Poker is becoming more and more popular for teens and young adults because it is now televised and celebrities are becoming known for playing the game. The most common game of poker is called 5 card draw or Texas hold em where the player is given two cards and there are five cards on the table to work with. Poker can be a great recreational game if you know how to play it.

The first step in knowing how to play poker is getting to know the 52 card deck being used. There are cards numbered two through ten and there is a jack, queen, king and an ace. There are four different suits between the 52 card deck. They are hearts, diamonds, clovers and spades. Once you get familiar with the cards you are going to want to learn how the betting works. Before everyone is given there cards they must give an ante chip in just to play that hand. The ante chip must be given because if no one wants to play this hand the winner will get no chips at all. The chips can range in vary anywhere from one dollar all the way up to 50 bucks. When my friends and I play poker we like to give 9 1$ chips, 5 5$ chips, 4 10$ chips and 3 25$ chips. After everyone has anteed the dealer will flop three cards. This is when more betting will continue. Or if you don’t want to bet you can check by knocking on the table you are playing on. This means that you don’t want to be in this hand because you cant make any hands with you cards. If everyone checks then another card if flopped. A person place call a bet, and another person can call his bet or re-raise. If a person re-raised the other person must put in the reaming chips. After that is all settled a fourth card will be flopped. More betting and checking will continue and then the last fifth card will be turned over. This is the final card that is on the table. So you have to try and make hands with the two cards in your hand and the five cards that are on the table. If you have the best hand and you are still in the game you will win all of the chips. The objective of the game is to have your opponents run out of chips before you do. The last person with chips remaining will win the whole game.

Poker hands can range anywhere from having the highest card to getting a royal flush. The odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 629,750(odds royal flush). A royal flush is when all of your cards are the same suit, let’s say hearts for example and you have 10, jack, queen, king and an ace. If you get this hand while you are playing you are a very lucky person. The second highest hand is a strait flush. It is the same as a royal flush except the cards don’t have to be a ten jack queen king and ace. It just has to be five cards in a row of the same suit. This hand is still extremely hard to get. The next highest hand is a four of a kind. This just means four of the same card. You could only have one five in your hand and three on the table and you will still have a four of a kind. If you are playing with one deck of cards a four of a kind can be very challenging to get. The next highest hand is called a full house or a full boat. This is when you have three of the same cards called a three of a kind and a pair. For example you would get a full house when you have three tens and two queens. After the full house the flush is the largest hand. This is when the player has five cards of the same suit. If you have a flush it doesn’t matter what number cards you have only the suit of the card. After the flush is the strait. This is five cards in sequential order does not matter the suit of the card. After that is a three of a kind which is three cards of the same number, a two pair which can be two tens and two threes and the lowest hand is just a one pair. If people are still betting and no one had a hand at the end of the game the person with the highest card wins the hand known as high cards. When people play poker there is a term called a bluff. This is when a person bets a lot of money to try and get there opponent out of the game when they don’t have a good hand. Bluffing could win you a lot of chips or it can lose you a lot. Poker is also about reading people facial expressions. If you have a really good hand you don’t want to show that you are happy or you will give it away. But in my opinion the game requires a little skill but it is mostly all luck.

Poker is becoming more and more popular for people all around the world and here in the United States. More and more notable actors are becoming popular with the game. Also the world series of poker is now played on espn which interests a lot of poker enthusiasts. Overall the game of poker is a game of luck and is a great recreational game to play with friends or it can be played for a living if you are very good.