While Poker is played in its innumerable forms, it is really necessary to understand only two basic things: the values of the Poker hands and the rules of betting.

A player who understands these can play without difficulty in any type of Poker game.

The main object of Poker is, everyone plays for himself (in fact partnerships of any sort are not allowed) and the object of each player is to win the pot. The pot is the accumulation of all bets made by all players in any one deal. Every chip a player puts in the pot means he bets so much that he has, or will have, the best Poker hand around the table. After the betting is over, the hands are shown (called the showdown) and the best Poker hand wins the pot.

Poker hand consists of five cards (depending on the variation of Poker you are playing). The value of a hand depends on whether it contains one of the following combinations:

Straight flush, the highest possible hand: all five cards of the same suit and in sequence, as the 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of spades. The highest-ranking straight flush is the A, K, Q, J and 10 of any one suit is called a royal flush.

Four of a kind rank next under a straight flush; as, four queens, or four twos. The Fifth unmatched card is pretty much an un-wanted and un-needed card.

A full house is three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, as 3-3-3-Q-Q, and ranks next under four of a kind.

A flush is five cards of the same suit, but not all in sequence, and ranks next below a full house.

A straight is five cards in sequence, but not all of the same suit. It loses to a flush or higher hand, but beats anything else.

Three of a kind rank next under a straight.

Two pair, as 10-10-3-3-9, rank next under three of a kind.

One pair beats any hand containing no pair but none of the higher-ranking combinations named above.

And below the rank of hands containing one pair are all the no-pair hands, which are rated by the highest card they contain, so that an ace-high hand will beat a king-high hand, and so on.
The first thing a beginning player should do is to learn and remember these combinations and their relative values. (They are stated in far greater detail on page 12.) For in Poker, one hopes to hold a higher-ranking hand than anyone else, and one bets on his hand if he thinks it is the best, or throws it away if he thinks someone else has him beaten.

The ranking of Poker hands, given above, is not arbitrary. The less likely you are to receive a certain hand, mathematically, the higher it ranks and the more likely it is to win if you do get it. For example, you should expect to be dealt a straight flush only once in 65,000 hands; but you should be dealt two pair once in every 21 hands, and you should have at least one pair once in each two hands you hold.