Poker Hand Rankings
When you are starting out to learn the game of poker, there are lots of facts, rules, regulations and game plays that you need to learn and master; but the one factor you need to master right off the bat is one of the most difficult ones, and that is remembering the poker hand rankings.
Oh yeah yeah, I know the game play is very important, but this is the simple truth....you need to know the poker hand rankings inside out to be an effective player. You look them up in your poker guide book and memorize them and they make sense when you are first starting, but when you get into the thick of a real game play, remembering poker hand rankings gets really hairy if you can't remember the order for sure.
That happened to me the first time I started to play poker for real and sat down in the middle of a real flesh and blood poker game. I had gone over and over and over the poker hand rankings until I could recite them in my sleep, and they made total sense to me. I figured I was ready for anything and could hold my own now in a real poker game.
Well that lasted all of a few minutes after the actual play started. I was dealt the Hole cards face down, (I was playing Texas Holdem), and as I looked at them for what seemed to be an eternity, I couldn't figure out what the next step was.
They were a pair, I don't remember exactly what cards they were, but I couldn't figure out if I should call, or raise or fold....what should I do? I couldn't tell from those cards if I had any chance of getting the pot or not.
It was then that all that book learning about the poker hand rankings went right out the window and I couldn't even remember if a Full House was better than a Straight....or if a Flush beat out Three of a Kind.....I was even having a time trying to remember what exactly a Flush was, or a Straight for that matter.
So I did a little back tracking and started practicing playing over and over again until I could remember the poker hand rankings easily and didn't get rattled every time the play started and I had to deal with the dealt cards in real time.
So, I practiced and practiced and carried a deck of cards with me so I could deal out cards when I had the chance to, and got to learn the poker hand rankings in real time in real play. I was stupid in thinking that all I had to do was memorize them, because the remembering of the poker hand rankings comes with practice in play, and not just learning them from a book. So keep that in mind as you start out learning poker and the poker hand rankings.....like everything else, practicing in play is the absolutely best way to remember everything you need to know about the game, including the poker hand rankings.