How to Play Poker: Your First Step to Winning the WSOP Main Event

What is Poker?

Poker is a card game with a simple aim: win the pot by any means necessary. Although my initial question seems somewhat facetious, there’s a reason for it. Poker is, as I’ve said, a card game that uses a standard 52-card deck.

Most people’s definition stops there. The truth is that poker is more than a game of cards. It’s a game of cards and people. Winning pots by having the best five-card hand is only part of the game.

You need to “play the player,” as the pros say. This is where the psychology and, importantly, nuance come into poker. I won’t delve too deep into the specifics of poker strategy, but I wanted to set the scene. Therefore, if you remember that poker is more than the cards you’re dealt, you’ll be on your way to becoming a great player.

How to Play Poker: The Basics

The mechanics of poker are easy to master. There are different variants, and each one has its own poker rules. However, there are general rules that apply to all variants, and they are:

• Forced bets (aka the ante/blinds) are placed before any cards are dealt. These bets give you something to fight for.
• Players receive a set number of cards, e.g., everyone gets two hole cards in Texas Hold ’em.
• Hands play out over a number of betting rounds, aka streets. For example, Texas Hold ’em is played over four betting rounds: pre-flop, the flop, the turn, and the river.
• Play moves in a clockwise direction around the table. The dealer button is used as a marker for this.
• There is an obligation to meet the last biggest bet. For example, if Player A bets $10, Player B must pay at least $10 to continue in the hand.
• Pots are won by the best five-card hand at a showdown. Alternatively, if everyone folds to leave one player active in the hand, that player wins the pot.

The four moves you can make:

• Fold – you give up your hand and any money you’ve committed to the pot.
• Check – pass the action to the next player without committing any chips.
• Call – you make a bet equal to the last biggest, e.g. Player A bets $20, Player B calls $20.
• Raise – you increase the size of the last biggest bet, e.g. Player A bets $20, Player B raises to $60 (i.e. they called $20 and raised $40).

Those are the basic rules. I’ll now give you a brief overview of the different poker variants you can play in a moment. Before I do, here’s a typical poker hand plays out:

How to Play a Poker Hand: Example

Game: Texas Hold ’em

Number of Players = 6

Forced Bets:

• Player A posts the Big Blind ($2)
• Player B posts the Small Blind ($1)

Pre-Flop Action

• Player C folds
• Player D raises $6
• Player E calls $6
• Player F folds
• Player B folds
• Player A calls $6 (they’ve already paid the big blind of $2, so they put in $4 more)

Flop Action

Flop: A♦ Ts 8♦

• Player A checks
• Player D bets $14
• Player E folds
• Player A calls $14

Turn Action (aka Fourth Street)

Turn: A♦ T♠ 8♦ 2♣

• Player A checks
• Player D checks

River Action (aka Fifth Street)

River: A♦ T♠ 8♦ 2♣ J♥

• Player A checks
• Player D bets $30
• Player A folds

Result: Player D wins

Types of Poker

Poker is played using two formats: cash games and tournaments. The poker rules I outlined earlier apply in all instances. However, the objectives and flow of play vary depending on the type of game you’re playing. Here’s how to play poker cash games and tournaments:

Cash Games

Cash games are played with cash, as you probably guessed. This means the chips in play can be exchanged for cash at an equivalent value, e.g., a stack of 100 $2 chips can be exchanged for $200.

This dynamic means that cash games are ongoing. They don’t have start or endpoints. What’s more, people can enter and exit the game at will. For example, if you sat down and won $100 in three hands, you could get up, walk away, and bank the profit.

I need to point out these poker rules because they don’t apply in tournaments (more on this in a moment). Now that’s clear, everything else we’ve talked about so far applies. You can play any poker variant as a cash game, and the aim is to win more chips than you lose.

The best online poker sites offer cash games in two ways:

• Standard: these games take place on a single table with enough seats for two, four, six, or nine players. The blinds are fixed at a certain amount (e.g. $1/$2), and the action proceeds in a clockwise manner.
• Fast-fold: these cash games are a product of the internet and our desire for more action. The premise is simple: you get moved to a new table each time you fold. You get a new hand each time you move to another table, which means you’re constantly involved in a hand.

Tournaments

Tournaments are different to cash games because the chips in play don’t have a cash value. I see tournament chips as health tokens because they’re your lifeline. Put simply, if you lose all of your chips, you’re out of the tournament.

Therefore, the aim of tournament poker is to accumulate chips so that you can survive as long as possible. The longer you survive, the more players you’ll outlast. The more players you outlast, the more chance you’ve got of making it into “the money.”

Making it into “the money” means you’ve earned a return on your investment. In general, the top 10%-15% of the field receives a payout. These payouts are top-heavy, which means the last player standing, aka the winner, receives the biggest prize.

Tournaments have a set entry fee (the buy-in). They also start at specific times and continue until one player remains. Once you enter a tournament, you can’t leave. What’s more, no new players can enter once the registration period is over.

• MTTs: multi-table tournaments (MTTs) have set start times and can involve thousands of players. As the name suggests, the tournament starts with entrants spread across multiple players. The event continues until there’s one table left (the final table), and a winner is crowned.
• SNGs: sit-and-go tournaments (SNGs) don’t have a set start time because they’re on demand. That means the tournament begins once enough players have entered. For example, in a 6-max SNG, the action starts when six players have bought in. The action ends when one player has all the chips.

Poker Tips for Beginners

I’ve given you the basics of how to play poker so you can get out there and start having fun. However, as I stated at the start of this guide, there are big prizes to be won at events such as the WSOP.

Winning these prizes requires more than an understanding of poker’s rules, variants, and betting formats. Alongside a healthy dose of luck, poker is a game of skill. I don’t have time to discuss the many aspects of poker strategy right now, but I can leave you with three useful tips.

1. Your Bankroll is Precious

The most important skill you can master as a poker player is bankroll management. This is a fancy way of saying that you shouldn’t risk more than you can afford to lose. Although there is skill in poker, it’s still a form of gambling. That’s why you need a risk-management strategy.

The general rule is that you need at least 30 buy-ins for cash games and 100+ buy-ins for tournaments. So, let’s say you want to play $0.25/$0.50 cash games with a maximum buy-in of $50. You’d need a bankroll of at least $1,000 to play these cash games consistently. If you want to play $5 MTTs on a regular basis, you should have a $5,000 bankroll.

2. Tight is Often Right

Hand selection is something that newbies often get wrong. I suggest keeping this motto in mind: start as you mean to go on. If you start with a strong hand, such as A-A or A-K, you stand a better chance of having a strong hand at a showdown.

3. Look Beyond Your Own Hands

You can’t look at your own cards and ignore everything else. Poker is a game of people, table dynamics, and situations. You could have the best starting hand in Hold ’em (pocket aces) and lose because the board is such that an opponent can have a better hand. That’s why you can’t focus solely on your own cards.

You need to factor them into the equation, but you also need to consider what your opponents could have. This is known as hand reading and requires you to analyse variables such as betting patterns, table position, and character traits. Get this right, and you’ll be better at value betting and running a bluff.

Conclusion

That’s it, you’re now a poker player. You might not be ready to take on the game’s finest and win the $10,000 WSOP Main Event, but you’ve certainly got enough information to get started. As long as you remember the basic rules, the ranking of hands, and the various ways to play, you can join our recommended online poker sites and have fun.

Once you’re comfortable playing for fun, use our poker strategy guides to improve your chances of success. Get these things right and you could be well on your way to winning the biggest tournaments in poker.