I’m trying to learn how to play and I understand what community cards are, what they do, who goes first/last, etc, but how do the cards in your hand effect the game? I can’t find the answer anywhere and it’s getting confusing.
You don’t, you make a best guess and even then you can pretend you have a great hand. That’s why it’s gambling.
Also afaik there’s no counting cards in poker? I kind of wonder if you can now
Not in the same sense as with blackjack, but you can keep track of public cards to determine odds of a card appearing. For example, if you have one king in hand and there is one on the flop, it’s unlikely that 1 of the next 2 cards will be a king, so counting on it for a winning hand is a bad bet.
In 7-stud having card memory is important because there are no common cards. There’s a famous scene in Rounders where Matt Damon’s character comes in a reads the “Judge’s Game” cold and mentions that one of the players had folded a card that was necessary for one of the players to win (I think the one that was bluffing), securing his clerkship. Good scene
At a basic level, all of your cards CAN effect the outcome for you alone. For example, if you have a king and a 5, and there’s a five in the river then you have a pair. This is ranked last in the hands you can have that still can win. If nobody else has anything, you win.if someone else’s hand outrank yours, they win. If you tie, then I believe (don’t quote me) that it comes down to who has the higher non-pair card. You’ll want to have a reference for the hand rankings if you’re playing casually, or memorize them if you’re playing seriously. Does that help?
When I learned poker playing Red Dead Redemption I copied the list of possible Texas hold em hands into a text file for reference. Each hand beats all of the ones below it. You pray that you get the right cards for something good, and hope your opponent doesn’t.
Once you know the best hands it’s a matter of learning to predict what your hand might become as the pot goes on. Both the community cards (the river) and your personal hand can work together to make any of these hands. If you’re talking individual card face value it starts high at ace and ends low at 1. Here it is:
Have the highest hand per round to win the pot.
Royal Flush- You would need an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten in the same suit
Straight Flush- A sequence of five cards in the same suit
Four of a Kind- Four cards of the same value
Full House- Three cards of the same value with a pair of cards.
Flush- Five cards of the same suit
Straight- A sequence of five cards
Three of a Kind- Three cards of the same value
Two Pair- Two sets of two cards of the same value
One Pair- One set of two cards of the same value
High Card- The highest card in your hand
If you and your opponent have the same overall hand, the higher value wins, so with an ace pair and a 5 pair the ace pair wins.
Is there some gambler challenge that you’re trying to clear? I gave up at the blackjack one and shot the dealer
All the cards on the table in the community hand are counted as part of your hand, and the same is true for the other players.
If there are 2 aces in the pile, and you have 1 ace in your hand, you have a 3 of a kind. But if another player has the last ace, they also have a 3 of a kind using their ace and the 2 on the table.
You make your best hand out of your 2 cards and the up to 5 cards on the table.
So if you have 2 aces and there’s 1 ace and 2 king on the flop, the best hand is a full house. 3 ace and 2 king.
If the next card is a ace, it’s now 4 aces.
AKK flop best hand would be KKKKA. Holding AA on an AKK flop gives you second nuts.
