How to Play Poker: Everything Your Friends Need for Their First Home Game

You can learn poker in under 10 minutes, and by the end of this video, you'll be able to play a full hand. What beats what, how one hand plays from the first card to the last, and the five mistakes every beginner makes at their first home game. Stay till the end for a cheat sheet you can screenshot and put on the table. Here's the whole game in one sentence. You make the best five card hand you can from your two cards and five shared cards in the middle, and you win the pot by having the best hand at the end, or by getting everyone else to fold. This is Texas Hold'em, the game almost every home game plays. So, what beats what? Starting at the bottom. High card, [music] when nothing matches, so your highest card plays. One pair, like two sevens. Two pair, like two sevens and two jacks. Three of a kind, like three queens. Then a straight, five cards in a row in any suits, like five, six, seven, eight, nine. A flush is five cards of the same suit in any order. A full house is three of a kind plus a pair, like three tens and two fours. Four of a kind is all four of one card. A straight flush is five in a row, all one suit. And the very top is the royal flush, 10 through ace, all one suit. Most people play their whole lives without seeing one. Two things trip up every beginner. First, the rarer the hand, the higher it ranks. That's why a flush beats a straight. It's harder to make. Second, the ace plays high or low. Ace, two, three, four, five is a straight. But queen, king, ace, two, three is not. A straight never wraps around the corner. Before the first card, you need three things: a deck, chips, and a dealer button. Everybody starts with the same stack of chips. The button marks who's dealing this hand, and after every hand, it moves one seat to the left, so everybody gets a turn, and nobody keeps the best seat. Then come the blinds. The player to the left of the button is the small blind and puts in one chip. The next player is the big blind and puts in two. They put chips in before they see their cards, so there's always something to play for. Then everyone gets two cards, face down. Those are yours, and nobody else sees them. On your turn, you can do one of four things. Fold and you're out of the hand. Call and you match what's already been put in. Raise and you put in more so everyone else has to match you. Or if nobody has put anything in yet this round, check and pass without putting in a chip. The action always moves to the left, one player at a time. Let's play one hand, start to finish. Four players, you're sitting right after the big blind, so before the flop, you act first. You look down at the king of clubs and the jack of diamonds. That's a good hand, so you raise to six chips. The button has nine-three and folds. The small blind has the king of diamonds and the nine of spades. She calls, so she adds five more chips to the one she already put in. The big blind has seven-two, which most people call the worst hand in poker, and folds. >> [music] >> Now it's just the two of you. The dealer burns one card face down so nobody can catch a glimpse of the top of the deck. Then three cards go face up in the middle. That's the flop. King of hearts, eight of clubs, four of diamonds. You both just made a pair of kings. After the flop, the first player still in the hand to the left of the button acts first. That's the small blind. She checks. You put in six chips. She calls. The dealer burns another card and turns one more. That's the turn. The two of spades. It doesn't help anybody. She checks. You check. On to the last card. One more burn and here's the river. The eight of hearts. Now there are two eights on the board and this is the moment beginners get confused. She puts in 10 chips. You call. Time for the showdown. You both turn your cards over and you both have the same two pair, kings and eights. So it comes down to your fifth card, called the kicker. Your best five are two kings, two eights, and your jack. Hers are two kings, two eights, and her nine. The jack beats the nine and the pot is yours. If the two hands are exactly the same, you split the pot. Say the board comes 10, jack, queen, king, ace. That's a straight sitting in the middle that everyone can use and if nobody can beat it, everyone still in the hand gets an equal share. And here's a rule that ends a lot of arguments. Suits never break a tie. Two flushes are compared by their highest cards, never by the suit. And if someone pushes in every chip they have, they're all in. They can only win as much as they put in and anything extra the others put in goes into a side pot. Side pots get their own video. So, which hand should you play? Here's a simple rule for your first night. Play pairs. Play two high cards like ace king or king queen. Fold most of the rest, especially when you're first to act. You'll fold more than half your hands and that's normal. That's the whole game. Now, the five mistakes every beginner makes at their first home game and the last one loses more pots than bad cards do. One, acting before it's your turn. >> [music] >> Even reaching for your chips tells the table what you're about to do and at a lot of tables, if you fold out of turn, you're folded. Two, folding when you could check. If nobody has put chips in this round, checking is free. Never throw away a hand that cost you nothing to keep. Three, forgetting the board. You can use both of your cards, one of them or neither. If the best five cards are all in the middle, that's your hand, too. Four, raising in pieces. >> [music] >> If you put in a few chips, then reach back for more and say, "Raise." Most tables call that a string bet and count it as a call. Say raise first or put it all in at once. >> [music] >> And five, throwing away a winner. At the showdown, turn both cards face up and let the table read them. The cards speak, not you. Beginners muck winning hands all the time because they misread a straight or forgot about the board. If you're the one hosting, three things make the first night easy. Keep the blinds small so a couple of bad hands don't knock anybody out. Put a cheat sheet on the table and write down every buy-in and rebuy because by the end of the night nobody remembers who's up. That last one is why I built Home Game Poker. It tracks every buying and rebuy, and at the end of the night it shows who's up and who's down. It doesn't take bets, hold money, or move money. It just keeps score. Download HG Poker on the App Store or Google Play. Here's the cheat sheet I promised. Screenshot it and put it on the table at your first game. And once your group has Hold'em down, here are 12 games they've never played. >> [music]