I’m trying to learn how to play and I understand what community cards are, what they do, who goes first/last, etc, but how do the cards in your hand effect the game? I can’t find the answer anywhere and it’s getting confusing.
Your hand is the best 5 cards you can make out of your 2 hold cards and the 5 community cards.
If your hold cards are 9-6 and the community cards are 3-4-5-7-8, your hand is a 9 high straight (5-6-7-8-9.) An opponent holding A-6 would have an 8 high straight (4-5-6-7-8,) so you would win because you have a higher straight.
The game starts with 2 hold cards kept face down and a round of betting (preflop.) Then comes 3 face up community cards (flop) followed by another round of betting, then the 4th community card (turn) and more betting, and finally the 5th community card (river) and the final round of betting. Any players still in the hand reveal their cards in betting order, called the showdown, and the best hand wins.
The trick to poker is to realize that, at any stage of the game, the player who has the best hand at that stage is more likely to have the best hand on the river. However, it’s also important to know that each new card has the potential to change who has the best hand.
For example, Player 1 has a starting hand of 6-6, and Player 2 has a starting hand of A-A. Player 2 has a much better starting hand, and if the community cards are unhelpful to either player, then Player 2 will win with the higher pair.
Let’s say the flop is 2, 4, 6, all offsuit. Now Player 1 has 6-6-6, putting them ahead of Player 2’s A-A.
Level 0 play is to just call anything and hope you win. So if Player 1 was playing at level 0, they would bet the same regardless of whether their hand was good or bad, because they don’t really know what they’re doing.
Level 1 is playing your own hand. Here, it means recognizing holding 6-6, which makes the set, is the second best hand after 3-5, which makes the straight. A level one player would play the odds and bet here.
Level 2 is playing your opponent’s hand. Let’s say your opponent bets strongly on the flop. You consider that your opponent may have gotten the straight, two pair, or a set of 5s, and you might decide to fold to avoid getting burned by the straight.
Level 3 is playing what your opponent thinks your hand is. If you think they have a straight draw or two pair, you may decide to bet strongly to give your opponent bad pot odds on calling your bet. Or if you think they’re unlikely to catch up, you bet weakly to make them think you’re on the straight draw, so they get overconfident with their A-A and make a large raise against you that you’ll eagerly call.
Level 4 is playing what your opponent wants you to think they have. Let’s say your opponent bets strongly on the flop. They clearly want you to think they hit the straight, but you know they called your raise preflop and have been playing conservatively all night. Because of this, you are very confident that if they had 3-5 preflop they would have folded it instead of calling the raise, so you believe they actually have a pocket pair or A-K, A-Q, or A-J. You call, since your set beats all of those.
Let’s say you call and the turn comes up a 3. Now you need to worry about your opponent having 5-5. Could they have hit the straight on the turn? What if they have 7-7: then on the river they could pick up a 5 or one of the remaining 7s to beat you (6 cards total.) Here, you’ll need a good read on your opponent and a good understanding of pot odds to decide whether it’s better to stay in the hand or fold. If you’ve correctly deduced that your opponent is likely to have A-A and is bluffing the straight, you will be able to confidently stay in the hand, but if you believe you are beat then you might have to fold.
Ultimately, to consistently win at poker, you need to play exactly one level above your opponent. If you’re trying to bluff (level 3) but your opponent isn’t considering your hand at all (level 0 or 1,) the bluff won’t work. If you can master levels 1-3 and switch back and forth depending on your opponents, you’ll be a solid player.
The cards in your hand, plus the cards on the table are the cards you can make your hand from. There will always be two cards available to you that you leave out of your hand. Whoever has the best hand wins. It could also be a tie. Let’s say there’s a royal flush on the table. Everyone ties because that’s the best hand, regardless of what’s in your hand, so the pot is split between all the players who didn’t fold.
know
LOL
You make the best combination of your hole cards and the community cards. So if you have Ah Ad in your hole cards and the community cards are 10h 6d Ac Ks 2s, you’re hand is Ah Ad Ac Ks 10h.
An important note is that you do not have to use any of your hole cards. If the community cards are A K Q J 10 of Spades, then your hand is the same the community cards (along with everyone else). In this case you do not use your hole cards at all to make your hand.
It’s quite funny when it happens that the table makes the best possible hand. Everyone still in shows what cards they were bluffing with and splits the pot.
I’ve had it where I was winning until the final card caused one of these split pots; I’d been betting strong and was hoping no-one would notice that the table held the nuts (they did).
You don’t, you make a best guess and even then you can pretend you have a great hand. That’s why it’s gambling.
Also afaik there’s no counting cards in poker? I kind of wonder if you can now
Not in the same sense as with blackjack, but you can keep track of public cards to determine odds of a card appearing. For example, if you have one king in hand and there is one on the flop, it’s unlikely that 1 of the next 2 cards will be a king, so counting on it for a winning hand is a bad bet.
I learnt the rule of the game solely from this https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en/games/1021/casinoislandtogo . Maybe not exhaustive but it teaches me that it’s one of the game that really doesn’t make any sense without betting.
All the cards on the table in the community hand are counted as part of your hand, and the same is true for the other players.
If there are 2 aces in the pile, and you have 1 ace in your hand, you have a 3 of a kind. But if another player has the last ace, they also have a 3 of a kind using their ace and the 2 on the table.
I know I can’t win… that’s about it 🤣.
