Blinds should be treated with great care. Learn how to avoid having your blind stolen by the player to your right, & then how to steal others blinds. You are currently on partypoker.com. Visit our New Jersey website here to register and play for real money. To demonstrate his point, think which of these final table scenarios sounds better: 4 weak players, 4 strong professionals at the final table with 25 big blind average stacks; 1 weak player, 7 strong professionals at the final table with 40 big blind average stacks; I sure hope you chose A. Orbit Cost = Ante(s) + Small Blind + Big Blind An orbit is X amount of hands of poker at a table where X equals the number of players (e.g. Everyone has the dealer button once). Therefore, Orbit Cost is the sum of the blinds and antes for one player for one orbit. The blinds are forced bets posted by players to the left of the dealer button in flop-style poker games. The number of blinds is usually two, but it can range from none to three. The small blind is placed by the player to the left of the dealer button and the big blind is then posted by the next player to the left. To kill a pot means to post an overblind that increases the betting limit. A full kill is double the amount of the big blind, and doubles the betting limits. A half kill is one-and-a-half times.

Like all poker games, Hold’em has a very specific order in which the cards are dealt and played.

Hole cards

At the start of a Hold’em hand, after the two blinds have been posted, all players are dealt two cards facedown. These are known as the hole or pocket cards. Players then make a decision to call the blinds (match the big blind), raise the blinds (increase the bet) or fold (quit playing and throw their cards facedown to the middle of the table).

In the form of Hold’em known as Limit, the bets have to be of a certain specified amount. In No-Limit, players may bet any amount of their chips on the table.

If you’re a newbie to the game, you might consider this: If both of your hole cards are not 10s or greater (Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces), fold. Yes, it sounds harsh, but it’ll keep you pretty much only playing the cards that you should — and about the right frequency of hands.

Make sure not to show your hole cards to other players at the table (even if those other players are no longer in the hand). And after you’ve looked at your cards, you should protect them from being collected by the dealer by placing an extra poker chip (or some other small object) on top of them.

The flop

After the betting action is done on the round with the hole cards (also known as pre-flop), three cards are displayed by the dealer simultaneously to the center of the poker table — this is known as the flop. At this point, each player at the table has a unique five-card poker hand consisting of his two hole cards and the three community cards.

Because of the raw number of cards involved, the flop typically gives you the general tenor of the poker hand and definitely gives you a good idea of the kind of hand to look for as a winner. For example, an all-Spade flop (especially with a lot of players still in the hand) will be hinting at a flush as a strong possibility for a winner.

Betting begins with the first person still in the hand to the left (clockwise) of the dealer button. As a general rule, you want your hand to match the flop, and you should fold if it doesn’t.

In Limit play, the size of the bet you can make on the flop is identical to the amount you can make pre-flop.

The turn

After the flop betting round is completed, another community card is placed, known as the turn (or sometimes fourth street). Each of the remaining players now has a six-card poker hand made up of his two private hole cards and the four community cards. Hold’em is a game where only five cards count toward a poker hand, so everyone has a theoretical “extra” card at this point.

In Limit, the betting is now twice the amount that was bet pre- and post-flop.

Poker wags like to say, “The turn plays itself,” meaning your hand gets better and you bet it, or it doesn’t and you start giving strong thoughts to folding. This is more or less true.

The river

After the betting round of the turn, a final community card is exposed, known as the river (sometimes called fifth street).

Each player left in the game has his final hand consisting of the best five cards of the seven available (two private hole cards and the five community cards). Players may use two hole cards along with three community cards, one hole card combined with four community cards, or just the five community cards (known as playing the board). Again, poker hands are made up of the best five cards — the other two available to any given player don’t count. There is one final round of betting.

The showdown

The showdown is what happens after the final river bets have been placed. Although it isn’t formally required, typically the person who initiated the final round of betting is first to show her hand. The action then proceeds in a clockwise fashion with players either mucking their hands if they can’t beat the hand exposed, or showing a better hand (at which point the dealer mucks the old, “worse” hand and continues around the table for any remaining hands).

Winners and losers are determined by the standard poker hand rankings.

If you’re ever unclear about who is winning a hand, just turn your cards face up and let the dealer decide. Never take a player’s word on what she has in hand until you’ve actually seen her cards with your own eyes — when you muck a hand, it’s officially dead.

Robert Woolley

The series of articles 'Casino Poker for Beginners' is intended for people who have played poker online and/or in home games, but have little or no experience playing in a “brick-and-mortar” or at an online casino.

Casinos have rules, procedures, and points of etiquette that can trip up players on their first few visits — or at least confuse and mystify them.

I hope to explain these to you in advance so that you don’t get intimidated or embarrassed.

Understanding them might also keep you from losing money by inadvertently breaking a rule during the game.

The articles in this series will focus specifically on how poker in casinos differs from what you have learned from playing casino poker games like three-card poker online or at friends’ home games, particularly in what might be termed its “procedural” aspects.

I work from the assumption that readers have enough experience under their belts at one or both of those other types of poker games to feel comfortable playing them and would like to try adding casino poker to their repertoire.

For this first installment, I’ll give you a step-by-step guide for getting into a cash game. I’ll cover entering a casino poker tournament in a later column.

Figuring Out What Games Are Available

So you’ve taken the trip to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Tunica, Los Angeles, or any of the other many poker destinations that are now available in the U.S. and around the world. You’ve selected which poker room to patronize. Now what?

Your first step is to know what games are available.

Poker rooms vary in how they communicate game availability to would-be players. Most now have a large-screen TV listing the games and the names of any people waiting to play. Some use a manually updated white board.

The smallest rooms sometimes still use one person behind a desk with a simple piece of paper, and you have to ask what games

What Is The Point Of Blinds In Poker