Back to the basics - Getting Started

Written by Nigel

We’ve been through quite a lot in these past few months and I thought it would be nice to go back to the basics. There are so many new poker players out there, thanks to the publicity it gets from the different celebrity tours. These people need a solid foundation on poker. For the oldies, it is always a good thing to be reminded of the bare essentials. So how do we get started in a poker game?

The first thing that has to be determined is how much everyone around the table is willing to pay. This is what we call the stakes. Three things to be considered when setting the stakes are:

What is the standard ante going to be?
What is the minimum bet?
What is the maximum bet?

How low or how high the stakes is depends on the minimum and maximum bet, respectively. They are the outer limits and any player can bet any amount within those limits.

Once these figures have been determined by the players around the table, they are ready to move on to the next step which is determining who will get the first hand. This is really variable depending on the players. One way we do it is to have someone deal cards one at a time and the first one to get an Ace gets the first hand. Others wait for the Jack instead of the Ace – it does not really matter how you do it as long as you determine who gets first hand.