Texas Hold Em

Texas Hold Em is one of the most popular poker game played at online poker rooms. This game has risen its popularity with the help of the TV shows, several spectacular world tournaments as World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour.

What is all about?

Texas Hold Em poker is a card game. It is played with a typical 52 card deck. You can find it in countries all around the world in casinos to card rooms, online and in home games. Hold Em can be played with as little as two players (going "heads up"), up to a max of eleven players. Regular poker hand ranks apply to this game. For example a flush beats a straight. A straight beats three of a kind and so on. In some home poker games you'll find a joker in the deck (a "bug"), but in casinos and card rooms you'll rarely find that.

How to play Texas Hold Em

A round of poker starts with every player being dealt their two hole cards faced down. It's called Preflop. The order of play in a round of poker is decided by the button. This is a visible marker that rotates clockwise between players before the start of each new hand. The player seated left of the button always acts first in any given betting round. The player in front of the button thus acts last.

The next thing that happens after players are dealt their hole cards is the placing of blinds. These are small forced bets that ensure that every single pot has a value. In Hold Em, it’s the two players left of the button that places these small bets. Blinds MUST be placed. As the button moves before each round begins, so does the obligation to place blinds. It’s always the two players left of the button that pay the blinds. The value of the blinds depends on how big a game you are playing.

After the blinds is Flop. Then the dealer turns over three cards in the middle of the table (called "the flop"). These are community cards that each player can use to create the best hand possible out of. Once again betting occurs. Next step is Turn. The dealer turns over another card making four community cards. This fourth card is called "the turn" or sometimes "fourth street". The players again put their bets - this is the third betting round.

Then is the last betting round. Then the dealer turns over the fifth and last community card. This is called "the river" or "fifth street". This is when the players put their final bets.

The winner is the player that at the end, after several betting rounds, can use his hole cards together with the five community cards and make the best ranked five card poker hand.