Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

If you haven’t already read the article on hand rankings, I suggest you do so before you read this article.This post is dedicated to showing that even though two players can end up with the same hand rank, one player will almost always win, because his or her cards are higher than the other. Take for example a straight. Remember, an Ace can be used as high or low, so an Ace high straight (10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace) would beat a 10 high straight (6, 7, 8, 9, 10). The same goes for a flush. An ace high flush would beat a king high flush.

One hand that really fools players is the full house. The full house is always ranked on the 3 paired cards, not the two below it. For example, a full house that contained 3 3’s and 2 2’s would beat a full house that contained 3 2’s and 2 Aces. If the three paired cards are common to each hand, then the two cards below the three cards are used. In Hold ‘Em, a combination of seven cards are used, five of which are available to everyone, so this can happen. For example, QQQ99 beats QQQ77.

** Now is where we get into “kickers”.

No no no, not that kind of kicker.

Simply put, kickers are the highest unpaired side card in a player’s hand. You’ll see examples in the final four hand rankings. At this point, you should know that a pair of aces is better than a pair of Queens, so we’re going to focus strictly on the kicker issue.

Texas Hold ‘Em Poker has some really good examples on kickers, and I suggest that you run through them to make sure you have an understanding of kickers. They play a very important part in strategy down the road.

When you finally decide to sit down at a table, it’s vital to know the some basic terminology so you don’t A) sound like an idiot and B) feel comfortable with it so you can worry about more important things. Read on and find out some of the basics.

On to the next part of this crash course - poker terminology.