The Power of Your Poker Card

They say that best poker players do not translate in having good set of cards per se. It is up to the player how he or she will play his hand. We might be seeing or observing some unusual player-strategies in poker games but still ends up winning the pot. For example, a player who has a worse hand in the pre-flop such as 3 of clubs and 4 of spades tends to be a player with a double-A hand (meaning that player has two aces). You might be wondering how?

In poker, you experience, learn and eventually master the art of bluffing and aggressing. The colloquial term for this is to develop a "poker face." However, it will probably take us more games to be experts in the so-called poker psychology. For the meantime, let us understand and examine the value or worth of our poker hand.

As we said earlier a poker hand refers to the cards dealt and /or the cards revealed by the dealer. First let us examine the value of each card individually. In general, the card with the lowest value is a deuce (2), while the highest is an ace (A). Here is the increasing order of card values: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. In some poker variants, they include so-called "wild cards." These wild cards are usually the inserts (or cards placed inside a deck) such as jokers or logo of the card manufacturer. Furthermore, this wild card is used in forming a good combination of hand. For example, we have a 3 of clubs, 3 of spades, 3 of hearts, 4 of diamonds and a joker; we could have a full house or better yet have a three of a kind!

In some poker games such as "Deuces Wild," which is a very popular form of Draw Poker, the deuces are treated as a wild card. Other casinos use the Cyclops or the One-Eyed cards as a wild card. These are the king of diamonds, jack of spades and jack of hearts.

The suite does not play much role in a poker game except in forming a straight flush or a royal flush. However, there are some poker variants that put value in the suites such as in the Philippines' "Pusoy Dos" and other poker types, which uses a shoe. (A shoe is a two or more deck shuffled and treated as one deck).

Again, let us remind you before sitting down in a poker table try to observe first how the game operates.