Here is the whole game in one paragraph.

You get two private cards that only you can see. Up to five more cards get dealt face-up in the middle of the table, and everybody shares those. There are rounds of betting as those shared cards come out. You win either by making everyone else give up, or by finishing with the best five-card hand. You build that five-card hand out of any mix of your two private cards and the five in the middle.

The cards come out in this order:

Your 2 cards → betting → the Flop (3 shared cards) → betting → the Turn (1 more) → betting → the River (1 more) → betting → Showdown

Two words you'll see constantly from here on:

• The pot is the pile of chips in the middle. That's what everyone is competing for.
• The board is the shared face-up cards. Flop, turn, and river together make up the board.

That's the structure. Everything else is learning what hands are worth and deciding when your cards are good enough to keep going.

You do not need to know everything before you sit down. If you know the hand rankings, know when it's your turn, and know the difference between checking, calling, raising, and folding, you know enough to play. The rest you'll pick up in an hour at the table.

Strongest to weakest:

1. Royal Flush — A-K-Q-J-10, all the same suit.
2. Straight Flush — Five cards in a row, all the same suit.
3. Four of a Kind — Four cards of the same rank.
4. Full House — Three of one rank plus a pair of another.
5. Flush — Five cards of the same suit.
6. Straight — Five cards in a row.
7. Three of a Kind — Three cards of the same rank.
8. Two Pair — Two cards of one rank plus two of another.
9. One Pair — Two cards of the same rank.
10. High Card — None of the above. Your highest card decides it.

We will have a cheat sheet with these rankings available at the table.

The two that people reverse

A flush beats a straight. A full house beats a flush.

Those are the two comparisons new players get backwards most often. If you memorize nothing else on this page, memorize those.

Most pots are won with one pair

This is worth knowing before you sit down, because the list above is misleading. Royal flushes are at the top and they almost never happen. In a real game, the large majority of pots are won with one pair or two pair — and plenty are won by somebody who never made a pair at all, because everyone else folded.

So don't sit around waiting for a monster. And on the flip side, don't assume one pair means you've already won.

About the Ace in a straight

The Ace can be the high end of a straight (10-J-Q-K-A) or the low end (A-2-3-4-5). Both are real straights.

What it cannot do is both at once. K-A-2-3-4 is not a straight. Straights don't wrap around the corner.

Ties

Within the same category, the higher cards win. A-A-8-8-K beats A-A-8-8-Q, because the King is a better kicker — the leftover card that breaks the tie when two players have the same pair.

When comparing two two-pair hands, whichever hand has the highest pair wins. A-A-8-8-K beats Q-Q-J-J-T, because the Aces are better than the Queens.

Similarly, when comparing two full house hands, whichever hand has the highest three of a kind wins. Q-Q-Q-8-8 beats 5-5-5-A-A, because the Queens are better than the fives.

If two players end up with genuinely identical five-card hands, they split the pot evenly. That happens more often than you'd think.

Suits do not rank against each other. Spades don't beat hearts. Nothing beats anything else just because of suit.

For a searchable reference any time, see the Pinnacle Poker Glossary.

By the end of a hand you may have seven cards available to you:

• 2 private cards in your hand
• 5 shared cards on the board

But a poker hand is always exactly five cards. You just make the strongest five you can out of those seven.

You're allowed to use:

• Both of your private cards
• One of them
• Or neither of them

That last one surprises people. If the board is the best five cards available to you and you can't beat it with anything of your own, you're "playing the board" — and so is everybody else who can't beat it, which usually means splitting the pot.

Example

You hold A♠️ 8♦️.

The board is A❤️ K♣️ K♦️ 7♠️ 2♣️.

Your best five cards are A♠️ A❤️ K♣️ K♦️ 8♦️.

That's two pair — Aces and Kings, with an 8 kicker.

Notice what you did not do: you didn't count the 7♠️ or the 2♣️. They're on the board, but they don't make your hand any better, so they're not part of it.

The habit to build: when you're figuring out what you have, count to five. Out loud in your head if you need to. Beginners routinely think they have more than they do because they forget the hand stops at five cards.

This is the part that makes new players nervous, and it's simpler than it looks.

Action moves clockwise around the table, one player at a time. When it gets to you, everyone will wait. Nobody is in a hurry.

When it's your turn, ask yourself one question:

Has anyone put chips in yet this round?

Everything follows from the answer.

If nobody has bet yet, you have two choices

Check — Stay in the hand, pay nothing. You're passing the decision along.

Bet — Put chips in and make everyone else decide what to do about it.

One thing to know: checking does not end the round. If you check and someone after you bets, it comes back around to you, and now you're in the second situation below.

If someone has already bet, you have three choices

Fold — Give up your cards. You lose whatever you'd already put in, but it costs you nothing more.

Call — Match their bet exactly. If they bet 500, you put in 500.

Raise — Put in more than they did. If they bet 500, you might raise to 1,500.

Notice that checking is not on this list. Once someone has bet, you cannot check. You either put chips in or you're out of the hand.

Either way, there's always all-in

All in means betting or raising all of your remaining chips. In our tournaments you can always do this — even if you don't have enough chips for a full call, and even if you don't have enough for a proper raise.

If you're all in for less than someone else's bet, you can only win the part you matched. The rest goes into a separate pile for the other players. The tournament director will sort this out — you don't need to.

How a betting round ends

The round is over when everyone still in the hand has either folded or put in the same amount. Then the next card comes out and a new round starts.

And if everyone folds, the last player standing wins the pot immediately and never has to show their cards.

Beginner reminder: Folding is normal. Strong players fold constantly. You should expect to fold far more hands than you play, and that's not you being timid — that's the game working correctly.

Every hand needs some chips in the middle to start, or nobody would ever have a reason to play. So two players put in forced bets before any cards are dealt.

• The small blind
• The big blind

If the blinds are 100/200, the small blind puts in 100 and the big blind puts in 200.

A marker called the dealer button moves one seat clockwise after every hand, so the blinds rotate and everyone pays their turn.

Who acts first

Before the flop, the player to the left of the big blind goes first. The big blind goes last — they already have chips in, so everyone after them must fold, call, or raise.

After the flop, turn, and river, the first player still in the hand to the left of the button goes first. Which means the small blind — who acted second-to-last before the flop — now acts first for the rest of the hand, and the player on the button acts last every single round.

Why that matters more than it sounds like it does

Acting later is better, because you get to see what everyone else does before you have to decide.

Imagine being asked a hard question, but you get to hear everyone else's answer first. That's what having position means. The button is the best seat at the table on every hand, and it's why we come back to this idea in Module 9.

Let's run a complete hand from start to finish. You're dealt A♠️ Q♠️.

Who shows first? Whoever made the last bet turns their cards over first. If nobody bet on the river, the first player left of the button shows first. In a friendly game people usually just flip them at the same time — nobody will make a thing of it.

If that made sense, you understand the mechanics of a hand of poker. Everything left is deciding which hands to play and how much to bet.

Here's the most useful thing you'll learn before your first game:

Most starting hands should be folded.

Getting two cards does not obligate you to play them. A hand like K♠️ 4♦️ looks tempting because there's a King in it. But if somebody else has K❤️ Q♣️ and a King hits the board, you'll feel great right up until you lose a big pot. Good poker is largely about not being in that spot.

Start with three groups

1. Any pocket pair. A-A down through 2-2.

2. Any suited Ace. An Ace plus any other card of the same suit — A♠️ 7♠️, A❤️ 4❤️.

3. Any two cards Ten or higher. A-K, A-Q, A-J, A-10, K-Q, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10, J-10 — same suit or not. These are called broadway hands.

That's about one hand in five. It's a tight, simple starting point that will have you holding better cards than most of the table and facing far fewer awkward decisions after the flop.

This is deliberately simple, not perfect. Its job is to keep you out of trouble while you learn. Once you're comfortable, you can widen out — especially when you'll be acting late.

Reading the hand chart

You'll see poker starting hands laid out in a 13×13 grid. It looks cryptic until somebody explains the layout, and then it's obvious. Here it is:

• The diagonal running from top-left to bottom-right is your pocket pairs — both cards the same rank. A-A, K-K, Q-Q, and so on.
• Above the diagonal are the suited hands — two cards of different ranks that share a suit.
• Below the diagonal are the offsuit hands — the same two different ranks, but in different suits.

So A-K appears twice: once above the diagonal (A-K suited) and once below (A-K offsuit). Same two ranks, different hands, and the suited one is meaningfully better.

The thinking behind this chart is explained in full on our site: Beginner-Friendly Strategy.

Easy rule for your first game:

If nobody has entered the pot yet pre-flop, raise or fold. Don't just call.

Matching the big blind because it looks cheap is called limping, and it's the single most common habit at our tables. It's also one of the least profitable.

Blinds are 100/200 and you've got a hand you like? Don't call 200. Raise to about 500.

Raising works for you three ways:

• Everybody might fold and you win the pot right there.
• Some will fold, so you face fewer opponents — and fewer opponents means your hand wins more often.
• When you do have a good hand, the pot is already bigger.

The exact size isn't what matters on day one. The habit is.

Read more: Why You Should Raise Before the Flop

We touched this in Module 5. Here's the practical version.

If you act after your opponents, you know more than they did when they decided. That's position, and it's worth more than most beginners realize.

The rule:

• Acting early → play fewer hands. Stick to the three groups from Module 7 and nothing else.
• Acting late → you can play more. If several people have already folded, you can widen out a bit.

You don't need to learn the named seat positions yet. Just find the dealer button and ask:

Am I one of the first to act, or one of the last?

Read more: The Power of Position

This is where poker starts to feel complicated. Don't let it. Sort your hand into one of four buckets.

Strong

Top pair with a decent kicker, an overpair (a pocket pair higher than every card on the board), two pair, three of a kind, a straight, a flush, or better.

Default: bet or raise.

You cannot win a big pot if nobody puts chips in it. This is the opposite of what most players do — they check strong hands hoping someone bets, and then the pot stays small. Bet your good hands.

Medium

Second pair, bottom pair, a weak top pair on a scary board, sometimes just Ace-high.

Default: check, or call a reasonable bet.

Don't build a huge pot with a medium hand. You'll usually only get called by something better.

Weak

No pair, nothing developing.

Default: check and fold.

Giving up is completely fine and you'll do it constantly.

Draw

You don't have anything yet, but one more card would give you a real hand. That's a draw, and it's a category of its own — see the next module.

Default: often worth continuing, either by betting yourself or calling.

One thing that changes all of this

How strong your hand is depends on what's on the board. Top pair is a great hand on K♠️ 7❤️ 2♦️. It's a much shakier hand on 9♠️ 8♠️ 7❤️, where straights and flushes are possible. When the board's cards all seem to work together — we call that a connected board — assume it helped somebody.

With two unpaired cards, you'll make at least a pair on the flop only about one third of the time.

So missing isn't bad luck. It's the default outcome. Two thirds of the time you flop nothing at all.

Here's the useful part: your opponents are missing too. That's the entire reason poker involves betting instead of just dealing out cards and comparing them. Somebody has to be willing to put chips in without a great hand, or nothing ever happens.

Read more: Reality Check: You Probably Won't Hit the Flop

Sometimes you don't have a hand yet, but one card would give you a big one.

Flush draw

You hold A♠️ 7♠️. The flop is K♠️ 9♠️ 2❤️.

You've got four spades. Any fifth spade makes you a flush. There are 13 spades in the deck and you can see four, so 9 spades are left.

Open-ended straight draw

You hold 8♠️ 7❤️. The flop is 6♦️ 5♣️ K♠️.

A 9 or a 4 finishes your straight. Four 9s and four 4s are left, so 8 cards help you.

Cards that would give you the winning hand are called outs. Counting them is the single most useful piece of poker math there is.

The Rule of 4 and 2

Once you know your outs, you can estimate your chances in your head:

• Multiply your outs by 2 for your rough percentage chance of completing your hand on the next card.
• Multiply your outs by 4 for your rough percentage chance of completing your hand on either of the next two cards (if there are two cards left to deal).

That 9-out flush draw on the flop? About 9 × 4 = 36%. Roughly a one-in-three shot. That's real, and it's why draws are worth playing.

Read more: Poker Math Made Easy: The Rule of 4 and 2

Before chips go in, try to know what you want the bet to do. There are only three reasons.

Value

You think you have the best hand and you want a worse hand to call you. This is most of your betting.

Bluff

You have very little and you want a better hand to fold.

Protection

You're probably ahead right now, but the board is scary and you don't want to hand somebody a free card that beats you.

The question to ask every single time:

What do I want my opponent to do?

If you can't answer that, you probably shouldn't bet. And if you do bet, make sure you bet an amount that can accomplish your goal. If you want them to fold, ask yourself "how much do I have to bet to get them to fold?" If you want them to call, ask yourself "how much can I get them to call with a worse hand?" (Don't worry too much about bet sizing right now; we have strategy articles you can read on that subject once you are comfortable with the basics).

Read more: Why Are You Betting? Understand Your Goal

Once the mechanics feel comfortable, this is the first bluff worth learning.

You raise before the flop with A♠️ K♣️ and one player calls. The flop comes 9♦️ 6♣️ 2♠️.

You missed completely. But two things are true: your opponent saw you raise, so they think you might have a big hand — and they probably missed that flop too, because everybody misses most flops (Module 11).

So you bet anyway, and a good share of the time they fold.

That's a continuation bet. You don't need it in your first hour. But it's the bridge between "I play my cards" and "I play the situation," and it's the concept that makes poker click for most people.

Read more: Master the Flop with the Continuation Bet

Here's the shape of the evening so you're not guessing at any point.

The schedule

6:30 — Doors and food. Registration opens, there's food out, people are talking. Nothing has started. Come hungry.

7:00 — First hand. Everybody plays at once across the tables. As players run out of chips, the remaining players will consolidate into fewer tables until we have only a single table full of players left and then, eventually, just a single player: the winner.

Around 11:00 — Done. The structure is built to finish in about three and a half or four hours. There are short breaks along the way.

Buying in

The buy-in is $20, and you start with 10,000 in chips. Everyone starts with the same stack, and the chips have no cash value — they're just how we keep score.

The blinds go up every 15 minutes

This is a tournament, not a cash game, which may be unfamiliar to you.

What that means is that you start with 10,000 chips while the blinds are 50/100. That's 100 big blinds — a very deep stack, and you can afford to be patient.

By Level 7 the blinds are 500/1,000. That same 10,000 is now 10 big blinds, and patience is no longer an option. Nothing changed about your chips. The blinds grew around them.

The habit worth building on night one: don't think "I have 10,000 chips." Think "I have this many big blinds." It's the single biggest difference between how new and experienced players see the late stages of a tournament.

Prizes

Roughly the top 20% of entries get paid, so with 20 players that's about four spots. $5 of every buy-in goes into bounties instead of the main prize pool — see Module 18 for how those work.

Our game is friendly, not serious

It's a friendly game. Everyone at that table has been the newest person in the room at some point, and most of the people you'll be playing against learned poker at this table at some point in the past year or two. Nobody is going to be impatient with you.

We use colored chips to assign seats randomly. It's very simple once you see it.

The chip has two pieces of information

The color tells you which table. Each table has a felt with a matching colorway:

• Red chip → the red table. Deep burgundy with light blue trim. This is the main table in the dining room.
• Blue chip → the blue table. Steel blue and navy. The second table located on the back patio.
• Grey chip → the grey table. Charcoal with lavender trim. It's the round one in the living room, used for larger events.

Just match the color in your hand to the color of the felt.

The number tells you which seat.

How to count the seats

Each table will have a dealer button on it. Seats are numbered starting from the dealer button and going clockwise.

• Seat 1 is at the dealer button position — the top of the table.
• Then count clockwise: 2, 3, 4, and around.

So if your chip says 5, find seat 1 at the button, then count four more seats clockwise around the table.

If you can't work it out, hold up your chip and somebody will point.

Our chips are custom-made, and each denomination has its own color and its own version of the mountain logo. Here's what you'll be handling.

There are also special chips that aren't related to the betting:

• Bounty chip (pink) — everyone gets one at the start. It's worth $5 and it's double-sided: one face reads BOUNTY, the other reads ALL IN. Module 18 explains it.
• Re-entry chip (peacock blue) — At events where you get exactly one re-entry, this chip is your ticket. If you bust, you bring it to the tournament director along with your fee and get a fresh stack. Once you've used it you don't have one anymore, which is how everybody keeps track.

A tip that will save you some confusion

Stack your chips by color in front of you, from the smallest denomination on one side to the largest denomination at the other (this is how they will be on the table when you arrive), and keep them visible. Other players are allowed to ask how much you have, and it's much easier for everyone if it's stacked neatly.

And when you bet, put your chips out in one motion. Reaching back for more after you've already pushed some forward is called a string bet, and it isn't allowed. Easier still: just say the number out loud. Saying "I raise to two thousand" is binding and saves you if you miscount the amount of the chips that you grab.

Saturday's event has bounties, and they're simple.

How it works

Everyone starts with one pink bounty chip. It sits in front of you all night.

If somebody knocks you out, you hand them your chip. That's it. They now have two (until they bust out and have to hand one over).

Each chip is worth $5, paid out at the end of the night. Five dollars of every $20 buy-in goes into bounties rather than the main prize pool.

If you win the whole tournament, you keep your own chip and collect the $5 for it, on top of everything else you've won.

So a bounty chip in front of you is either $5 you're holding onto or $5 you took off somebody. Collect a few and you can have a genuinely good night even without making the final table.

What it changes about how you play

Calling an all-in is a slightly better deal than it looks. You're playing for the pot and for $5. It's a small edge, but it's a real one — especially against a short stack, where the pot is small and the bounty is a meaningful chunk of what's at stake.

Expect other people to call you more. Everyone at the table has the same incentive, so when you're the one who's short, you'll get called more often than you otherwise would. Plan for that: if you're low on chips, the hands you push with should be ones you're genuinely happy to show down.

The other side of the chip

The pink chip is double-sided — the reverse reads ALL IN. Flip it over and put it out in front of you when you're all in, so the dealer and the rest of the table can see it clearly from across the room. Small thing, but it prevents a lot of confusion in a busy hand.

None of this is complicated, and nobody is going to be annoyed with you. But knowing it in advance removes most of the nervousness.

Wait for your turn. Action goes clockwise. Even if you know you're folding, hold on until it reaches you — acting early gives away information to the players between you.

Say your action out loud. "Check." "Call." "Raise to fifteen hundred." Verbal is binding and it's far easier than counting chips under pressure.

One motion for chips. Push what you're betting forward in a single move. Don't go back for more.

Don't show your cards. Not to the player next to you, not to someone who already folded, not even after you fold. Cards stay face down in front of you until showdown.

Keep your cards on the table and in front of you, where the dealer can see them. Otherwise, the dealer may not realize you are still in the hand.

Don't talk about a hand you're not in. If you folded and you can see that somebody's about to make a mistake, let them make it. Commentary during a live hand is the one real faux pas.

Ask anything. What's the bet? How much do I have? What beats what? Is it my turn? Ask. Everybody here played their first hand once, and most of them played it at this table.

1. Playing hands because you're bored

Poker involves an enormous amount of folding. That's the game working, not the game being boring. Watch the hands you're not in — you'll learn more from those than from the ones you play.

2. Falling in love with an Ace

A♠️ 4♦️ is still a hand with a 4 in it. An Ace on the board doesn't help you nearly as much as you'd like when the other guy has A-Q.

3. Calling "just to see one more card"

Every call costs something. Before you make it, count your outs and use the Rule of 2 — each card that would give you the winning hand is worth roughly 2% per card still to come. If you've got four outs and one card left, you're about 8%. That's often not worth it if the bet is big.

4. Slow-playing your big hands

If you have a monster hand, your default should be to bet it. You cannot win a large pot if nobody puts chips in, and checking to be sneaky usually just wins you a small one. This is the most common and most expensive habit at our tables.

5. Being embarrassed to ask what something means

There is no version of this where asking is worse than guessing.

Screenshot this. That's what it's for.

Hand rankings, best to worst

Royal Flush · Straight Flush · Four of a Kind · Full House · Flush · Straight · Three of a Kind · Two Pair · One Pair · High Card

A flush beats a straight. A full house beats a flush.

How a hand goes

2 private cards → Pre-flop betting
3 shared cards → Flop → betting
1 shared card → Turn → betting
1 shared card → River → betting
Best five cards wins → Showdown

What can I do?

Nobody has bet → Check or Bet
Somebody has bet → Fold, Call, or Raise
Always available → All in

Before the flop

Play: any pocket pair · any suited Ace · any two cards Ten or higher
Fold everything else — especially when you're one of the first to act
Raise or fold. Don't limp.

After the flop

Strong → bet or raise
Medium → check or call
Nothing → check or fold
Draw → count your outs, ×4 on the flop, ×2 on the turn. Consider betting or calling a bet if you have a lot of outs.

If you understand Texas Hold'em, you already know almost everything about Pineapple. There is exactly one new decision.

Instead of two cards, you get three. Then, after the first round of betting but before the flop, you throw one away.

From that moment forward, it is ordinary Texas Hold'em.

The whole game in twenty seconds

Texas Hold'em: Get 2 cards → Bet → Flop → Turn → River

Pineapple: Get 3 cards → Bet → Discard 1 → Flop → Turn → River

After the discard you have two cards, same as everyone else, and everything in Track 1 and Track 2 applies.

This is not Crazy Pineapple

If you search Pineapple poker online, you'll find rules saying you discard after seeing the flop. That's a different game called Crazy Pineapple, and it's not what we play.

At Pinnacle: pre-flop betting ends → you discard one card face down → then the flop is dealt.

You do not get to see the flop before choosing. That makes the decision more interesting.

Read the full rules: Three Cards, One Discard: Pineapple Explained

One rule covers most of it:

Keep the two cards that work best together.

Not automatically the two biggest. Cards work together when they make a pair, share a suit, or sit close enough in rank to make a straight.

Easy one

You get A♠️ K♠️ 4♦️. Keep A♠️ K♠️, discard the 4♦️. Two big cards that can also make a flush.

Also easy

You get Q❤️ Q♦️ 7♣️. Keep the Q❤️ Q♦️, discard the 7♣️. You already have a pair — don't break it up.

The one that trips people up

You get A♠️ 7♦️ 6♦️. The Ace looks obvious. But compare:

• A♠️ 7♦️ — will usually make one pair and hope it's good
• 7♦️ 6♦️ — can make pairs, two pair, and three of a kind (just like the A♠️ 7♦️), plus straights, and flushes

Depending on the situation, the two little cards may be the better partnership. You don't need to get every close call right. Just build the habit of asking: which two of these work best together?

Three cards doesn't make every hand playable

You get Q♣️ 8❤️ 3♦️. Congratulations, you have three bad cards instead of two. After the discard it's still a weak hand. Fold it.

Pineapple gives you more chances at a good starting hand. It does not mean you should play everything.

Read more: Which Two Do You Keep?

Here's the part that's easy to miss:

Your opponents got three cards too.

Everyone gets to pick the best two out of three, so everyone arrives at the flop holding better cards than they normally would. Pocket pairs are more common. Two cards of the same suit are more common. Strong coordinated hands show up far more often.

Expect stronger hands at showdown. Three adjustments:

1. Don't fall in love with one pair

Top pair is still good, but it's less impressive here than in standard Hold'em. If you have A♠️ Q♠️ on a Q❤️ 8♣️ 3♦️ board, you should still like it. But if a normally cautious player starts pushing chips in on the turn and river, take that seriously.

2. Be extra careful on connected boards

A flop like 9♠️ 8♠️ 7❤️ is dangerous in Hold'em. It's worse in Pineapple, because everyone got to choose the two most useful cards out of three. When the board's cards all work together, they are also more likely to work together with the cards in the players' hands.

3. Bet your strong hands — and bet bigger

Don't respond to all this by playing scared. Your cards got better too.

When you make a genuinely big hand — a set, straight, flush — put real chips in. Your opponents are more likely than usual to have something worth calling with (either a good second-best hand or a draw to a hand that could beat you). That's good news for you, and it's wasted if you make a tiny bet.

Read more: Expect Stronger Hands When You Play Pineapple

1. You get three cards instead of two.
2. After the pre-flop betting, discard one — before you see the flop.
3. Keep the two that work best together, not automatically the two highest.
4. Everyone else improved their hand too, so expect stronger hands than usual.
5. After the discard, forget about Pineapple and play Texas Hold'em.

One practical thing

Discard face down, and take a second. Once the card is released, it's gone. On your first few hands, physically separate your two keepers from your discard before you let it go. Nobody will rush you.

That's it. You're ready to play.