Poker Hand Rankings

One of the most interesting aspects of poker is all the new things that you need to learn and keep in mind when you first begin to learn poker. And of these, one of the most difficult aspects is to remember not how to play the game, but to remember the different poker hand rankings.

I can just hear everyone who has played poker shouting at me for saying that, but I have to say that it is very simply the truth. Sure, when you first read up on, or look through and try to figure out the poker hand rankings for yourself they make sense. But this is only in the beginning.

I remember being very pleased with myself after I figured out and understood what all the different hand rankings meant. But then I had to put it aside for a few weeks and when I got back to it, I was certain that I would be playing poker in time flat, seeing as how I had managed to figure out what the various poker hand rankings were.

The glitch came not then even, because it still made sense to me, but when I began to play. Suddenly I was thrust into the middle of a real live poker game, with people on either side of me – so alright, they were animated figures, but at the time they were real enough – and I was waiting to be posted into the Big Blind.

When my turn came up, I was dealt my two cards (I was playing Texas Holdem), and looked in complete bemusement at my cards. I had a pair of cards in my hand and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them. Did I want to call, or raise or fold? Were the two cards (I can’t remember what they were), enough of a good hand for me to have a chance at getting the pot?

At that point, all the poker hand rankings that I had gone through and learnt were of no use to me. When push came to shove in the real games, I was unable to remember which hands were good and which ones weren’t as good. The only one that I truly remembered was that of a Royal Flush, and I know I didn’t have an outside chance of getting one of those!

So back it was to my drawing board to get in some much needed practice in trying to figure out whether a Full House beat a Straight, or whether a Flush was better than Three of Kind! I learned my lesson though.

Instead of glibly believing that I would be able to remember the various poker hand rankings when I began to play, I instead utilized a much underrated method of remembering them: I practiced, day and night whenever I could wherever I could taking a pack of cards along with me so that I would always have something to do.