In How to play poker for beginners part 2 we’ll look at the ‘RULES OF THE GAME OF POKER’….hey, they’re not as complex as you might have been led to believe. So, let’s begin with the type of free online poker game you’ll enter, the type of game you’ll register to play in…and, Lord knows you’ll have many choices.

But, for now, it’s best that you restrict your selection to the multi-table free Texas hold em freeroll tournaments. Where, it could be a game with 50 players, or it could be a game with 250 players.

• Plus, in advance, you should know that the quality of the competition you’ll come up against in these games is far from ‘elevated’; the vast majority of NoPayPOKER players exist in a world dominated by relatively average play.
• Additionally, each of these tournaments will have multiple tables…you can divide the number of players by 10, and you’ll know how many tables are a part of the tournament (you’ll need to round up to eliminate the decimal point, if any; that is, 68 players, for example, divided by 10, equals 6.8, rounded up, means there are 7 tables in the tournament).

Next, the NoPayPOKER software will seat you at a table…at a randomly selected table, in a randomly selected seat.

• Of course, a new NoPay multi-table freeroll tournament starts every half-hour; 24 hours a day.
• So, initially, don’t be overly concerned about how successful you are in any one game; there’s always another game that you can enter.

Fundamentally, the winner of any 1 hand will be the player who has the best cards.

• You’ll get 2 cards dealt to you face down, that only you can see.
• This is followed by a round of betting; generally, no more than 3 raises to the original bet are permitted; and this restriction of 3 raises will be true in all future betting rounds.

Next, the Dealer will expose 3 cards on the table….these are ‘community cards’, and can be used by all of the players who are participating in the hand.

• At this point, another round of betting occurs.
• Then the Dealer will add another card to the ‘community cards’; there are now 4 cards that can be used by all of the players who remain in the hand.
• This is followed by another round of betting.
• Last, the Dealer will add a 5th card to the ‘community cards’…again followed by another round of betting.

Your 2 face down cards are known as ‘Pocket Cards’.

• They are dealt out, one at a time, left to right, to everyone at the table (clearly, you only get to see your own pocket cards; not everyone else’s).
• The Dealer then exposes the first 3 ‘community cards’, it’s known as ‘The Flop’.
• When he exposes the 4th ‘community card’, it’s known as ‘The Turn’ (or, 4th Street).
• And, when he exposes the 5th ‘community card’, it’s known as ‘The River’ (or, 5th Street).
• All 3 to 5 ‘community cards’ that are exposed on the poker table at any one time are known as ‘The Board’.

Every player who is participating in the hand through the process of betting (if you ‘folded’, you’re no longer in the hand), attempts to make the best possible five-card hand.

• They can use any 5 of the 7 cards that are available to them; one, both, or none of their pocket cards, together with 3, 4, or 5 of the ‘community cards’.
• The player with the best 5 card hand wins all of the money that has been bet (The Pot).

The ‘Dealer Button’ is involved in every hand to be played; one of the game’s participants gets the Dealer Button (DB); the selection of the player who first receives the DB is done by the software.

• At a casino, it’s a round disc, about the size of a hockey puck, and the letter ‘D’ is usually emblazened on it’s flat surfaces.
• At an Internet online poker site, the software will automatically place a symbol of sorts on your PC screen to identify the DB.
• And, the position of the Dealer Button on the poker table is important….since the 2 players to the left of the DB are forced to place bets before the cards are even dealt out.

Plus, as you’ll come to learn latter, after you’ve read the ‘Building a Bankroll‘ series of articles, the DB position is the best seat at the table.

• Additionally, at the end of every hand, the Dealer Button (DB) moves one position to the left; thus, everyone acts as the ‘virtual dealer’ in an Internet game, and, everyone is forced to place ‘blind’ bets.
• Moreover, the ‘to the left’ movement of the DB is also what happens in any casino, poker room, or home game.

Blind Bets? Yes!

• That’s how the game starts.
• The player to the immediate left of the Dealer Button (DB) is compelled to put up the Small Blind (SB).
• And, the player to the immediate left of the Small Blind (SB) is compelled to put up the Big Blind (BB).
• These ‘blind bets’ are placed in the pot, in front of the dealer….this essentially kickstarts the betting.
• And, it’s all done before anyone has gotten any cards.
• This, for the lack of any other rational reason, means that the winner of the hand that’s about to be played, will, at a minimum, collect the small amount of money that has been ‘forced’ into the pot by the blind bets.

In a multi-table freeroll, or any No Limit free online poker tournament game, the size of the Small Blind (SB) and the size of the Big Blind (BB) are very low at the start of the game. And, every player in the game begins the game with the same amount of free poker faux-money; or, for practical purposes, poker chips.

With one exception….exclusive to NoPay….where Bonus Chips can be added to a player’s opening stack by choice; and, you’ll quickly come to recognize the moderate advantage that the Bonus Chips give the players who have opted to use them.

So, once you’ve immersed yourself in the friendly confines of NoPayPoker, you may wish to become a Premium Member; since one of the biggest benefits is the gifting of 1,000 Bonus Chips per day to all Premium Members.

Usually, in 15 minute intervals, the size of the ‘blinds’ increase.

• As an example, if the beginning ‘blinds’ were $10 (SB) and $20 (BB), within 15 minutes the ‘blinds’ would change to $20 (SB) and $40 (BB).
• And, thereafter, as the game progresses, the ‘blinds’ continue to go up every 15 minutes.
• In the end, at the final table in a tournament (the last remaining 10 players), the ‘blinds’ could easily reach the point of being $2,000 (SB) and $4,000 (BB).

Now don’t be alarmed, the dollar amounts tied to the Small Blinds (SB) and Big Blinds (BB) in the preceding paragraph, during all freeroll games played at NoPayPoker (NPP), are ‘fictional’ amounts of money. It’s not real money. It’s merely a ‘tournament representation’ of money; it’s free poker faux-money, they’re poker chips….they’re not real dollars.

As mentioned earlier, every tournament game begins with each player having the same amount of ‘starting chips’.

• In some tournaments it’s $1,000 worth of chips, in some it’s $1,200, in some it’s $3,000, and in others it’s varying amounts.
• However, none of the chips are worth any ‘real money’.
• Plus, there’s often the addition of Bonus Chips to a player’s starting stack.
• Again, these Bonus Chips are only available in quantity to Premium Members.
• However, non-Premium Members can also earn Bonus Chips….150 per day; this is accomplished through Facebook postings, and you’ll rapidly come to understand how to easily acquire these Bonus Chips on a daily basis.

Then, in the end, as the tournament finishes, the ‘finalists’ (the last 10, 20, or 40 players) in every tournament game, do, in fact, win ‘real money’….in the form of FreeD’s; where, as was previously mentioned, every FreeD is equal to 1 US Cent, and every 100 FreeD’s equals 1 US Dollar.

Plus, for the second time, I’ll assure you that it’s not very difficult to win your way to the point of a cash out.

Best of Luck at the Tables,

Michael.

(c) copyright 2010; no reproduction, all rights reserved by D. M. Vadnais

Practice poker versus your computer with integrated lessons in “Poker for Dummies” from BigfishGames:

Next – Part 3 in the How to play poker for beginners series is The Rules of the Game of Poker Part 2.

Previous – Part 1 in the How to play poker for beginners series is An Introduction to Free Online Poker at NoPayPOKER.com

And get over to the main NoPay site for free poker practice games

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OK, get off your rear ends and into the PartyPoker 10 Fold Freerolls. Where players can win up to $2,500 FreeD every day. What’s more, if you win a 10 Fold ticket you can get $25 USD at PartyPoker for free.

The fun doesn’t stop there, everyone who makes a 10 Fold transfer to PartyPoker or who deposits gets entry into the end of month $500 USD Freeroll at PartyPoker. The next one plays at 3pm on the 1st May.

This was the winner of the NoPayPOKER.com March 2010 free online poker article writing contest. Member Thedarkman got $1000 FreeD

Be it a free online poker game or $100 buy in there are many qualities demanded of a good poker player such as the ability to read an opponent, to make a “big lay down”, to know one’s limitations – as Dirty Harry said – but in my humble opinion, the greatest virtue, and one best suited to money and free poker, is patience.

Like most players I remember the bad beats, but there are two occasions I recall in particular where I had the run of the cards; both were cash games.

The first was in a live session where with a £50 minimum buy-in we were playing £1-£2 Pot Limit Omaha/Hold Em (a round of each).

The other was a not free Texas holdem online poker session on Ladbrokes, a site I don’t often play, although the site is not important, what happened, is.
In the live session, I had such a terrific run of the cards that in about twenty minutes I had turned my fifty pounds into over five hundred. In the online poker session, though I was multi-tabling, I “sat down” at one table, and in about the same time period, turned twenty dollars into over a hundred and fifty. This time I was playing Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, my game of preference.

Being a dedicated free poker and small stakes player I seldom win big, but it is not the stakes that are important, rather the lesson to be learned.

How often does a player sit down and increase his starting stack by a factor of ten or even seven in half an hour or less? The answer is very seldom, but once in a blue moon the cards do run for you like magic.

The reason for this is not far to seek; cards, including electronic cards, are random, and it is possible though extremely unlikely to win several big pots in quick succession.

The downside of this is that it is extremely likely you will be dealt garbage hands for prolonged periods, or that the cards will run against you for hours at a time.

If you are playing live, especially in a cash poker game, when the cards run bad there may be a temptation to push things, to play marginal hands, or hands that you really shouldn’t play, to draw too much, to see just one more card. The result can be disastrous.

In online poker where you can multi-table, there is no excuse for this sort of lax play. When I play cash games, four is my preference, but some people can handle six or even more tables comfortably.

Even so, the cards can run bad on all tables; I have to say that for me at any rate, some sites are far worse than others. But when they run bad, you must fold, fold, fold.

It really is not nice to raise a pot with a pair of kings at Texas Holdem, to see an ace flop, and someone bet forcefully into it, but you should face the fact that you are probably beat, and that the wisest course of action is to fold and wait for the next hand.

Yes, it is incredibly frustrating (and you get it more on low stakes and free poker sites) to see loose players, neophytes or even total morons call raise after raise with borderline hands or even raise with total garbage and hit or suck out time and time again, but when you miss the flop, you must throw your premium starting hand in the muck. It will hurt, but it will hurt a lot more to chase, especially at pot limit.

What about poker tournaments?
Now the fact is that even if you are both the best player and the luckiest player in the world, you can’t cash in every tournament.

And at No Limit Texas Holdem you can be busted out in one hand at any time, but patience does count here too, especially and perhaps even after the bubble or on the final table when you are short stacked.

This is where inevitably everybody tightens up, but it is surprising how long you can wait, and how few hands you can get away with playing when both time and chips appear to be running out.

Patience is not to be confused with timidity and especially not with cowardice; a big draw may be a favourite over a pair, or even a set; whilst most players find it difficult and some find it impossible ever to fold a set – any set – a draw is still only a draw, and you should play or fold your hand not according to abstract principles like pot odds but according to the state of your bankroll, position in the tournament, and so on.

You may be 75% to win the hand, but remember that does mean you have a 25% chance of losing it, and if losing that one hand means busting out before the money when you can comfortably fold and allow a couple of the short stacks to be subsumed, folding may be the best option.

Again, it will hurt, but not half as much as calling and losing. And as ever with poker, manage your bankroll, if you have none or little start out on the free poker sites such as NoPayPOKER.com and grind your way up. Remember what the man said: chip and a chair!