Every player has a story about what got them into poker, but there are some things they don’t tell you about when they talk. Here are five things most players figure out for themselves.
- There are no ranks for suited connectors. Small pairs are the lowest-ranked pocket cards in hold‘em but that’s not true for suits and orders.
- You can (and should) bluff. Even though you might not quite understand how or when at first.
- *It’s an awkward social game. **
Learning the hand rankings is step one on the road to poker mastery, so here’s a quick refresher if you need it:
1. Royals. A formal knowledge of the order of the Kings, Queens, and Knights is considered essential these days. Trucks and trailers were simpler in many ways.
Royal Flush
A Royal Flush starts with one of the big four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades) and adds the top four cards in the deck (AKQJ).
You get one every 649,740 hands.
2. Straights. This is where you have one card out of place in the middle of your Royal Flush. Five consecutive cards in any suite.
Straight
Best NJ Online Casinos for Real Money Gambling (2023)You can also form a straight by stealing just two cards from a royal flush. (A J spades will make a straight in any suite.) This happens once every 259,896 hands.
3. Quads. Four of a kind. Simple enough; you usually up the value of this hand with your second and fifth cards.
Quads
If somebody has 6666 and someone else has 2222, everybody else folds. You can make quads in one card; nobody can match that.
4. Full House. Five of a kind plus a pair. Another of those hands that used to be referred to simply as “three-of-a-kind open twice.”
Full House
Everybody wants to know who has the full house when yours is AAAKK and they have KKAA. You should tell them how unlikely their hand is and how wrong they’ll feel when someone shows AA AA A.
“Nice full house, too bad it’s the loser” is a great thing to have in your insult kit. (Answer: The loser has it.)
5. Flush. All cards in the same colour is a flush. They do not necessarily have to be in sequence.
Must-Play Medium Volatility Slots (and 5 High Volatility alterna...Flush
Suits are ranked by the card in the midst of your flush. A guy who rivers a flush on 54328 will always believe luck is on his side.
6. Straight Flush. In between a flush and a straight, because nine of them are higher than the high straight. Saying “I have a straight flush in hearts” is better than saying “you have a high-draw” about as much as saying “I have a royal flush” is better.
Straight Flush
Common knowledge these day, although back in the day some people thought the ace should play low in sequences allowing for a “royal” straight or flush. AKQJT could then make a straight despite three gaps.
7. Three-of-a-Kind. Self explanatory but again, try to upgrade it with a pair. Threes over twos makes you the side pot.
3 of a Kind
The only time you want to showcase how stingy a player are is in a lowball game where the goal is to force the lowest hand possible.
8. Two-Pair. Always announce the higher two-pair when you hold it. People remember how you were running cards when they saw you later that night.
Two Pair
Never sit behind a chatty player who tells the table every time he turns his hand into two pair. It will get old after the seventh time in two hours.
9. Pair. See above. Big pairs should always be announced with a smile. Even if you just paired your door card against a pre-flop raise, fold equity, and everyone knows it.
Pair of Aces
Low pairs should be played down as much as possible. If you’re going to be a small-card mustache bandit, consider choosing a different mustache.
10. High Card. Any hand with no pairs, none of which are higher than the other, is known as a high-card hand.
High Card
In tournament play, the player with the highest veteran standing at the table used to be considered the winner of the showdown even if they only had a high card.
Some Suits Are More Equal than Others
Suits are not ranked so pockets 2C 3D and 2D 3C are equally weak. Before you learn to play poker you might mistakingly think that aces of the same suit are similar. They aren’t.
free internet slots gamesAce-high in spades is significantly stronger than a bare ace. How much more valuable is subject to intense debate but there is no argument that it’s more valuable than a plain ace.
Bear in mind that the absolute strength of suited aces is context dependent. It matters whether it’s pre-flop or post-flop. And it matters what other cards are out.
How much more powerful A K S is than AS 2S depends on whether there are four heartFlops vs. nothing on the board pre-flop.
A K S / 2 G S is a much stronger hand than AS 2 DS pre-flop but the difference evaporates if the flop comes AS 3 H G. At that point, both hands are mere tops to the best undercard.
Post-flop the situation is reversed. AK/2/S still dominates A/2/D but only because of the heart flush draw. If the board had come As 3d 4c 2h 6s Ts instead, A/2/D would now be slightly ahead.
Suited Connectors Worse than They Look
Any pocket hand that contains two cards of adjacent rank and the same suit is called a suited connector. For example:
- 56 of the same suit
- 67 of the same suit
- 78 of the same suit
- 89 of the same suit
- 9 T of the same suit
- TJ of the same suit
- JQ of the same suit
All suited connectors are weaker than they look. How much weaker is hotly debated among beginners. Experienced players know that they are much more valuable as junk cards for making wrap draws than as starting hands.
According to some, the only useful suited connector is the dearest one: TJ in any suit. Almost all the others are so weak that they shouldn’t be played in any reasonable game – even if they are connected via your hole cards and via the flop.
For beginners, the worst of the lot are the lower ones. 56xx is the weakest pocket hand in hold’em – unless you count suits. In that case 54xx is even worse.
Off-suit connectors are stronger than suited connectors. For example: 89 of two different suits is significantly stronger than 87 of the same symbol.
In home games it’s fairly standard to rank TJ in the same class as a weakened pair, mostly because Tens are frequently the cutoff for small-blind protection.
Most online poker sites rank TJs = weak pair but give them a hairbreadth advantage over all other suited connectors. There is no good reason for giving TJs a special ranking because, beyond sentimental value, there isn’t any.
AvantGarde Casino Review – Top Games & Recommended Slots 2023Why Can’t Suited T&A Make Pairs?
Tens and Aces are the most valuable cards in the deck when they are of different suits. Reasonably, beginners expect a TA of the same suit to be even stronger. It isn’t.
Those beginner tracker graphs above show how much stronger TENSx of the same suit are than KK (on average across all positions), and how much more valuable TENSx are than TENS of different suits.
But a TA of the same suit is less valuable than TENS of different suits. In fact TAs are barely more valuable than plain Aces.
Beginners often blame the lack of red herrings on the deck. “Someone was dealing back red aces every time I bought in.” But the reason is simple strategy.
Playing TA of the same suit is so stupid that reasonably competent opponents aren’t going to raise it unless they have a red king in their hand as well. They will wait until they have something better and let you take all the money the morons trying to wrap that draw try to make.
In short: Suited T&A are not hugely valuable as starting hands because the boards they work tend to produce huge pots that everyone shoves into except you.
memphis tn casinosSuited T&A can improve your wrap draw, but only barely. Playing them as speculative starting hands is almost always a mistake.
When Do You Ever Bluff?
Beginners may understand that they don’t need a monster to make a profitable showdown in low stakes hold’em but figuring out when they have the advantage to bet on bluff is much harder. It’s not something you’re ever going to be able to explain or calculate.
You just have to play enough hands at low enough stakes that you can bluff away a couple of buy-ins without going broke before it becomes second nature to read the table and pick a spot.
Barry Greenstein tells a story about playing with Doyle Brunson during the era when second-place finishes in the Main Event came with a cheque for $100,000 and first place got a car. Second place was a pretty nice consolation prize.
Riversweep Casinos That Offer Mobile Apps in 2023Greenstein said he noticed that Brunson never bluffed in the event. Never. He concluded that it wasn’t an ethical decision.
He realized Brunson could afford to be straightforward for the five days it took to play out the Main Event when the pots were so massive that he would probably double-up at least once regardless of how cautious he was.
Bluffing is not about the cards; it’s about reading opponents and knowing what they know and how they perceive the action. Barriers to entry into professional poker include things like net worth, residency and, sometimes, age.
But the biggest barrier to entering the inner circle is having people want to play with you. Nobody wants a loose call-station at the table and, as a result, players learn quickly to tighten up.
That means that finding a spot to bluff is really hard. It’s not impossible, however.
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Does Anyone Actually Pay Attention to Position?
Poker newbies generally understand that position is important but they aren’t sure why or how it gives them an advantage. They certainly don’t understand the idea of “playing out of position”.
New Online Casinos in UK (2023) - Best British Casino SitesThey tend to assume that “playing to win” while folded up underneath their opponent is a flaw in the rules. Experience teaches them that being out of position is dangerous but they don’t yet appreciate why.
Being last to act is so powerful that, all other things being equal, if you’re in position you have the initiative and if you’re out of position you’re on the defensive.
It doesn’t mean you always bet when you’re in position or call when you’re out of position. It just means that the player on the button gets to make the last move in the round and has more information for that final decision.
Casinos in Clearwater, Florida You Need to Try OutHaving the last move gives you significant strategic power because it allows you to control the size of the pot. Limit players have two options: Bet or check.
No-Limit players have more choices but they all boil down to the same thing: Should I make a pot this large or should I keep it small?
If your opponent acts first, they get to decide how big the pot will be before you have a chance to respond. That puts you on the defensive. You can bet or call smaller but you can never bet larger — because they had the chance to make it three-bets already.
Information Value of Last Action
In community card games having the last action is especially valuable because the dealer deals three more cards. In some casinos the dealer also sweeps up the previous round of cards at the exact moment he’s placing the flop.
From the time you have to make your pre-flop action to the moment you get to act again post-flop, your opponent has the benefit of three new cards to consider. He gets six more pieces of information than you did when you made your pre-flop decision.
This gives him a significant edge. Not only does he know his own cards better, he now has clues about the community cards. Are they helping his hand or hurting it? Are they helping or hurting your hand? What are the implied odds that someone else might call a potential bet on the turn?
You simply cannot gather that sort of intelligence in the same way. Each round of community cards peels another layer off your pre-flop information. By the time the river falls you’re left guessing. No wonder they want a price.
When you’re in position you get the last bundle of information and your opponent gets it afterwards. Your analysis is fresher.
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Poker Face?
Movies and TV have taught the world that poker players wear a “poker face” to hide their emotions and give nothing away. Serious players actually wear a “stock face” to prevent cramps.
They don’t need to worry about tipping their hand literally or figuratively because they aren’t giving away anything important until the turn or the river. By that time, position has likely passed to them anyway.
0% Casino Bet MGM Withdrawal Fee 2023 - The Biggest SurpriseBeginners tend to fall into the trap of thinking that they should reveal everything to their opponent at showdown. They believe that flashing a big full house will persuade someone to fold a smaller full house.
Or they figure that showing how crushed they are at laying their trip fours to a flopped set will persuade the other player to give them a piece of the pot as a ‘condolence fee’.
These players are shocked when their opponent calls their pathetic value bet with a much bigger full house or sets them off on a tilt with stories of how he laid down quads.
Until the end is truly in sight, you haven’t ended it. Anything can happen between the flop and the river and you have no idea what it might be. So don’t start telling stories or sign language routines until it’s over.
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Awkward Social Game
Veteran poker players often comment on how uncomfortable it is to meet other players in a bar or a casino lounge since the dynamic between players is adversarial by nature.
Mobile Casino Review - Apps, Games and BonusesBeginners find it strange that fellow gamblers refuse to play cards with them. They’re even more mystified when dealt a harsh lesson in etiquette by a fierce chiding for talking too much at the table.
Newcomers to poker tend to treat the green felt like a giant communal game of gin rummy where anyone is welcome to join or leave whenever they please and no one minds if they ask for advice or discuss their hands.
The first surprise is the cost. Ten dollars doesn’t get you into a game of gin rummy. It rarely even gets you a seat at a poker game. Buy-ins range from a third to a full hundred percent over table stakes.
Antes further boost the cost of entry so the cheapest game is rarely less than $15-$30 to buy in and tips for the dealer can easily double that overhead per hour. Games above limit tend to carry minimum buy-ins of 100 BBs closer to the 200BB mark.
Many players put out a straddles or bring additional funds to cover the juice to ensure they have enough to tip the dealer at the end of the game regardless of how long it goes and regardless of whether they lose all their money.
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Once you get past the sticker shock you take your seat, eager to experience the camaraderie of the card room. You’re in for another surprise. Nobody talks to anybody else. Strangers glare daggers at each other across the table.
At the first sign of action, everyone leans forward, eyes fixed intently on the battlefield in front of them. Anyone breaking this trance with idle chatter invites stern disapproval from those around him.
First-time offenders receive dirty looks that promise physical harm if repeated. Return clients are admonished verbally in words that vary depending on the time of day and neighbourhood but, translated, always mean the same thing: “Shut the hell up.”
Beginners are baffled. Don’t these people understand that poker is a social game? They soon learn better. Talking too much at the wrong table can be expensive.
Best X Games Slots to Play Online - Read Our ReviewsAt the lowest, non-raked limit games, players are expected to police the action without prompting. Anyone caught doing anything more active at the table than moving all-in effectively will hear angry complaints at showdown.
This is frustrating for beginners because it contradicts everything they learned about proper poker etiquette in the early chapters of their basic strategy guides. They are supposed to peer intently at opponents who fail to show down a strong hand.
They are encouraged to call down obvious bets and raises with a unaliended jack-high if they detect any sign of weakness in their opponent’s play leading up to the river. These actions inspire anger. Why?
