Poker

Poker has become one of the most popular games in the UK with many people playing online or with real cards. Online poker is great because you can play with so many people, there are always thousands of people playing and so this makes every game different as you do not know how they will play or how good they are.

There are many sites that offer online poker and most offer free games as well as the poker games where you bet with real money. Two very popular poker sites are BetFair and Party Poker as they have a huge amount of poker players and also offer some free games, they also offer a great deposit bonus so when you register and place some money in your account they will give you a large bonus which is often 100% of what you added which basically gives you some free money to bet with.

When you play online poker you can play in several different types of poker game. You can play in a standard cash game where you stay on one table and simply bet with the other people on that table, if you lose all of your chips then you have the option to buy more but there is no prize for winning against everyone else, only the chips you have won in each hand.

There are then tournaments which are allot of fun and mean you playing against many more players. Tournaments often have 45 or 90 players and you do not win any money for any hand that you win, you win money by where you finnish in the tournament and so the last player remaining will win the large prize. In a poker tournament you receive a set amount of chips and when you have lost these you are out and so one bad call could mean the end of your tournament.

The game of poker is actually quite simple although many people believe it not to be. A poker hand has five cards with you holding 2 at the start and 5 more being dealt out as the hand progresses, you simply choose the best five cards from the seven possible. How good your hand is depends on what can be made from the cards you have and the premium hands are all very easy to understand.

Firstly there is the pair (any two of the same card), then two pair (two separate pairs), then three of a kind (any three of the same card), then the straight (a run of five cards in numerical order, like 2, 3, 4, 5 and then 6, any suit), then the flush (any five cards of the same suit, like five cards that are all clubs), then the four of a kind (four cards all the same, like four kings) and lastly the straight flush which is a straight where all of the cards are the same suit.

Those hands are listed with the best last and so it is easy to see who has won the poker hand, the winner takes all of the chips that have been placed on the current hand. The betting in poker is also quite simple when you know how, the basic principle is that you have to match any bet placed or fold which means you forfeit any chips that you have already bet. You can also raise which means to increase the amount that everyone else must bet in order to stay in the game and it is not uncommon to see huge bets being placed on the table as most poker web sites play the no limit version of poker.