Texas Holdem game play

There are general Texas Holdem poker rules:

•  Your goal is to create the best possible five-card poker hand.

•  Remember, the rank of poker hands is as follows: straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, high card. Do note that these rankings are reversed when the object of the game is to get the lowest hand possible.

•  When two players have a hand of the same rank, such as a pair of Aces, the next highest card in the players’ hands determines the winner. For example, if two players have a pair of Nines and a pair of Kings, but one player has an Ace as their fifth card and the other player has a Queen, the player with the Ace wins the hand. This extra card (or cards, if you need to use more than one to create the best possible five-card hand) is called a kicker .

•  The suits have no value (i.e., they can’t be used to break ties).

•  If the hands are exactly the same, such as if both of the players above had an Ace as their fifth card, the pot would be split evenly between the players.

Playing Flop Texas Holdem

A flop Texas Holdem distinguishing characteristic is the set of shared cards displayed in the middle of the table after the first round of betting. Depending on which of the three games you’re playing, the dealer distributes two, three, or four cards face down to each player (your hole cards ), after which there is a round of betting.

Few words about Holdem

Texas Holdem poker is currently the most popular poker game in online and brick-and-mortar poker rooms. The game has received a lot of attention as a result of television programs, such as the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker, and Late Night Poker, but Holdem has a number of other factors going for it as well. First, Texas Holdem poker is relatively simple to learn.

Second, there’s the opportunity for weaker players to go wrong from the very start of poker hand and put money at risk with underdog hands. Third, there’s a lot more to the game than meets the eye, which means skilled players can tear chunks out of their opponents’ bankrolls through superior knowledge and tactics. Fourth, there’s a fair amount of luck involved, so even if you do get trapped by a better player or a better hand, you will often have a shot to come out ahead.

In a brick-and-mortar poker room, the dealer discards the card on top of the deck, deals three cards face down, and then turns the three cards face-up, spreading them out in one smooth motion. We can’t decide whether the action is “flipping” or “flopping” (we each voted for one version, then changed our minds and went for the other), but pretty much everyone calls that first group of three cards the flop , so we’ll call it that as well.

The three cards in the middle of the poker table, and the two cards that will appear later in the hand, are common cards , meaning they’re in everyone’s hand. If the flop contains three Aces, then everyone still in the hand has, at a minimum, three Aces. If you have the A♥ as one of your hole cards, you have four Aces and an extremely good, though not yet unbeatable, hand.

After the flop, there is a round of betting. When the action in that round is done, the dealer adds a fourth common card to the middle of the table. This fourth card is called the turn , in the sense that horses come around the final turn before the home stretch in a race. There’s another round of betting after the turn, and then the dealer adds a fifth common card to the middle of the table. This card is called the river , in the sense that horses need to cool off with a drink of water after a race. (No, we don’t really know why the final card is called the river. It might be a Texas thing.)

To be continued…