Royal Flush

Highest Straight Flush

 

Straight Flush

Same-suit Straight

 

Four of  a Kind

4 of the same cards

 

Full House

1 Pair and Trips

 

Flush

5 cards of same suit

 

Straight

5 sequential cards

 

Three of a Kind

AKA “Trips”

 

2 Pairs

E.g JJ + AA

 

Pair

AA beats KK

 

High Card

Ace is highest

 

Hand Rankings

www.PokerDIY.com

Home Poker Guide Cheat-Sheet

 

Start your own poker league and host your own home poker tournaments with our handy, printable guide! Shuffle up and deal…

Suggested Starting Chips

The number of starting chips helps determine the duration of your game. You may want a turbo tournament which would be finished within an hour, or you may want to draw a game out over the evening? For a fast game, try 1500 chips with an aggressive blind structure. To slow it down, try 2000-2500 chips with slower blinds. For example;

Normal —2500 chips, made up of 4 x 25, 4 x 100, 4 x 500

Fast —1500 chips, made up of 4 x 25, 4 x 100, 2 x 500

 

How to Start

1. Create your poker league on PokerDIY

2. Decide on your starting chips (see right)

3. Decide on the blind structure (see below)

4. Layout equipment/table

5. Decide on seating order/dealer (see rules)

6. Record your results on PokerDIY!

 

 

Rabbit Hunting—In most pots you don’t get to see all the cards. Want to know if your cards might have won? It’s pointless, annoying and slows down the game.

House Rules

Choosing a Dealer—Each player is dealt a single card. Highest card  starts as dealer and it rotates clockwise after that.

Burning Cards—This means you discard the top card from the deck face down on the table (before the flop, turn and river) to randomize the cards. It’s important that you get into this habit!

Misdeals—If a misdeal occurs before betting, it is easiest to re-deal.

Shuffling—To ensure a fair shuffle, the player to the dealers left shuffles the cards, and the player to right cuts them.

TableTalk—It’s great to chat, but never give away any info that could affect the game. Keep it friendly!

 

 

 

 

String Bets—This is an illegal move when a player bets but does not put the entire amount into the pot in one go. Remember, your verbal bet is binding and you should make one action when betting.

General Etiquette—Never touch another players chips or expose their cards. This is frowned upon! You can read more about poker etiquette on PokerDIY. Once you have discarded your cards you should not touch them again.

Suggested Blinds

The blind structure is key to the game. If the blinds increase to quickly, the game becomes more of a luck draw. Too slowly and the tourney risks becomes boring. In the suggested example below you could halve the duration to 10 minutes per blind for an aggressive, quick game;

Acting out of Turn—Novice players tend to act out of turn by folding or betting while the action is not on them. Be sympathetic at first, but enforce out-of-turn folds.

Side Pot—When a player goes All-In and the betting continues (i.e. that player cannot match the new bets), a side pot should be made for the remaining players. The All-In player can only win the main pot if they win.

Knocked-Out Players—When a player is knocked out, the remaining players should never gain an advantage with regards to blinds. For more advice on home poker games, stop by our poker forums and say hi!

 

Split Pots—Your calling hand is made up of the best 5 cards on the table, so it’s not uncommon to have 2 or more players with the same hand.  In this case, the pot is split equally amongst the winners.

Min/Max Bets— Big blind is always minimum bet (unless you are All-In). Any raise must be the same or greater than the previous bet. Confused? See the Poker Glossary on PokerDIY for more explanations.