terminology

There are hundreds of different poker games, but only a handful or so that appear often at tournaments and that are played online at the various poker rooms. The rest are most commonly saved for a game between friends/family.

I will cover the rules and layout of each game in this order:
*Hold’em
*Omaha
*Stud
*5 Card Draw
*Razz
*2-7 Triple Draw

I will then cover the multiple game tourneys/tables such as HORSE and HOSE as well as Shootout tourneys and also the various styles/kinds of play for each such as Hi-Lo variations, Pot Limit, Limit, and No Limit.

Before I cover ANY of what I listed above in this post, I will first cover poker terminology. I will provide you only with the common and useful terms. If you search for poker talk or poker terminology you get hit with wicked long lists that use terms that you will never hear unless you play with either your grandmother or someone who plays poker twenty hours a day and can’t help but pick up and remember every little nickname for a card/hand. Pointless poker diatribe is not needed, only the useful stuff is, and that is what I will cover.

Poker, Poker Games, Types of Poker Games, Poker Talk, Poker Terminology

Hey all,

Alright, I already stated the type of posts that will be added to my blog (Professional Tournament and/or Player news, and important Poker news in general [legality of online poker with new laws for example], and my own personal poker endeavors).

Because this blog is new, I would like to make a few one time posts soon. They will include:
*Different types of poker and their respective rules.
*Poker terms and abbreviations. (”I went all-in in pre-flop in a $100 SNG from the BB”)
*Poker strategy, thought, etc.
*Anything else that hits me while writing the other posts. =)

Look forward to these soon!

Starting Funds: $100
Current Funds: $129.85
Current FPPs: 68

Poker, Poker Talk, Poker strategy, Poker terminology

Disclaimer: I really need to work on making these shorter, lol. I love my addiction of poker and find it so easy to write about. Please give me some feedback about post length and ideas for making the posts shorter and/or more interesting. Thanks!

Alright, let me start off by saying that it was late, I was tired (really tired… 5 hours of sleep in two days tired), and I was ADDICTED.

I mentioned in my welcome post that I may play more after I wrote the post, even though it was late. Well, I did play more. And I played so pathetically bad because I was tired and just off my game. I sat down out a .25/.50 5 card draw table and took out the maximum $50. I was down to $14 when I cashed out of the table. PATHETIC.

I turned to tourneys… a $10.. busted, a $20… busted.

I had gone from something like $144 at midnight(ish) to about $62 at 1am(ish). Yea, I lost over 80 bucks in an hour. It was scary, I decided to call it quits for the day but didn’t think I would fall asleep even though I was so tired because I was so mad at myself.

While lying down in bed I told myself… “You know what, forget this. Tomorrow is tourney day. I have enough left for two $20 tourneys (not three because of the $2 in tourney fees), and for a $10. So, I decided to throw all my money into tourneys when I played the next day (today). I came to this decision because the idea of table play after my bad luck streak was not doing it for me, and because you only need to play in third to win in a 9 person tourney, with first netting you $90 in a $20 tourney. If I won the first one, I would be back up to well over $100 (what I put into the site the day before), winning the second would put me to barely over $100 (but still… profit! lol), and if I lost the two $20’s I didn’t hold much hope for the $10, as I would still be well below $100 after a first place win in that.

So, I fell asleep nice and fast and slept till the afternoon. Feels so good to be awake awake and not tired awake! First thing I did today was play in a $20 (I am an addict). I started off good, was the chip leader early on, but my stack slowly got ate away. I went from leader to the middle of the pack, and after a mini rollercoaster ride and about an hour of play I was down to about 800 chips out of my starting 1500, and in last place out of 5 people. I fought my way back and it was down to four people. If one more busted out before me I would cash. He was all-inning like crazy and stealing a lot of chips in blinds, but he finally got called and he got beat. Cash for me!

I was still very low on chips, but happy and willing to play more risky now that I would make my buy-in and then some back. The blinds got high, and one of the guys who were playing tight had his stack widdled down until he was forced to all-in, I called and beat him. More Cash for me!

It was down to heads up, and All-inned early before my stack got so short even a double up wouldn’t help much. I won and was now even for the chip leader. About seven hands, and two big pots later, I was the winner. From 800 chips to 16,000, and with $90 in my pocket. I am now at $129.85 and have 68 wonderful FPPs. If I can mange to keep winning, that $50 bonus at 500FPPs will take nowhere near the 6 months they give you to get them.

Phew… avoided going broke so early after buying into Pokerstars, and am still at a profit. Probably play some table games later today after I study for finals (they start in 2 days!) and perhaps try a tourney later in the day/night. (Might not risk as much as $20 now that I am up.)

Wish me luck! (Unless of course I am playing against you. )

P.S. All tourneys I played in and mentioned wanting to play in are No Limit (NL) Hold’em tourneys.

Starting Funds: $100
Current Funds: $129.85
Current FPPs: 68

Poker, Pokerstars, Hold’em, Tourney, FPP, Tournament, Addicted

Because this is my first post here at Just Poker Talk, I thought it best to introduce myself. (Pardon the length, but there is always a lot to say in an intro post!)

My name is David Macomber, but feel free to call me Dave if it so pleases you. I am a college student who attends St. Mary’s College of Maryland in Maryland as an English Major. I am not new to writing, or to writing blogs, as I have written for the baseball blog for 451Press among other, personal, blogs.

I am throwing my self full force into this blog now, so it will be the only one I am writing at, at least for the time being. I will also be throwing myself full on into the world of poker.

As far as my poker knowledge goes, I have been playing since I was a little kid and would lug my small container of spare change to my Uncle’s house for an occasional family game. I played poker while in high school, including while being physically inside the school. I started playing online poker (play money) while in high school when I ran across Pokerstars thanks to a friend showing me their site. I recently started playing freerolls (play money tournaments that allow you to win real money). I took a break from poker for a few months, and when I came back I tried out a few new poker rooms online including Doyle’s Room and Full Contact Poker, as well as my old tried and true Pokerstars.

I got sick of playing with play money and the poor quality players that are associated with it (People who go all in on every hand no matter what their hole cards are). Because of this, I decided to throw some real money on one of the online rooms. I debated between Doyle’s Room and Pokerstars(PS), and finally settled on PS. I had $100 added to my PS account today, and have been playing around a bit. I almost always play Hold’em, but know of and have played all of the games involved in HORSE. After having a bad run of early luck at the Hold’em tables, I decided to shift off to 5 card draw (a new addition to Pokerstars and one I love). My luck changed and I started to win a few bucks here and there. I decided to shift to a cheap $1 tournament, which I busted out of half way through. I then headed back to the 5 card draw tables where my luck in the game continued. I played two more tournaments later in the day, one for $4 and one for $10, both of which netted me $0 in return. I finished the night (assuming I don’t play more after typing this) back at the 5 card draw tables. I ended up with $144 on the day (a $44 dollar profit even with my tournament disasters) and 24 Frequent Player Points.

Frequent Player Points (FPPs) are awarded when a player is in a hand large enough for the rake (the amount of money that the online room takes from the pot) to reach a certain predetermined amount or at the rate of 5 FPPs per $1 in tournament fees. I need 500 FPPs in the next few months to get my first time buy-in bonus of $50. They also come in handy for special FPP tournaments or two purchase goods from the Pokerstars store.

I am happy with my decision of putting money on a site, and choosing PS as the one to use, as well as with my performance on the day.

My next post will be about what I plan to post in the future; a layout of future posts if you will. In general, I plan on covering any big poker news, whether about tournaments or the players themselves, and also covering my own experiences at the online tables and perhaps any live games I can dig up. I have recently discovered PokerXFacter, which will allow me to post videos of hands that I have played. You can check out the site for an example. I just need to learn how to use it! Plan on seeing some bad beats (hopefully not many!) and some nice wins/flops, etc. I really love the service they offer, and have seen it to great effect on other sites.

Please, feel free to contact me at any time, or leave comments to any of my posts. Share stories that are relevant to the post, or voice your opinion, etc. You can email me ideas for posts, or even you own stories. I know we all have some really bad bad beats we could talk about.

Here is too a long and healthy poker relationship!

Starting Funds: $100
Current Funds: $144
Current FPPs: 24

Poker, Online Poker, Freeroll, Doyle’s Room, Pokerstars, Full Contact Poker, Poker Blog, Play Money