Poker

Gather your friends around the virtual poker table for the ultimate poker night and try your luck as you play poker online at Stake Casino!

What is Poker?

Poker is a popular card game of skill that is widely played around the world, and particularly at online casinos such as Stake.com.

The objective of this classic table game is to create the highest ranking five-card poker hand to beat the other players at the poker table.

Whether you're a beginner to casino games , or advanced, you can have fun playing our online poker game against your friends and other keen poker players at Stake Casino!

Poker Gameplay & How to Play Poker

To play poker online at Stake.com, you must first create an account. Once you're all set up, you can take a seat at the virtual poker table and be in with a chance to win big.

The objective of the game is to form the best five-card poker hand according to the hand rankings below. Be sure to check out our ultimate guide to playing poker online. You should also consider the following rules before getting started.

Rules of Poker

To understand the rules of poker, you first need to know the basic hand rankings, as the person wins the game with the best poker hand. In ascending order, here are the ten possible hand combinations in poker:

• High card - When no combinations are formed, the player with the highest card wins

• One pair - Two cards of the same value

• Two pair - Two different pairs of cards

• Three of a kind - Three cards of the same value

• Straight - Five cards in sequential order

• Flush - Five cards of the same suit

• Full house - A combination of three of a kind and one pair

• Four of a kind - Four cards of the same value

• Straight flush - A flush in sequential order

• Royal flush - The same as a straight flush, but it goes from 10-A. The chances of having a royal flush are 649,739 to one

While there are many poker variations to consider, Texas Hold’em is the most popular form of the game, so we have decided to explain its rules to help you get started.

In Texas Hold’em, each player is dealt two cards facing down, these are the “hole cards”. Crucially, you are the only one to look at your cards, and it’s important that you keep them a secret from the other players. Once every player has two cards, the betting begins.

The two players sitting to the immediate left of clockwise from the dealer must place a small and a big blind respectively, also known as the ante bet. These bets ensure that there are always chips in play. The big blind is double the amount of the small blind.

To play your two cards, you must match the big blind, a “call.” If you don’t want to play, you can “fold”., while yYou can also “raise” if you wish to place a higher bet than the big blind. If a player raises, all other players wanting to play on must match the bet.

When the initial betting round is complete, the dealer lays out three cards face up on the table, known as the flop. These cards are for all players to combine with the two hole cards in their respective hands. After the flop, another round of betting ensues, and if you wish to remain in the game, you need to match the highest bet at the table.

It’s also possible for players to “check” at this stage, which means that you don’t place a bet; you opt to stay in the game without adding chips to the table. This is only possible if nobody makes a bet, as you must match any bet placed to proceed.

Following the flop is the turn, where the dealer burns the top card of the deck and puts it to one side. The dealer then adds another card face-up alongside the three from the previous deal. Again, there is another round of betting following the same process.

The fifth and final card is the river, which the dealer places face-up on the table after another burn. Now that all cards are in play, there is one last round of betting before each player still in the game reveals their cards. The highest card combination - as introduced above - gets all the chips and wins the round.

Types of Poker Games

Texas Hold'em

The object of Texas Hold'em is for players to form a five-card poker hand that ranks higher than the other players’ five-card poker hands. Each player may use any combination of the two cards initially dealt to them at the beginning of the game, referred to as “hole” cards, and the five cards dealt on the table throughout the course of the game, referred to as “community” cards or “board” cards. They may play the board by using no hole cards and using the five community cards, to make the highest ranking five-card poker hand, according to the rankings as shown above.

Omaha

The rules of Omaha are very similar to the Texas Hold’em rules. The only difference is that every player receives four cards face down (the ‘hole cards’) and has to pick exactly two of their four hole cards and three of the five community cards to make their best five card hand.

Poker Game Modes & Features

• Rapid Ring Games: Are a special type of cash table where players are immediately moved to a new table to start a hand after they have folded the previous one. The players' seats at the table are assigned randomly each hand. The player with least count of posted big blinds among all other players at the table posts a big blind.

• Rapid Tournaments: Rapid tournaments work according to the same principle as Rapid Ring Games: the moment the player presses the fold button at the table, they are seated at another table to start a new hand. The players' seats at the table are assigned randomly each hand. The player with least count of posted big blinds among all other players at the table posts a big blind. If you want to learn more about poker tournaments available in Stake Poker , check out our guide.

• Rabbit Hunting: Provides players the opportunity to see the remaining un-dealt community cards should the hand end before the River.

• Straddle: A straddle is an optional third blind, worth 2x the table big blind amount, that can be posted by the UTG (Under The Gun) player, directly to the left of the BB (Big Blind) player.Straddling can only be done at a ring game table with 4 or more players

• Run It Twice: Fortables with Run It Twice mode enabled, all-in players have the ability to opt in to running it twice. If everyone remaining in the hand once there is no more action has opted in, the remaining un-dealt community cards will be dealt twice. For example, if all players opt in and there is no more action on the Flop, two Turns and two Rivers will be dealt.. Once the remaining cards have been dealt to both boards, the pot is distributed equally to each winning hand, according to the usual rules of the game. If one player holds the winning hand for both boards, they will take the entire pot.

• Bomb Pot: Bomb pots are an engaging table feature that activates a special game mode once in a random number of hands. When a bomb pot is activated, the users skip the pre-flop betting round, pay a certain fixed ante (usually equal to several big blinds) and then compete for this big pot. The hand starts on the Flop and plays as usual from that moment.

• Bounty: A feature in some poker tournaments that rewards a player for eliminating another player. Depending on the tournament, a player might be rewarded for eliminating either a specific player, or any player.

• Shootout: A special mode of the tournaments that includes several rounds. During the first round, the players are evenly distributed on the tables and play until the last player wins all the chips at his table. When the winners are determined, they are seated at new tables and a new round begins. The game is started from the beginning for the remaining players – they have new initial stakes and blind levels are reset. Eventually, in order to win a shootout tournament one must be the last person standing atevery table they are seated at. Such tournaments cannot have late registration and re-entries.

• Is Lucky One Hand: A special lucky one hand tournament mode. Its main distinctive feature is that players do not make any decisions, they just go all-in every round.

Read about slang terms heard in poker and what they mean in our poker terms glossary.

How to Deposit Funds to Play Stake Poker Online & Bet Responsibly

You can play poker at Stake online casino by depositing in a local currency or via cryptocurrencies.

Right now, you can play at Stake.com with the following local currencies – ARS, CLP, CAD, JPY, INR and TRY. Depending on your preferences, you can also view your balance in numerous other currencies too. You can find more information about our local currency options on our community forum, as well as our local currency payment guide.

We have a great selection of guides on how to deposit with Canadian Dollars, Japanese Yen , Turkish Lira , Vietnamese Dong , Argentine Pesos and Indian Rupees .

To play poker with crypto, you can easily deposit crypto units into your account using coins like BTC , ETH , USDT , EOS , Doge , BUSD , LTC , SOL , TRX and more. You can find the full list of available cryptocurrencies , as well as our recommendations and guide for choosing the right coin for you. When you’re ready, you can use fast, easy and reliable crypto exchange platforms such as Moonpay and Swapped.com to buy your chosen crypto .

Stake offers live support to players via our customer support staff for help with issues like depositing and withdrawing units and more.

Learn how to use the Stake Vault to securely store your funds online for all future gameplay at Stake Casino. You can also read our crypto security guide to learn more about keeping your funds safe and secure at Stake.com.

Please always remember to bet within your means and gamble responsibly . You can find out how to stay in control with our Stake Smart guidelines . You can also use our monthly budget calculator and betting limit guide to determine how much of your disposable income you can afford to allocate to gambling.

Other Popular Stake Original Casino Games

If you love our exciting game of poker, then be sure to have a go at our poker and slot game hybrid - Video Poker ! We also offer a range of other types of online slot games , and Stake Table Games and live casino games , available to play.

Also be sure to check out other poker guides we have available, like our guide to the 3-bet poker strategy .

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Keen to learn more before getting started? Read up on our online casino guide which gives you more tips and tricks to playing the best games on our platform.