How To Play Texas Holdem

By Author: Sam Rabinow
Total Articles: 31
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Before we begin with the general rules for playing Texas holdem you must understand a few basic terms involved in the gaming.
Understand the meanings of call, raise, re-raise.
What are the blinds.
Then understand how many cards are dealt in each rounds of pre-flop, flop, turn and river.
Understand the meaning of community cards.
Understand when to bet in each round.
Understand what is showdown.
Get to know which hand wins.

Every round of betting will have the following betting patterns:

Call is a bet where you will be putting in the same stake of chips which the last player put in to bet.
Raise is where you will be putting in the same amount as the previous player made, plus you will add a little bit more. When you do this the next player should bet the current value of the bet after raise and nothing less. If they cannot afford, they will quit. You make a raise to make things difficult for the next player to eventually have them fold and reduce competition.
Re-raise is where you will be betting more than a raise.
After the re-raise, no player ...
... will be permitted to make any further raises. For any round, there is only a call, raise and re-raise. After this the game proceeds to the next round.

What are the blinds?
There will be a dealer button which represents the dealer position in holdem.
The player sitting next to the dealer button is the small blind and the player next to the small blind is the big blind.
The small blind makes a bet half the value for minimum betting permitted in the game.
The big blind makes twice the small blind bet.
Before any cards are dealt to the players, the players in the small blind and the big blind position will be making their bets without knowing the value of the pockets dealt to them, therefore this is known as forced bets or blind bets.
The betting process with rest of players start only after the blind bets is completed. The blinds place their bets before the cards are dealt and the rest of them place bets after the cards are dealt.

What is a community card?
Apart from the primary pocket cards all the players are supposed to consider the cards dealt in the flop, turn and river from the center of the board to make their hands. They will be comparing their pockets and these cards for every draw. Since the same draw card applies for everyone in the game, these are known as community cards.

The Flow Of The Game
Blind bets are placed.
Every player gets two pocket cards face down
Pre-flop betting round.
Three flop cards are dealt in the center of the board.
Flop betting round.
One turn card is dealt in the community board.
Turn betting round.
One river card is dealt in the board.
River betting round.
Showdown.
The highest ranking best five card hand wins the pot.

There is high-low split played for this game. Also, the betting structure can vary to be limit, no limit, pot limit and spread limit types.

Sam Rabinow often visits Vegas with his wife every year. He works full time as an online casino reviewer and reporter for texas holdem poker tournaments.