Flop Quad Kings

Patience is one of the essential keys in becoming a good poker player. You will not succeed in the long term if you do not know how to be patient. In fact, to be the best poker player you can possibly be, it is absolutely, one hundred percent vital.

Sure, it is tempting to play every hand, because you have to figure, the more hands you play, the more money you can win, right? Wrong. You need to learn the importance of playing quality hands, otherwise you may end up losing a whole lot of money.

Sure, there are times you can play strange hands, to throw your opponents off a bit, but you should not make a practice out of it. It will only make you get sloppy.

All right, now we are ready to tackle the “board cards.” They are also, and perhaps more widely, known as community cards. Anyway, they are the cards that the dealer lays face up on the table. They include the flop, the turn, and the river, which we will get to in a little while.

In some variations of poker, you have a draw — contrary to what you might be thinking, this does not necessarily mean that you are drawing new cards. On the contrary, it means you are attempting to improve your present hand by using the board, or community, cards. You want some specific cards to show up on the table.

The pre flop describes the point at which your hand gets dealt to you. At this point, each player receives two cards which only they can see.

You are new to poker. You finally sit down at a serious game, be it online or in a bricks and mortar casino. Much to your dismay and embarrassment, however, you discover that you have no clue what these people are talking about at all. What does he mean, the pre flop? What board cards? Are you playing a board game? Is this a bad dream?

No! It’s real! All because you did not take the time to sit down and learn the basic terms used in most, if not all, variations of poker, before sitting down to play with the big dogs. This might seem ridiculous, but it has happened to a lot of us after we have made the move from playing with the boys in the basement to entering, say, a serious tournament. Fortunately, this next series of posts is here to help you out considerably.

Let’s start with the very basic basics. The blinds — big blinds, small blinds, blinds everywhere. Blinds are like antes, in that they are forced bets. However, they are replacing the traditional ante with which a lot of us are familiar. You have to pay the blinds before being able to see your cards.

Flopping quads — whether you are looking to flop kings, queens, jacks, tens, or even twos — is never a sure thing.  That bears repeating and an enormous amount of emphasis: flopping quad kings is never a sure thing.

There are poker players out there, those who play both online and offline in bricks casinos, who make it look like the easiest thing in the world.  Phil Ivey comes to mind there — but if you ever get the chance to ask him, even he will tell you that it is never, ever an absolute certain, one hundred percent positive bet.

It might seriously burst your bubble to hear this, but quite often — more often than you are likely thinking, in fact — the road to flopping quad kings is paved with nothing more than luck and coincidence.  The cards you are dealt are the cards you are dealt.  You can bluff it, of course, but you have to be darn good.

Generally, you can be more optimistic if you have two kings and one turns up in the flop.  You will be able to tell, a little, from the betting rounds just how excited your competitors are, which may give you an idea if they have a king as well.