Part 1: Tools and the Table — Cards, the table, chips, blinds

The 52 Cards of a Deck

Jokers are not used

There are 13 ranks (numbers)

A (ace), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
A is the strongest and 2 is the weakest
But A can also be used as 1 (covered in Part 2, “Hand Rankings”)

There are four suits (marks).

From the left: spades (♠) / hearts (♥) / diamonds (♦) / clubs (♣).

Each is one equal set of 13 cards.

52 cards in total

4 suits × 13 ranks = 52 cards
There is only one copy of each card
This “only one copy of each” later becomes the foundation for counting combos

Suits Have No Ranking

An important rule to learn first

Then what happens with the same hand?

If they are exactly as strong, the pot is split
This is called a split pot

There is no such thing as ♠ being stronger than ♣.

A♠ and A♥ are exactly as strong.

This is one of the biggest differences from other card games.

When suits matter

Collecting 5 cards of the same suit makes a flush
What matters is only “whether they match,” not which is stronger

How to Write Cards and Hands

The notation used in all the material from here on

Written as	Read as	Meaning
A♠ / As	ace of spades	One ace of spades
K♥ / Kh	king of hearts	One king of hearts
AK	ace-king	An ace and a king, 2 cards (suits not specified)
AKs	ace-king suited	AK of the same suit. s means suited
AKo	ace-king offsuit	AK of different suits. o means offsuit
77	sevens / pocket sevens	A pair of 7s
A♠7♦2♣	ace-seven-deuce rainbow	The 3 cards of the board written in a row

= 99 (pocket pair)

= A7s (suited)

The Table and the Seats

The base is the 6-player table (6-max)

Each seat has a name

BTN: the button. The seat that can act last
SB: the small blind
BB: the big blind
UTG: the seat that acts first
HJ: the hijack
CO: the cutoff

Direction of play

It goes clockwise
BTN → SB → BB → UTG → HJ → CO
The seat names are decided by where the button is

There are also 9-player tables, but the thinking is the same. This material uses six players as the standard.

The Dealer Button

Every hand, it moves one seat clockwise

What the button is

A round marker with a “D” on it
This seat acts last in that hand
It is the most favorable seat

Why it moves

So that everyone takes the favorable seat equally in turn
Each time one hand ends, it moves to the player on the left
With six players, it goes around once in six hands

The seats do not move; the button does. Where you sit does not change.

Blinds

Every hand, there are two players who are forced to put in chips

The two blinds

SB (small blind): puts in 0.5BB
BB (big blind): puts in 1BB
They are forced to put these in before seeing their cards

Why they are needed

To make sure there are chips in the pot from the start
If nobody put anything in, everyone would just wait for strong hands
It is a mechanism to get the game moving

BB is short for “big blind,” and it is also the name of the unit for amounts.

Chips, Stacks and BB Units

Think not in amounts of money but in “how many BBs”

What a stack is

The total chips in front of you
You fight only with the chips you have on the table
You cannot add more from your wallet in the middle (during a hand)

Why count in BB units

Because even if the stakes (amounts) change, the decisions stay the same
Think “100BB,” not “$100”

The effective stack means the smaller of your stack and your opponent’s.

A concrete example

At a table where BB = $1, you hold $100 in chips → your stack is 100BB
At a table where BB = $10, even if you hold $1,000 → it is still 100BB

These two are exactly the same situation in terms of strategy.

What the Pot Is

The pile of chips in the middle of the table that the winner takes

All the chips that everyone puts in are gathered in the middle of the table. This is the pot.
The player who wins that hand takes the whole pot.

How the pot grows

It starts from the blinds (1.5BB)
It grows when someone raises
It grows each time a bet goes in on each street

This is the important part

The bigger the pot, the stronger the reason to call
The ratio “how much you pay and how much you can win” decides your decision
This ratio is called pot odds (Glossary)

At first, it is enough to remember only that “the pot is the pile the winner takes in full.”

Check

Which is stronger, A♠ or A♥?

A♠
A♥
They are equally strong

See the answer

They are equally strong. Suits have no ranking (the section “Suits Have No Ranking”).