Learning how to play poker is very easy and over the years more and more guides and books were written on this subject, but there's no need to read a whole book just to learn the rules of how to play poker. The goal of poker is extremely simple – to gain the pot by winning the round with a good hand combination.

There are many hand combinations and in poker games there is a strict hand ranking system that tells poker players which hand "beats" another hand. For example, in poker a hand of Three of the Same Kind, such as 5-5-5, would win over a hand of a pair of Kings (K-K).

The rules of how to rank a hand in poker is very easy as well: There's the Royal Flush, the highest hand that is made out of five cards – Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10, all of them from the same Suit (the same color and sign, such as Red Heart). Bellow the Royal Flush there's the Straight Flush, five cards from the same suit (Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades) with a numerical order in them (2-3-4-5-6 or 9-10-J-Q-K). Hand ranking is a complete issue that must be learnt before playing poker.

In order to win a poker round you'll need more than just a good poker hand, you'll need to learn poker variants strategy, get to know the glossary of poker (since there's no use of learning how to play poker without knowing poker glossary of terms and phrases as well). Each poker variant has its own strategies which need to be adjusted again and again according to the poker players types you compete against. As you can see, playing poker is not about luck, it's about learning how to play poker, there are a lot of issues that you must master if you want to be an expert poker player, even if you only want to play at online poker rooms and you have no reason to compete in luxuries poker tournaments.

Learning the poker rules is fast and easy – each variant has its own rules, by which you place antes or blinds (two common poker terms you must know), then the game begins and progress according to the poker variant's rules until the finishing round . Then players reveal their hands and who ever has the highest hand win the pot.

Again - poker is not a game of luck, poker is a game of skills. Learning how to play poker games is easy, but you need time to practice and develop your poker strategies, other than just learn the poker rules. You can download online poker games and practice your skills for free in them, thus you can learn how to play poker and improve your game without paying money to do so. Also, view our poker history article; it might interest you to know where poker came from.