This page will help you learn the rules of the main poker variants, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 3 Card poker. You can also read more detailed guides to help further your playing ability. We’re confident this is the only beginner’s poker resource you’ll ever need!
This guide takes you through the general rules of poker in more detail. It covers everything from table limits and identifying a good hand, to knowing when to call, raise and fold.
As the most popular variation of poker, it’s worth building a deep understanding of how Texas Hold’em is played. Here you can learn about the game’s rules and how betting works.
This must-read guide breaks down the different hands in poker, ranking them from highest to lowest.
To win in poker it’s important to be able to identify a good starting hand and its win rate. This guide does just that.
This guide builds on your knowledge of starting hands, explaining how table position might affect whether or not you should bet.
Familiarize yourself with the nicknames given to various poker hands. Professionals, announcers and other players use this lingo, so it will help you follow what’s going on.
There are so many terms, abbreviations and acronyms used in poker that it practically has its own language. Learn what they all mean with our poker glossary.
When playing online you don’t need to worry about table etiquette or physical tells. That all changes in a real-life casino. Read our comprehensive guide before you take things offline.
Winning a poker game is as much about how you bet as the hand you have in front of you. We talk you through the process of placing bets, with an emphasis on bluffing.
All beginner players have to start somewhere, so we’ve put together a series of useful tips that you should read before you hit the tables.
Learn how to boost your bankroll from next to nothing so you can take part in tournaments with larger buy-ins.
In this guide we share tips and tricks on how to improve your poker game once you’ve mastered the basics.
Many players dream of using their poker skills to make a living. In this frank and honest guide, we delve into the possibilities of this.
In almost all variations of poker, with Razz being a notable exception, the aim of the game is to put together the best poker hand possible. Multiple rounds of betting take place while players gradually build their hand.
To win, players must either drive others to fold before the end of the game or reveal the strongest hand at showdown.
Beyond that, poker rules can differ considerably. Below we share the basics of the following variants:
Texas Hold’em is the most popular variant of poker. All the biggest tournaments, such as the WSOP, EPT and WPT, feature the no-limit variation.
When you’re ready to play for real money, check out our list of the best real money online poker sites.
Omaha poker is similar to Texas Hold’em, except each player gets four hole cards (rather than two) and you must use two of them to make your hand.
When you’re ready to play for real money, check out our list of the best Omaha poker rooms.
Irish poker is a mix of Texas Hold’em and Omaha. Players are dealt four hole cards, as in Omaha, but must then discard two of them. The rest plays out like a game of Texas Hold’em.
3 Card poker sees players build a hand using just three cards. Hand rankings are therefore different - there is no such thing as a full house or four of a kind, and straights outrank flushes.
When you’re ready to play for real money, check out our list of the best 3 Card poker rooms.
5-Card Draw is one of the simplest types of poker and the variant you’ll find in video poker games.
In 7-Card Stud players receive seven cards throughout the course of the game before they decide which five to use to build their hand.
In Razz, the lowest or ‘worst’ hand wins. This is the key different between Razz and most other poker variants.
The aim of poker is to put together the best hand possible. In the more popular variants such as Texas Hold’em and Omaha, players create the hand using a mixture of community cards which are dealt gradually (and are available to all players) and hole cards. In other variants, players can swap or discard cards before committing to their final hand.
Multiple rounds of betting are common, where players try to drive others to fold before they reveal their cards at showdown.
Short deck poker, sometimes known as Six-Plus Hold’em, is a variation of Texas Hold’em that sees cards 2 through 5 removed from any deck you’re playing with. Other than this key difference, which results in more high value hands, the rules are the same.
In effect, there are two different ways to win when following basic poker rules:
These methods often, but don’t always, go together, and bluffing is a key ingredient in winning a round when you have a subpar hand.
This varies depending on the starting chip value, buy-in amount and number of players. To make things easy, we’ve created a poker chip calculator to help you figure out exactly how many chips each player needs if you’re setting up a home game.
Different poker hands have different values. We’ve listed them below, starting with the best.
Note that in Razz, the lowest hand wins!
The best advice we have for beginners, beyond checking out the poker rules guides at the top of this page, is to play for free (or for very small amounts) to hone your skills before you move on to playing for more substantial sums of money.
The more you practice, the better you’ll do when you start playing against other skilled players.