Poker — rules card
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Poker
2 to 6 players · one 52-card pack
THE IDEA
• Make the best five-card hand you can out of
your two private cards and the five shared
ones in the middle.
• You may use both of your cards, one, or
neither. The five in the middle belong to
everybody.
THE HANDS, BEST FIRST
• Straight flush — five in a row, all one suit.
• Four of a kind. Then a full house — three of
one and two of another.
• Flush — five of one suit. Then a straight —
five in a row, any suits.
• Three of a kind, then two pairs, then one
pair, then nothing at all: high card.
• An ace is high, and also low in the straight
A-2-3-4-5. That is the only place it is low.
THE BETTING
• Cards come in four stages: your two, then
three in the middle, then a fourth, then a fifth.
Everybody bets after each.
• CHECK to pass without betting. BET or
RAISE to put chips in. CALL to match. FOLD
to give up the hand and lose what you have
already put in.
• If everybody but one folds, that player wins
without ever showing their cards. This is most
of poker.
THE POT
• When a player is ALL IN for less than the
others, a side pot is made. They can only win
the part they paid into.
• Every chip is accounted for at the end of
every hand. Nothing appears and nothing
vanishes.
THE SHOWDOWN
• The result panel names each hand and
shows the five cards that made it — not just
who won.
• A tie splits the pot.
WORDS THIS GAME USES
Hole cards — Your two private cards. Nobody
else ever sees them unless there is a
showdown.
The board — The five shared cards in the
middle. Also called the community cards.
The flop, turn and river — The first three
shared cards, then the fourth, then the fifth.
Blinds — Two forced bets, posted before
anybody has seen a card, so that there is
always something worth playing for.
Kicker — The card that breaks a tie when two
players have the same pair. A pair of kings
with an ace beats a pair of kings with a four.
Pot odds — What it costs to call, against what
is already in the pot. The arithmetic behind
every good fold.
All in — Betting every chip you have. You
cannot be forced out, but you can only win as
much as you put in.
WHERE THESE CAME FROM
Robert's Rules of Poker (Bob Ciaffone), 11th
edition. The nearest thing poker has to a
standard, and the basis of most card-room
rulebooks. The hand rankings themselves are
universal.
w.richardpringle.com/games/poker/
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