Poker Rules

Poker is a family of card games that share the same rules and often use the same hand ranking. Poker games vary depending on how the cards are dealt, how many hands can be created and if the lowest or highest hand wins. In almost all poker games today the game starts with some type of mandatory betting called the blinds. Players act in turn from right to left at the table and can choose the following actions.

Fold

A player who folds are out of the hand and have lost all invested money or tournament chips in the pot.

Call

A player who call need to match the big blind amount before being able to continue in the hand. Calling is a fairly weak strategy and raising is often the superior choice.

Raise

A player who raise need to put a minimum of double the amount of the big blind value in to the pot. In cash games players often make it 3 big blinds to go and in tournaments raises vary between 2.5 times and 4 times the big blind.

Re-raise

A player can re-raise (three bet) the original raiser. This is a strong move and indicates that the re-raiser holds a very strong hand. However three betting is more often seen in online poker today than years back and the hand range being used for three betting today is a lot broader than before. If no raise has taken place and opponents only have called then the big blind has the option to check his hand.

Check

A player can check if he is in the big blind and no raises have been made. Checking a hand mean that no more money is invested in the pot and thus poker is a game where the players fully control the amount of money they are willingly to play for in a pot except for the small and big blind payments that are mandatory once per orbit. Checking is also possible on the turn if no one decides to bet their hand.

Bet

A player can bet on the turn if he is first to act. Checking or betting is the only possibility available. If player one checks then player 2 also have the option to check his hand should he wish so. If more than 2 players in a hand then the check option continues to the remaining players active in the hand until someone decides to bet.

When a bet has taken place then the remaining players in the hand have the option to refrain from investing more money or chips in the pot by folding their hand. It is also possible to call a bet which mean that the next community card will be dealt and finally it is possible to raise the bettor in which case the pot is won if the original raiser folds.

The original bettor also have the option to call the re-raise or to make an additional raise. Big pots evolve fast in poker and whenever players meet resistance when betting or raising the pot and community cards should be examined carefully before proceeding. Even poker is a game involving bluffing then a lot of players only play solid poker and do not enter into raising wars unless they have a monster hand.

We have summarized the different poker rules for the games you can play at Classic Poker for Texas Holdem Poker, Omaha High Poker, Omaha High Low, Seven Card Stud and Seven Card Stud High Low. Furthermore we are covering the fundamentals in playing ring games at Classic Poker and how No Limit and Pot Limit Poker games are played in the poker room.


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