@Graphista
I can play most card games but I’d LOVE to learn to play poker as the psychological aspect fascinates me!
Are you handy with apps and technology. If so, download Zynga Poker. It's free, and they give you play money to play with (I'm a billionaire if you look at my Zynga balance rather than my actual bank balance). You play against real people and you start to pick it up fairly quickly. You can turn on a strength meter if you want, which is a bar that appears on your screen to tell you how strong your hand is.
It's helpful to have the list of hand strengths nearby too.
High card
Pair
Two Pair
Three of a Kind (3 jack's, three 2s etc, but the higher 3 of a kind will always win)
Straight (five consecutive cards, ace is high or low, higher straight wins)
Flush (five cards of the same suit, any order)
Full House (two of one card, three of another, so QQ, 333)
Four of a Kind (eg 7777)
Straight Flush (consecutive cards in the same suit)
Royal Flush (A, K, Q, J, 10 in the same suit)
The idea of Texas Hold 'Em is to make the best possible hand out of five cards.
You are dealt two. You cannot change these, but you can choose to fold (throw them away) or keep them for betting. Once everybody has established what they are doing, three cards are dealt face up on the table. This is the Flop. Betting then resumes as those cards may have improved your hand. Then another card is dealt face up. This is the Turn. Another round of betting. Then the final card is dealt. This is the River. The final round of betting follows and ends with either the players showing their cards (unless someone has bet and everyone else has folded, the person making the bet does not have to show their cards). This is where a lot of the psychological aspect lies and how you can bluff. Can you bet big enough to scare everyone away from the pot? Are you willing to call their bluff and potentially lose your chips. You can fold at any point in the game. There is no obligation to keep playing a hand.
Once you are feeling a little more confident, look up Redtooth Poker. It's a country wide league. Pubs and social clubs tend to host them. If you put your town or postcode into the website, it'll bring up your local ones.
It's tournament based, so free to enter, though some pubs have a £5 ish buy in. That money goes into a pot for the winner on the night. You play for tournament points and if you finish top three in your pub after 12 weeks (one season) then you go to Regionals, which brings together the top three from pubs in your region (usually about 150 people). The top 7-10 from Regionals (it changes) go on to Nationals (about 500 people). I've played at Regionals a few times and Nationals once.
I absolutely love it, and I miss my Sunday poker nights. I'll be so pleased when they reinstate them.
When you play in a pub, you tend to find that it's the same core faces, with new people popping up here and there. The more you play with someone, the more you learn about their style of play. For example, you always play from left to right. So there's one guy I hate sitting to the left of as he's an aggressive player, making huge bets early on to push people out of the game. If I sit to his left, I have already made my bet when he goes, so it costs me chips when he starts raising it. However, if I'm on his right, I can fold without having to pay a penny if he pushes if I have a weaker hand than I'm not prepared to bet big with.
In a casino, such as regionals, the staff will tell you where to sit, so that no-one has an advantage. Some pubs do the same, others don't. Mine doesn't. It's more of a sit down wherever vibe, so now I place myself to his right.