Terms like 'ladies' and 'dead man's hand' are not pseudo-codes – they are poker terms – and you can learn them if you know how to play poker. Ever went to a poker website and gingerly tried your hand at the game, only to lose terribly? Well, worry not because Poker Throttle is here to accelerate your poker game and turn you into a pro! Poker isn't rocket science. It's a fairly easy game to grasp, provided you know the tricks to it.
A poker introduction
The first thing before learning how to play poker is to get acquainted with the cards. In any card game, there are 52 cards in a deck of cards. These are placed in order of decreasing priority, with the Ace being of the highest ranking and value. The order of the cards is as follows:
Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8…and so on till 2.
There are four types of each of these cards: Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds. These are also called suits.
We'll take the example of the easiest game i.e. the five card draw poker. In this game, each player is provided with five cards. This is called a hand. The objective of the game is to arrange the cards in such a manner that a set with the highest value gets created. In order of ranking from highest to lowest values, the hands are listed as follows:
Types of hands: essentials on how to play poker
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Royal flush:
Comprises the top 5 highest values – Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10. But remember, all of these cards must belong to the same suit i.e. all four must either be hearts, spades, clubs or diamonds. This is the toughest hand to get.
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Straight flush:
This comprises a natural sequence of cards in order. For example, 4, 5,6,7,8 or 9, 10, J, K, Q where J, K, Q stand for Jack, King and Queen respectively. However, 'wrapping' is prohibited in the game. Wrapping refers to going counter clockwise to form a sequence. For example, going from K,Q,A and then using 2 and 3 to form a sequence. This is not a natural sequence and is considered wrapping.
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Four of a kind:
This is a set of 5 cards that comprise four cards having the same numerical value along with another random card. The hand that has the higher numerical value will win. For example, one hand comprises 5 of hearts, 5 of diamonds, 5 of spades and 5 of clubs along with another card of 2 of spades. Another hand consists of 9 of hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs, along with another card 4 of hearts. The second hand has a higher numerical value of 9 and hence wins over the other hand.
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Full House:
This is a combination of 5 cards out of which 3 cards have the same numerical value and the remaining 2 cards also have the same value of another number. The winning hand is decided by the numerical value of the 3 similar cards. If it's a tie, then the 2 cards are taken into consideration. For example A,A,A,3,3, wins over K,K,K,2,2 and K,K,K,Q,Q wins over K,K,K,4,4.
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Flush:
These are a set of 5 cards, all of the same suit but with differing numerical values. The winning hand is determined by the value of the number on the cards. For example 3,4,5,6,A (all of hearts) wins over 5,6,7,8,2 (of diamonds) because of the Queen in the first hand.
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Straight:
This is a set of 5 cards in numerical sequence, but belonging to different suits. For example, 4, 5,6,7,8 all of different suits.
It's easy to learn how to play poker once you have mastered the hands and the winning factor involved.
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