During a poker game, the objective is to form the highest hand possible. This can be achieved by using any combination of one or two cards from the hand and four cards on the table. The high card breaks ties, and if two players have pairs and no other better hands, the high card wins. In some variants, however, the high card wins and the other players are eliminated. So, if you don’t have a high pair or straight, there’s no need to worry!
In a poker tournament, each player is given a certain amount of chips to play with. Players are allowed to leave the table at any time, but the tournament usually lasts until one player wins all the chips in the pot. Among the poker terminology used, you should learn the terms that describe hands with different ranking. For example, “trip” and “pocket pair” are colloquial terms for hands with three of a kind, while “turn” is the third betting round in a Texas Hold’em variant.
Different variations of the game also differ from one another. For instance, if the game is played with six or more players, two separate games may be set up. The final round of betting will be completed when all players have folded, checked, or called their cards. These variations of the game will be explained later in this chapter. If you have more than 10 players, you can organize two separate games of poker. For more than 10 players, split pot poker is considered the easiest to learn.