Tag Archives: hands

The First-Timer’s Guide to Playing 5 Card Draw Poker

Card Value Start by familiarizing yourself with the order of card values. The card with the lowest value is 2 and this goes all the way up till you reach the suits. Aces are the cards with the highest value.

Types of Hands The next thing to familiarize yourself with is the different card combinations you make, often referred to as hands. A single pair of cards is the easiest to make, but it also ranks the lowest in the hierarchy. Next in line would be two pairs, followed by having three of a kind.

The lowest five-card-hand would be a Straight. This is composed of 5 unsuited cards of consecutive value, such as 9, 10, J, Q, K. A Flush is higher than a Straight, and it’s composed of 5 cards of the same suit. A Full House is composed of a pair and three of a kind. Four of a Kind is the third highest hand you can have. Next would be a Straight Flush, which is simply a combination of two hands. And finally, you get the Royal Flush – this is composed of the cards A, K, Q, J, 10 of the same suit.

Judging Hands If you and your opponent/s are holding the same hand, the one with the higher value or suit of cards wins.

Card Exchange In 5 Card Draw, players are allowed to exchange their cards even after the first betting round. How many cards they’ll be able to exchange will, however, depend on the playing rules predetermined in your table. Of course, you also have the option of not exchanging your cards, and this is referred to as “staying”.

When a player opts to have his cards exchanged, he can get the same number of cards from the deck.

Placing Your Ante 5 Card Draw starts with each player placing his ante or bet into the pot; antes are simply the initial bets made by the players on the table.

Dealing of Cards Unlike other poker variants, 5 Card Draw allows players to have five cards each in their hand.

Betting Rounds Each player is allowed to bet or pass. When the round is completed, the cards should then be gathered from the players. After this, players will be asked to place their antes again into the pot.

Winning The rounds will continue on until all players had either exchanged their hands or have chosen to stay. When the rounds had been completed, each player will then be asked to reveal his hand. The player with the best hand wins the pot.

See? Didn’t we tell you it was easy to play 5 Card Draw?

Online Poker All-In Or Fold Bounty Tournaments Help Make Excellent Poker Skills

Yes there’s an online tournament which is all-in or fold and still a bounty tournament. It is definitely a unusual tournament but an intriguing one indeed. For those who don’t know what an all-in or fold tournament is a tournament where each round before the flop you have to go all-in or fold your hand, It is different from the all-in type tournament which requires a player go all in every time which requires no strategy at all, but mostly luck. A bounty tournament is when you receive a bonus for knocking out a player. In such type of tournament the prize pool is less because half is awarded to the the bounties. This tournament has a lot of elements and new strategies.

One thing for sure this sort of tournament will cure you of the nasty habit of limping in to pots. It’s impossible to limp in during an all-in or fold tournament. It’s a very good lesson to learn. Limping typically is a bad habit along with a bad poker play. Also, you must play with a good hand. Players are either going all-in with top hands or folding bad ones. This helps you with the discipline of only playing top hands before the flop. A good skill to possess in your poker game.

It’s important to play top starting hands in late position. If you consider the strategy of these types of tournaments, players are playing the very top hands in early and middle position. They are fully aware a small hand in these positions will get beat by a good late hand. So remember that in late position with no one all-in in front of you, a hand slightly lower than the top hand can be played here to steal blinds.

Stack size is so important in these tournaments. Understand that the starting stack size is the same for all at the start of the tournament. So really hand strength is the only variable initially. Later in the tournament the stack sizes are far different and are starting to turn into a weapon to be reckoned with. Two things are going on here. First, the larger stacks can play a bit more aggressively because if they gamble a little an lose to the smaller stack they’re not out of the tournament. This play puts pressure on short stacks and if the play borderline hand they’re gone.

Now let’s talk about the cash and prizes. The best thing about this is you may knock players out and get their bounty. If you play top hands you may very quickly get your entry fees back and then you are playing for free. Remember all players have a bounty and every one but the winner loses theirs. So the bounties can get you profitable quickly. For the tournament prize money is usually 50 percent less as a result of bounties, but enough there to play for. Follow these strategies we mentioned previously and you’ll be getting plenty bounties and finish at the final table.

In this post we found a unique tournament which is very fun to play, with some very strict strategies, and it teaches the players some very good discipline and tools for your poker game. We only have played these tournaments at Carbon Poker and Pokerhost Poker both US poker sites. They are generally hard to find, but are well worth it when you do.