Texas Hold'em

As with all standard poker games, the goal in hold’em is to create the best five-card hand. What distinguishes hold’em is that it’s a community card game, which means that there are five cards that all the players share. Each player is dealt two cards, face down. These are called “hole cards”. Next, five community cards are dealt face up in the centre of the table. Players then build the best possible hand out of a combination of their hole cards and the community cards. To give you a better idea of what we’re talking about, take a look at this sample hand. Note that this is what the table will look like at the completion of a hand.

Notice that Wendy’s hole cards are As Kh, while Skullman™ has Ac Jc. If Wendy combines her hole cards with the three community cards that give her the best five-card hand, she has two-pair, aces over kings, with a jack kicker. Skullman™’s best hand is two-pair, aces over jacks, with a king kicker. In this case, Wendy has the superior hand and wins the pot.

Poker is a betting game where some of the players post blinds. Simply speaking, a blind is a forced bet. Typically in hold’em there are two blinds: the small blind and the big blind.

The player to the immediate left of the dealer posts the small blind and the next player to the left posts the big blind. Obviously it would be unfair if the same players had to post blinds in every hand, which is why the position of the dealer is determined by a rotating dealer button: after each hand the dealer button moves clockwise one place.

In the example below, you’ll see what a table looks like after the hole cards have been dealt. Note that the dealer button is in front of Gerald, Victor has posted the small blind, and Jane has posted the big blind.

After the blinds are posted and each player’s two hole cards are dealt face down, action starts with the player immediately to the left of the big blind (in this case, Wendy). She has the choice of calling the big blind (matching the big-blind’s bet), raising (adding an additional bet), or folding (her hand). Note that checking (holding the hand without putting in money) is not an option. The blinds are live bets, and all remaining players are forced to react to them.

Action continues around the table, and each player has the option of calling, raising, or folding. Once the action returns to the blinds, they have a couple of options. If there has been a raise, the blinds can fold, call, or re-raise. If no one has raised, either of the blinds can take the opportunity to raise. The small blind (Victor) must, at least match the big blind if he wishes to play the hand. The big blind (Jane) can simply check if no one has raised.

There is a separate round of betting after the flop, after the turn, and after the river. Betting starts with the first remaining player to the left of the dealer button. If the small blind hasn’t folded yet, he starts the betting on all rounds subsequent to the flop. Note that because there are no forced bets in later rounds, checking is allowed. If two or more players remain after the final round of betting, the players show their hands and the best hand takes the pot.