The Rules of Poker

Official Poker Rules

Writing about the rules of poker can be tricky, because strictly speaking, poker encompasses several games. When you include the variations of poker that are played in home games throughout the world, the number of games is practically endless, and "official poker rules" don't necessarily apply to your local home game version of Jacks and Piss or Anaconda or whatever.

But casino poker games, like Texas holdem, Omaha, and seven card stud have generally accepted rules and procedures that seldom vary too much from cardroom to cardroom. Our goal with this page is to provide an introduction to the basic rules of poker and to provide a central place on our site to find more specific poker rules pages.

Poker Hand Rankings

Poker games are usually played with a 52 card deck, although some draw poker games include a joker or two as "wild cards". These cards have two aspects that affect the game:

1. Rank

2. Suit

Ranks

The cards are numbered ace through nine, and those numbers correspond to the cards' ranks. (Although the ace can be either high or low, whichever benefits the player.) The deck also has "face cards" that are ranked in the following order, from highest to lowest:

1. Kings

2. Queens

3. Jacks

Suits

The deck is also made up of four suits:

1. Spades

2. Hearts

3. Diamonds

4. Clubs

Suits are never used to break ties.

Hand Rankings

Poker is a "vying game", which means that players bet on who has the best hand. We have a complete article about poker hand rankings here which explains which hands outrank which other hands and why.

Poker Games

A huge number of poker games and variations can be played, but they can be roughly categorized into specific game types which have their own rules. And those specific games have additional rules to separate them from other games of that type. These include:

Community Card Games

Texas holdem is the most well-known type of community card game, although in Europe, Omaha is also hugely popular. In a community card poker game, players receive a hand but also share cards from the "board". These games include:

• Texas holdem

• Omaha

• Pineapple holdem

Omaha poker is often played in a hi-lo version called "Omaha 8". In Omaha 8, the pot is split between the highest possible hand and the lowest possible hand.

Draw Poker Games

Draw poker games are the easiest and most popular version of poker played at kitchen tables across the country. The most common version of draw poker is called "Jacks or Better". Each player puts an ante into a pot, receives five cards, then they have a round of betting. After the round of betting, each player can choose a number of cards to discard and draw. They then have another round of betting based on their new hand.

One interesting draw poker variation is called lowball, where the players compete for the lowest possible hand. (As opposed to a typical poker game where the players compete for the highest possible hand.)

Stud Poker Games

Stud poker games are also hugely popular, and are usually played with five or seven cards. Stud poker has fallen out of favor in casinos since holdem-type games have become so popular. Each player in a stud poker game receives a combination of down cards and face up cards as their initial hand, then receive additional cards. There's a round of betting after each player receives a card. Five card stud, seven card stud, and seven card stud hi-lo are the most popular stud poker games being played today.

A reasonably popular variation of seven card stud is called razz, which is seven card stud played for the lowest possible hand. (Similar to lowball, only a stud version instead of a draw version.)

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