How to make a poker hand

The most important part of understanding the poker rules is to know how to make a poker hand, using your hole cards and the five community cards in the middle of the table. See the panel on the right for the relative strength of poker hands - note that as the strength of the poker hand increases the probability of making this hand becomes less.
When you play Texas Holdem poker, you have to make the best five card hand of the seven total cards available to you at showdown. In Omaha however you must use two out of your four hole cards and three of the five community cards to make a hand, meaning amongst others that you can't 'play the board' or make a flush with just one spade in your hand on a four spade board. 

Example in Hold'em

Our Hand     The Board               

The best five card poker hand out of the these seven available cards is :

   - Two pair, Jacks and Nines with a King kicker.

The kicker is crucial in deciding the winner when both players have the same hand strength - this situation arises very often when there is a pair, two pair, trips or quads on the board. The key is to arrange the hand from highest card to lowest so you can easily see which player has the better kicker.