Just Poker Talk

Texas Hold’em is the king of poker. It is the game you most often see being played on televised tournaments including the World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event, the biggest cash prize in the poker world.

Learning the rules can be easily done just by reading this entry, but it takes much longer to learn how to win, and a lifetime (if you are lucky) to master.

Before I start with the rules, it is important to first grasp what hand will be the “winner”.

The winner:

First off, in order to make a winning hand, you can use one, both, or none of your two hole cards, and anywhere from 3 to all 5 of the community cards to make your 5-card hand. Even if you only make a pair, you still have a 5 card hand, the three highest cards left would fill out your hand and they would act as kickers.

The hand ranking is the same as any poker match, from high card to a royal flush.

A low pair will rarely win, but a flush or even a set will give you some great odds.

The best hand at the conclusion of the final round of betting takes the pot.

The start:

Before any cards are dealt, the blinds are posted by the players after the button. The button is just that… a round button which moves one space to the left each hand. The person directly to the left of the button is the small blind, and the next person is the big blind. So in a “5/10″ game, the blinds are 5chips and 10chips. Blinds exist to induce action.

Here is an example: Note that the second stack of 10 chips is a Pokerstars (and other places) rule where if you are playing your first hand at the table you must post the amount of the big blind no matter where you are in relation to the button.

Hole cards:

Next, each player is delt two cards face-down which only they can see. This is also shown in the above image. Based on how good your cards are, you may wish to either fold, check, call or raise. The following image shows my two hole cards, and that someone raised the blind up to 50, and that the following person re-raised the bet to 140. Raises and reraises can occur at any time, and is the most important part of the game. Knowing when to bet, raise and fold is eveything in poker. My Q-10 would not be call-worthy in a cash game, but since this is playmoney and I wanted to try and win to show off, I stayed in. =)

Here is the raise and re-raise:

Community cards:

Now that everyone has recieved their two hole cards, and bet the pot up to their heart’s content, it is time to throw some more cards down. The method of doing so is referred to as “burn’em and turn’em”. The card on top of the deck is “burned” and discarded, never to be looked at or used. This occurs before both the flop, turn, and river. The next three cards are taken out and turned over for all to see in the middle of the table. These are the first of 5 total community cards. In Hold’em you can use all or none of the community cards to make your best 5 card hand. After the flop, a round of betting ensues before the turn.

Here is an example of a flop:

The Turn:

After another card is burned (the second in total), a fourth card is added to the community cards. This fourth card is referred to as “The Turn” or “Fourth Street”. Another round of betting ensues before the fifth and final card is added to the community cards.

In this example, there is a King and a set of 7’s on the board (communty cards). With three people in the hand and a nice size pot going, the odds are someone at least has a king, if not the fourth seven, so unless you have a king, the seven, or pocket aces to beat the King full house, now is the time to get out of the hand.

Here is the image:

The River:

The fifth and final community card also comes after a burned card (the third and final one), and is called either “The River” or “Fifth Street”. Once in play, it is time to size up you and your opponent’s hands and decide whether it is time to take part in this final round of betting.

When the betting is complete, if there is more than one person left in the hand, their hole cards are turned over and the winner is given the pot. If only one person remains due to a fold, then they only need to show their cards if they feel like it (most commonly done when showing off a bluff on a large pot to try and get your opponent on tilt), or otherwise they can Muck their cards which means they keep them face down while tossing them to the dealer.

In this example, both players had the king to give both the same fullhouse. Because of this, the tied the hand and split the pot equally. You can also see that one of them is displaying the “All-in” message, which means he pushed the last of his chips into the post during the hand.

Here is the image:

Conclusion:

I hope this helps in your understanding of the rules of Texas Hold’em. It is a rather straight-forward game that can be picked up after only watching a few hands. As with all forms of poker, the best way to learn is play.

I will cover the strategy of the game in a later post, but since everyone has their own way of thinking, it is best to get out there now and find your own. Get the family or friends in a friendly game, or hop online and learn with playmoney chips (which I do not recommend aside from learning the rules, as learning strategy is near impossible with the reckless play exhibited by people who play with playmoney).

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