A Beginner’s Guide to Texas Holdem Poker

Texas Holdem is the most popular poker variant. No-limit poker is featured at all marquee tournaments worldwide, including the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker, and other important poker competitions.

Most poker players only learn to play Texas Holdem. The goal of this game is to use community and hole cards in combination to achieve the best five-card poker hand possible.

Holdem is similar to a five-card draw and other poker variants. A player can always get others to fold better hands by bluffing. However, players build Texas Holdem hands a bit differently. This article will explore the ways.

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How to Play

Each player gets two cards facing down in the beginning. These are the ‘hole’ cards. There are also five additional cards, dealt over a few betting rounds, found face up in the middle of the table. These are the second set, called the ‘community cards.’

Your objective is to use your hole cards and your community cards for a five-card hand. The dealer hands out the five community cards in three phases: the flop, the turn, and the river.

The first three are dealt with in the flop. The fourth is dealt in the turn, and you get the last community card in the river.

You arrive at a hand by combining your hole cards with three community cards, using all five community cards and no holes, or using four community cards together with one hole card.

It doesn’t matter what you choose. Your objective in a game of Texas Holdem is to build the strongest five-card hand.

Suppose each player folds in the course of betting, and the last man standing wins. This person is not required to show any cards. It is why participants who win don’t necessarily have the best hand. They can always bluff and get others to fold.

You can only win by holding the top-ranking five-card hand if two or more players are left after the last community card is dealt and all bets have been made.

Betting Rounds and Table Positions

Texas Holdem has many different but crucial aspects, such as betting rounds and various positions at the table. You play in a clockwise direction around the table. The ‘button’ plays a central role here. The game starts to the left of the button, a round disc that moves with every hand, one seat to the left. It moves from player to player.

If you’ve chosen to play in a poker room or casino, the venue hires someone to deal with. The button doesn’t do this. The button only assumes this function when you’re playing with friends at home. It selects the dealer at the table.

Blinds

To get started with the wagers, the two people sitting immediately on the left of the button must post a ‘big blind’ and a ‘small blind.’ The phases of wagering are preflop, flop, river, and turn. In all post-flop stages, the last active participant nearest the button or the player on the button gets the last action.

The button establishes where you begin dealing the cards and determines the players to post the blinds.

The first card goes to the player right on the left of the dealer button. Then, cards are dealt in a clockwise direction from player to player. The dealing stops when each person has two initial cards.

The dealer hands out the hole cards face down. Then, the betting starts. The two designated players post the blinds, which are compulsory bets. They are not voluntary, but there would be no money in the pot without them. People would wait until they got a good hand and place a bet only then. The blinds guarantee some action with each play.

Players raise the blinds at regular intervals in tournaments. However, they’re always the same in cash games.

The blinds have to keep getting bigger over the course of a tournament as fewer and fewer players remain. Usually, the big blind is twice as high as the small one.

Learn about: Know About Various Kinds of Poker and Bonus Codes