Five card stud or Hold 'Em or what? And are you looking for like beginner strategies or like you don't even know the order that hands go?

Whatever standard of poker that's most commonly played, and no, I don't know shit about poker. Nothing.

Athletic Support forum?

err, anyway
I don't know how little you know about cards, but if you truly know nothing, there are 52 in a deck, divided into 4 suits (spades,hearts,diamonds,clubs), each with 13 cards, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A

There are many variations of poker, but the goal is for the most part, the same, to achieve the best poker hand!
A poker hand will consist of 5 cards,
here is a list in order from worst to best:

<table>
<tr><td>Pair</td><td> (2 of the same number)</td></tr>
<tr><td>2 pairs </td><td> (2 sets of 2 of the same number (such as 5,5,7,7))</td></tr>
<tr><td>3 of a kind </td><td>(3 of the same number)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Straight </td><td>(5 cards in sequence) eg. 5,6,7,8,9, or 9,10,J,Q,K, or anything like that)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Flush </td><td>(all 5 cards are the same suit) eg. all Spades, or all Hearts</td></tr>
<tr><td>Full House </td><td>(3 cards of 1 number, plus 2 cards of another number) eg. 5,5,5,8,8</td></tr>
<tr><td>4 of a kind </td><td>(4 cards of the same number)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Straight flush </td><td>(5 cards in sequence AND the same suit)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Royal flush </td><td>(A,K,Q,J,10 all of the same suit)</td></tr>
</table>

Anyway,
I suppose the most popular these days is texas hold em, I won't go into much detail (especially since I'm no expert), but as for the basics

Each player is dealt 2 cards (which only they are allowed to see)
then there is a round of betting,
then the "flop" is dealt (3 cards are placed in the center of the table, which may be used by anyone/everyone in forming of the best possible hand)
more betting
then a fourth card is dealt to the center (I think it's called the 'turn' but I get them mixed up)
more betting
then a fifth card is dealt to the center (I think this one's the "river")
more betting (?)

At this point, everyone reveals their cards
Whoever has the best poker hand takes the money... (And, since there are 7 cards to work with, you would count the best poker hand you are able to make with 1 or both of your own cards, plus however many of the center cards)

Since in Texas hold em you have absolutely no control over the cards you have, all of the strategy is in betting / knowing when to fold

Well, alright. Texas Hold 'Em is easily the most popular variant, and is what you'll be seeing played on TV and in tournaments. The basic premise is that each player has 2 cards of their own and several cards on the table that are used by all players to make their best hand. It starts with 3 cards on the table with each round of betting adding another card on the table, up to a maximum of 5. http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Texas-Hold%27em gives a step by step guide that is very thorough and feel free to ask for any clarifications in here.

General terminology:

pot - The prizemoney of the hand. Anything bet is added to the pot.
ante - Money put in the pot before plays starts. In Hold 'Em the Small Blind and Big Blind are mandatory, while all other players only need to ante after the cards are dealt.
flop - The first 3 cards laid on the table.
river - 4th card on the table.
run - 5th and final card on the table.
check - During the round of betting, as long as no bets have been made yet, you may decide to not bet and betting is moved on to the next player. If all players check then no bets take place during that round of betting.
call - Matching the current bet. All players have to have bet equal amount at the end of a round of betting (unless they are already "all in").
raise - Betting higher than the current bet. All players who have already bet will have to match the raise or fold.
fold - Withdraw from the current hand.

That should be enough to get you started.

One of the things alot of us have been talking about is keeping BILL SHARMAN CLAIMED OFF WAIVERS shit into one big thread, so here it is.

In the past week we've had a bunch of stuff happen, Kevin Garnett became a celtic for a bag of basketballs, theo ratliff's expiring contract, and potential.

Jermaine O'neill has politely asked Larry Bird for a trade to L.A, we'll see how that one goes.

My advice for learning Hold 'Em is to play online for a while, before playing with friends and/or at the casino. That way, you can learn the rules without having to worry about losing real money. Also, it takes a LOT of practice to become good at poker. I have been playing online for several months, and I am still TERRIBLE when I play with real people, and I have yet to attempt to sit down at a poker table at the casino.

mann the raptors got a big season ahead of em with this fresh new celtics line-up in town

theyll still kick ass though

As the title indicates, this topic is for all CFL related discussions. Feel free to talk about how awesome you think your favourite team is, who your favourite players are, why the CFL is better than the NFL, and so on. For those who might not be familiar with the CFL, feel free to ask questions. I will do my best to answer them, but I'm not an expert by any means (a fan, yes, an expert, hell no), so hopefully other people will help me with that sort of question.

Here are some useful websites related to the CFL:

Official CFL Website
BC Lions Website
Edmonton Eskimos Website
Calgary Stampeders Website
Saskatchewan Roughriders Website
Winnipeg Blue Bombers Website
Hamilton Tiger Cats Website
Toronto Argonauts Website
Montreal Alouettes Website

I am a loyal Edmonton fan. I used to be a fan of the Ottawa Rough Riders, back when they still existed, but that was mostly because my dad was a fan. As I grew older, I learned that being a fan just because your dad is a fan is stupid, and I began to cheer for my hometown team. I am, and always will be an Eskimos fan, even if they did have their worst season in over 30 years last season. Hopefully, they will play much, much better this year. Grey Cup? I hope so.

thanks....... for the excellent addition to the thread...............

Could you tell me why you think the raptors are going to have a great year? Maybe post some things you've been hearing about the team. How is CB4? Is he going to be healthy to start the year?

Some advice I'd give you about starting out in Hold'em is to play textbook. What I mean by that is to play tight, don't play anything lower than a J/10 in bad position if your chip stack is medium to low. Raise with pocket pairs 7 and up in most situations, and generally try to play smart poker.

Once you get better you can start getting creative.

your welcome. 

well yeah

the raps finally got their priorities straighten up and i think its about time, a perfect time for a resurgence.

after what theyve gone through the last 5-6 years... a key player getting injured, carter getting traded, coaches getting fired, g.ms getting fired, etc.. now, just when everyone didnt seem to care anymore (except for me, i stayed with them and never gave up hope ) and pretty much forgot that they existed, you get colangelo in the picture and gives the roster an extreme makeover, euro players like garbajosa, nesterovic, n bargnani (lucky #1 draft choice) come in and boom! shazam! i'm from toronto (prolly why i'm a fan in the first place) and some kids here never even of heard of the team till now.

and i gotta say the waiting paid off.

last season they got their 1st division champions banner (big woof but still), mitchell gets awarded coach of the year, and made it to the playoffs. they got elimanted 1st round but it didnt matter, i dont think they were expecting much anyway especially after kicking off the season pretty bad. none the less, this was definitley a big boost for them. seeing that bosh gets better every season, bargnani didnt turn out to be a darko, and more euro players like delfino are getting signed, theres nowhere else for them to go but up. oh yeah they got kapono, which is also good (pretty good replacement for mopete).

so even though, its gonna be a tough one with the new celtics this year, im sure theyll do better than last year. hey atleast its more of a challenge. ;-))

Dont let them catch on... Bet in odd strides like if you have really good cards bet decent and on the next set of betting bid low so they stay in and maybe even raise... getting you morr chips.  irrational betting is key and try not to act surprized or panic if you have a good or bad hand... people can detect that from a mile away if there any bit good.

This is terrible advice for a new player btw. You're not going to win anything by "irrational betting". Mixing your game up is an incredibly difficult process and it is not something for an amateur to consider.

I'm not sure how much of a fan base we have here for football, but training camp is going on now and pre-season games are just around the corner!

let's discuss woo 

Being a Patriots fan, I'm really worried. We've got a team of all stars, and the hype surrounding the team is HUGE. The way most people are reporting it, we've already won the super bowl. I've seen MULTIPLE TIMES people calling an undefeated season and we're not even past training camp. We've seen some pretty big injurys early on, but it's nothing we haven't had to work through in recent years. I feel like this is going to be a big passing year for the Pats, with Tom Brady sporting quite the line up of receivers as opposed to previous years. Who knows what could happen though? We could choke on the hype like the Charger's have previously, but right now this season seems to be shaping up quite nicely.

Well, I don't know if this is the most appropriate place for this, but since this is about athletics and all... what's your favourite sport? Again, as the rule says, no arguing about which sport is really a sport or not, unless someone mentions Megaman speedrunning or something.

Mine is cricket. Alot of cricket goes on down here in the West Indies and I live right next to a savannah that has cricket games everyday. It's one of two sports that I can tolerate watching (the other is football [soccer]) and one of many that I enjoy playing. I think it's a pretty exciting sport to watch and if you've ever been to a major cricket match, I'm sure you would've noticed the electricity in the air.

I also like cricket because you can play it almost anywhere; on your street, on the beach, anywhere, once you have the space, bat, a ball and something to place as a wicket. If you want to play for fun, you don't even need to have alot of players. So yeah, what's your favourite sport and why?

Depth Jumping.


Width Jumping too!

Baseball.  It's been my favorite for as long as I can remember. 

We are six days into August and it looks like a great month for baseball. A Rod hit home run 500, Bonds might pass Aaron, and some great division races are heating up. Oh and Yankees just tied Detroit for AL Wild Card, that's something.

Don't forget Glavine's 300th win.  It's been a pretty good season so far for milestones.  Biggio's 3,000th hit, Thomas's 500th homer, Smoltz's 200th win, Sosa's 600th homer, and Griffey is closing in on 600.  Other than the playoffs, the only thing I'm looking forward to is the Yankees game I'm going to next week.


@Noz.  Beating the Rangers really isn't that hard man.  They have the second worst record in baseball, and they've traded about 90% of their good players, so they're only going to go further downhill (I'm a Rangers fan btw). Oh well, at least they're not Tampa Bay.