Online casinos offer a variety of poker formats

Of all the online casino games now attracting an increasing following in Ireland, poker is probably the favourite. Playing poker at an online casino takes many forms, with Texas Hold’em by far the most popular poker format with experienced poker players, but perhaps not the best choice for beginners. There are two potential problems for the newcomer to online poker with the Texas Hold’em format. Firstly because it is a community card game with multiple betting rounds on each hand, the stakes can increase very rapidly and quickly exceed a player’s budget, and then there is the potential for an inexperienced player to be gambling against a more experienced player without knowing that they are. Fortunately there are other online poker formats available at many of the online casinos, some of which are far more suitable for a new poker player learning the game. Amongst the casino games offered at many online casinos is Caribbean Stud, which is a very simple poker game played against the house. We have detailed the rules on Caribbean Stud as it is played online in our casino games pages, but all a player needs to know is how poker hands are ranked so it is an ideal starting game for a beginner. The player chooses an initial bet, called an ante bet, and is then dealt five cards all face up. The dealer also has five cards but only one card is face up, so the player must then decide whether his hand is a potential winning hand or whether to fold. The player also has the opportunity to raise the bet at this stage, but only by an amount equal to his initial bet, so the pot can’t get out of the player’s control in Caribbean Stud poker. The hands are then revealed and a winning hand is paid out at even money on the total stake. There is one proviso when playing Caribbean Stud online and that is that the dealer must have a qualifying hand, normally at least Ace or King high, otherwise a raised bet is returned and the ante paid at even money. If you want to learn poker give Caribbean Stud a go.