Poker - a Popular Pastime
There was a Poker scandal that was revealed last year, where a small group of Poker Players cheated fellow Players at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet out of over $20 Million. Blogs were posted all over the Internet and the scam was dubbed "the biggest scandal in the history of online gambling". This gave online gambling in general an even worse name than it had before and put a feather in the US government's cap. But, despite all the bad publicity, the popularity of online Poker has not diminished. About half a million people play Poker online and revenue generated from online Poker is in excess of $18 Billion! Some people continue to make online Poker their main source of income. Although we were shocked by the scandal ourselves, our love for Poker has not changed. We chalk up the scandal to a poor choice by greedy, dishonest Poker Players but the game and our love for it still lives on!
In this section, we will teach you a bit about Poker and how the game is played, especially Texas Hold 'Em Poker which is the by far the most popular of all other online Poker variations. Poker is played with a deck of cards. Each deck contains 52 cards, which are divided into 4 suits each having 13 ranks.
What is a suit?
A suit consists of Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. There are no ranks in the suits, so a 2 of Hearts has the same value as a 2 of Clubs and, likewise, a Jack of Diamonds has the same value as a Jack of Spades. Each suit is ranked from Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King. The diagram below below shows the card ranks according to their respective suits starting with Clubs, then Diamonds, then Hearts, and finally Spades.
A Poker hand is made up of 5 cards. On the proceeding page, we will teach you about the hand rankings from highest to lowest. Any hand in a higher category beats any hand in a lower category; so a Full House would beat a Three of a Kind and a Four of a Kind would beat a Straight. In the case of Texas Hold 'Em which is played with more than 5 cards, the cards remaining, after 5 are selected to make the best possible hand, do not count or play any part in the ranking of the chosen Poker hand. Before we go into more detail about Texas Hold 'Em, let's take a quick look at Poker Hand Rankings.
Learn about Standard Poker Hand Rankings or cut right to the chase and sign up to play online Poker now.
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