You are a new player and you would like to start playing poker at the pub with some drinks. Don’t hesitate; London is full of pubs where you can play poker in a friendly atmosphere. So, how does it work? It’s simple. You just need to go to a pub that organises these types of events. So it is quite easy to find one close to your place, British pubs love poker and I am pretty sure that one it is just beside your house or in your area.

Most of the tournaments are around 7 to 8 pm at night and it cost about 5£ for the registration. You have to know that in England it is forbidden to ask more than 100£ for a tournament in a pub. So the total of the fees has to be equal at 100£. Some pubs, when they received too much money from this kind of events, they give the difference to associations or charity.

So, after that, the manager of the tournament has to organise the tables. So, it is quite often that there is just 4 tables available. The manager asks you to pick up a card and if you want to know where you are, you have to check the suit of your card and the suit of the tables. It has to match but that is obvious.

After that, the person who picked the ace up is the dealer and the other players of the table have to sit in the order of the cards. If you have a 2 you are just beside the dealer and etc... When everyone is seated, the dealer has to distribute 2 cards to everyone one by one. Also, the person just beside the dealer on the left is the small blind and the person beside the small blind on the left is the Big blind. It means you have to play your compulsory bet before the cards are dealt. (Blind Bet)

The dealer has just distributed the cards; the first person who has to talk is the person just beside the big blind on the left. This person can:

• - Call, it means that they put the same amount than the Big Blind.
• - Fold, it means they don’t want to play this round
• - Raise, it means they want to play more than the Big Blind. But there is a rule about that. When you raise before the flop, you have to raise a minimum of twice the Big Blind.
• - Check if for example the big blind doesn’t want to raise and people called him;

Then, the dealer burns a card (means that this card is useless and goes to the fold pile, in order to prevent cheating) and returns 3 cards. We call that the flop. The first person who has to talk is the first guy on the left of the dealer. And the rules are the same: raise, check, call or fold.

Then when everyone has talked, the dealer burns another card and shows the 4th on the river, same rules and for the 5th as well.

The winner is the guy who gets the best hands with his 2 cards and 3 of the river. But if you bluff and no one is calling you, you don’t need to show you cards.