Rules for Popular Poker Variations

When you watch poker on TV you often always see the poker game called texas hold'em, and yes its the most used one, most popular, bit its not the only on available, there are several different poker games with different rules, styles and strategies.
I will try to limit this article to the top 4 most played variations, for several reasons, for one, this could be a very big article, two I usually only play texas hold'em my self, though I have tried a couple of other styles and variations of poker. But I always seem to get back to texas hold'em, mostly because everybody else is. Last reason to only talk about 4 kinds of poker games, is the other ones is just different variations of those four poker games.
But here is a short description of the top 4 most played poker games.
As I said Texas hold'em.
The most popular poker game, played as limit or no limit. Texas hold'em poker is a community card game where players are each dealt two cards while sharing five common cards. The player who stays in the pot until the end and combines their cards with the community ones to make the best five card hand wins, unless no one calls in which case the only remain hand wins.
Omaha hold'em.
It is a community card game like Texas hold'em but with Omaha you get four personal cards, share five cards.
Stud.
This is also a very popular poker game, though not as popular as texas hold'em, you have five cards on the hand, not shared cards, you get to select some cards you want to exchange to new ones, then see who has the best hand, with the same card rankings as in texas hold'em.
Stud has been a lot more popular then it is now, where texas hold'em poker has taken over most of the poker world.
Draw poker.
Draw poker is the most simple poker game of them all, and many people know it. Due to its extremely high level of basic skill (bad players simply have no chance in even the medium run), Draw is almost extinct in casinos. Jacks or Better, where a player must have a pair of jacks or better before they can open before the draw is a common variation.
Now with this knowledge you should be able to at least play a round of free poker online to learn the basics of poker. So go out have fun play carefully at first until you know the game.