The old and the new.

When I first played poker in the 1960's we basically played 5 card draw with some variations like "Southern Cross" (don't ask) and "Seven Card Stud" thrown in for interest. 3 card "Brag" was another popular game, which used to get quite ferocious with the "betting only finished when there were two players left" rule. I look back now and shudder. I didn't have the blindest notion what I was doing back then, but I think I can safely say that neither did anyone else in our group, since somehow I contrived to be a winning player!

When I started playing again some five years ago, after a lapse of, let's just say a few years, the game that was all the rage was of course Texas Hold'em - easy to learn and equally easy to lose money at. The big difference was that, thanks to the internet, there was no lack of instruction available on how to play effectively - the only real task was to sort the wheat from the chaff. Nothing stands still of course and now the "coming game" is "Pot Limit Omaha". This is a particularly evil variant, full of temptations, where very high hands can appear from all angles.

If the spirit of adventure is with you, you could do a lot worse than look here for some guidance on how to play Pot Limit Omaha. And if you want to take a trip down nostalgia boulevard, you could try here for instruction on how to play Seven Card Stud.