Rules of Texas Hold'em Poker

Now that you know the rules of Five Card Draw, Let It Ride and Pai Gow, it’s time to learn the most popular community poker game: Texas Hold’em. It has grown exponentially with tournaments like the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour. It has grown even more online with young people.

Texas Hold’em uses a standard 52-card deck with no Jokers. You form the best five-card poker hand from seven total cards. You bet chips into a pot and standard hand rankings apply. This poker game has four rounds of betting and you start with two hole cards dealt face down. A series of five community cards are dealt face up in the center of the table with a round of betting in between each deal. Hold’em has different varieties like limit, no-limit, Omaha and antes. Hold’em using blinds is the most popular.

With blinds, you have a small blind (person to the left of the dealer) and a big blind (person to the left of the small blind). As you might expect, the big blind is double the size of the small blind. The blinds are thrown in before the hole cards are dealt. The player to the left of the big blind starts each round of betting. They can call the big blind, raise or fold. No Limit Hold’em has no maximum on the amount of raises. Limit has a maximum of twice the big blind.

The first three community cards are known as the flop. This is followed by a round of betting, then the turn (fourth community card), another round of betting, then the river (final community card), and another round of betting. The river decides the outcome of those left in the hand. If there are only two players left, it’s called going heads-up. The pot gets bigger as play progresses, so it’s important to practice proper poker strategy. I will go over more on that in my next post.