The value of a starting hand can change dramatically after the flop. Regardless of initial strength, any hand can flop the nuts—for example, if the flop comes with three 2s, any hand holding the fourth 2 has the nuts. Conversely, the flop can undermine the perceived strength of any hand—A♣ A♥ would [...]

Roll your own is poker jargon used for a particular ruleset in certain poker variants, particularly in stud poker.In traditional stud poker games, cards are simply dealt to each player, either face up or face down according to the rules of the game being played, followed by betting. In roll your own [...]

Some forms of poker, often called lowball, sometimes called “low poker,” reward poor poker hands (in the traditional sense). There are three common variations on this idea, differing in whether aces are treated as high cards or low cards, and whether or not straights and flushes are used. The methods are:

Ace-to-five low: [...]

natural card
A card that isn’t wild or otherwise modified by the game rules. In some houses, a natural hand beats an equivalent hand that uses wild cards, though this is not generally the case.

When evaluating a hand before the flop, it’s useful to have some idea of how likely the hand is dominated. A dominated hand is a hand that is beaten by another hand (the dominant hand) and is extremely unlikely to win against it. Often the dominated hand has only a single card [...]

When facing two opponents, for any given starting hand the number of possible combinations of hands the opponents can have is

(50/2)(48/2) = 1,381800

hands. For calculating probabilities we can ignore the distinction between the two opponents holding A♠ J♥ and 8♥ 8♣ and the opponents holding 8♥ 8♣ and A♠ J♥. [...]

Play begins with each player being dealt one card face down, followed by one card face up (beginning as usual with the player to the dealer’s left). If played with a bring-in, the player with the lowest-ranking upcard must pay the bring in, and betting proceeds after that. If two players have [...]

Five-card draw is often the first poker variant learned by most players, and is very common in home games although it is now rare in casino and tournament play. The lowball variations make more interesting games and are more commonly played in casinos. Two to eight players can play.
The descriptions below assume [...]

M-ratio
In no-limit or pot limit games the ratio of stack to the blinds and/or antes. For example 8-way in a no limit game hold’em game with blinds of $50/$100 and an ante of $10 a stack of $23,000 has an M-ratio of 100. To further clarify, M = $23,000 / [$100 [...]

For any given starting hand, there are 50 × 49 ÷ 2 = 1,225 hands that an opponent can have before the flop. (After the flop, the number of possible hands an opponent can have is reduced by the three community cards revealed on the flop to 47 × 46 ÷ 2 [...]