Poker in 60 seconds.

Everything you need to play Daily Five — hand rankings, positions, betting rounds, and the jargon. No fluff. Read top to bottom.

A Nash primer · ~60 seconds · No login

01The game

No-limit Texas Hold'em. Every player gets two private cards ("hole cards"). Then five community cards are dealt face-up in the middle. You make the best five-card poker hand using any combination of your two and the five on the board. Best hand wins the pot.

The pot grows in four betting rounds — pre-flop, flop, turn, river — separated by community cards being dealt. On each round you can fold (give up), check (pass when nobody has bet), call (match the current bet), raise (put in more), or jam (push your whole stack in).

02Hand rankings

Strongest at the top. If two players have the same hand, the higher cards inside it win.

Royal flush A♥K♥Q♥J♥10♥
Straight flush 9♠8♠7♠6♠5♠
Four of a kind 7♠7♥7♦7♣K♠
Full house Q♠Q♥Q♣5♠5♦
Flush A♥J♥9♥5♥2♥
Straight 9♦8♣7♥6♠5♦
Three of a kind J♠J♥J♦8♣2♥
Two pair K♠K♥9♣9♦2♥
One pair A♠A♥Q♣7♦3♣
High card A♣J♦9♥6♠3♣

03Positions

The seat you sit in matters as much as your cards. Later position = more information = bigger edge. A 6-handed table looks roughly like this, in the order players act pre-flop:

UTGFirst to act

HJHijack

COCutoff

BTNDealer · best

SBSmall blind

BBBig blind

UTG ("under the gun") is the worst — everyone gets to react to you. BTN ("the button") is the best — you act last on every street after the flop. The blinds (SB and BB) are forced bets that seed the pot; they act last pre-flop and first afterward.

04Betting rounds

Pre-flop — everyone has their two hole cards. Action starts left of the big blind. Most hands end here; a single raise often wins it.
Flop — three community cards. Action starts with the first remaining player left of the dealer.
Turn — one more community card. New round of betting.
River — final community card. Last round of betting. Whoever's left shows their hand.

05The jargon

You'll see these terms in every Daily Five spot. Memorise this once:

bb: Big blinds — the unit everything is measured in. A "3bb raise" at $1/$2 stakes is a $6 raise.
100bb: Your stack size — 100 big blinds is the standard "deep" stack.
3-bet: Re-raise pre-flop. The blinds are bet 1, the open is bet 2, the re-raise is bet 3.
4-bet: Re-raise the 3-bet. Big money goes in here.
c-bet: Continuation bet. You raised pre-flop, you bet again on the flop to keep telling the story you have a strong hand.
open: The first raise pre-flop, after the blinds.
limp: Just calling the big blind instead of raising. Usually bad.
jam: All-in. The whole stack.
OOP / IP: Out of position / in position. OOP acts first on the flop, turn, and river — a disadvantage.
HU: Heads-up — just two players left, often the SB vs BB.
SRP / 3bp: Single-raised pot / 3-bet pot — how much was raised pre-flop. Big-pot vs small-pot strategy differ.
top pair: You hit the highest card on the flop. E.g. you hold A-K, flop is K-7-2 — that's top pair with the ace kicker.
kicker: Your second card, used as a tiebreaker. A-K beats A-Q when both pair the ace.
dry / wet board: Dry = disconnected, few draws (K-7-2 rainbow). Wet = many possible straights and flushes (9♠8♠7♣).
range: The set of hands you (or your opponent) could have, given how the betting went.

06What "GTO" means

Game Theory Optimal — the strategy a perfect computer would play. It's the answer Daily Five marks correct.

Sometimes GTO is pure ("raise 100% of the time"). Sometimes it's a mix ("raise 60%, call 40%") — the computer literally flips a weighted coin to stay unpredictable. We call those mixed strategies, and we mark either branch correct (it shows as a half-credit amber).

You don't have to play GTO to win — most humans play poorly enough that you can beat them with simpler, exploitative strategies. But GTO is the floor. If you know it, nobody can run you over.

That's it. Read the spot, pick what a perfect computer would pick, and don't worry about being wrong — every hand explains why after you answer.

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