Texas Hold'em
Texas Hold’em is a fast, exciting game that allows you to test your skill and nerves against your fellow poker players. Hold’em is the most popular of the commonly played poker games around.
How to Play
The objective of Texas Hold’em poker is to make the best 5-card hand you can, using a combination of the two hole cards you are dealt and the five community cards on the board. Texas Hold’em poker can be played head-to-head with another player (a 2 player game) or on 5-seat table or 10-seat tables.
To improve your game or to just brush up on your skills, you can visit our poker rules page, as well as our poker hand ranking page. Our poker odds calculator will give you an even stronger advantage over your opponents, as you will be able to calculate the poker odds of all possible poker hands.
Joining a Table
To begin playing Texas Hold’em in our online poker room, log-in, and then join a table by clicking any available seat. This will allow you to buy-in to the poker game. You will be prompted to specify how much you want to buy-in for the poker game.
The "buy-in" is the amount of money you want to bring to the Hold’em poker table, and the minimum buy-in in a Limit game is typically ten times the minimum bet for the table. Different tables may have different minimum and maximum buy-in amounts. You can choose to buy-in with any amount you like within the minimum and maximum. When you submit your buy-in, the buy-in amount is transferred from your poker account to the poker room. When you leave the Texas Hold’em table, your remaining poker funds are automatically transferred back to the poker account.
If you need more poker chips, you can buy-in with more money at any time by clicking the Get Chips button on the bottom right-hand corner of the poker table window. Your total chips on the table cannot exceed the maximum buy-in amount.
Playing Texas Hold'em
After you’ve taken a seat at a Hold’em poker table and bought in, as long as there is at least one other player at the table, the game will begin (unless you are playing in a scheduled tournament, in which case you will wait until the designated start time). The player to the immediate left of the dealer’s button posts the small blind, and the player to the immediate left of the small blind posts the big blind. The size of the blind depends on the game. For example, in a $2/$4 game, the small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2. After the blinds are posted, each player is dealt two cards face down, these are called hole cards. Texas Hold’em is played with a single deck of cards, shuffled every game.
Hole Cards
After the blinds are posted, two cards are dealt face down to each player in clockwise manner around the table, starting with the player to the left of the dealer button. You can see only your cards. To begin, the player to the left of the player who posted the big blind is the first to act. The player may call the big blind, raise any amount within the raise limit guidelines for the game, or fold and surrender his hand. The betting proceeds clockwise around the table and continues until all players have either bet the same amount of money or folded. In Limit games, bets and raises are restricted to one bet and three subsequent raises per round (on the initial deal, the big blind is counted as the first bet). If no player raises the big blind by the time the betting returns to the player who posted it, the player that posted the big blind can either check his own blind, raise, or even fold if he wants.
If no player calls the big blind amount, the poker player who posted the big blind wins the pot in Texas Hold’em.
Flop
After the hole card betting round completes, the first three community cards, known as the flop, are dealt face up on the board. All players can see these cards. Betting begins again with the first active player to the left of the dealer. He can either check, bet, or fold. Poker play continues clockwise around the table with each player having the option to either check, call, raise, or fold. When all players have either folded, called the last raiser, or put all of their chips in the pot, the betting round is complete and the cards are dealt for the next round.
Turn
After the flop betting round completes, one more card is dealt face up on the table, called the turn card. All players can see this card. The betting process is the same as after the flop, except in Limit poker all bets must be made at the higher bet limit.
Play continues clockwise around the table with each player given the same set of options. When all players have either folded, called the last raiser, or put all of their chips in the pot, the betting round is complete and the cards are dealt for the next round.
River
After the turn betting round, one last card is dealt face up on the table, called the river card. No more cards are dealt. All players can see this card. Betting begins again with the first active player to the left of the dealer. He can either check, bet, or fold. Play continues clockwise around the table with each player given the same set of options. When all players have either folded, called the last raiser, or put all of their chips in the pot, the betting round is complete.
After betting concludes the showdown occurs.
Showdown
After the final betting round ends, the showdown occurs to determine the winner in Texas Hold’em. The player with the best hand wins the pot except in the case when he goes all-in. In that case, the player only wins the amount that he contributed to the pot. Any player who wins a part of the pot reveals his two hole cards to the rest of the players. The last winning player who raised displays his cards first - if no players have raised, then the first active player to the left of the dealer displays his cards first. All losing players have the option of choosing whether or not to display their hole cards. If a player wins a pot because all other players have folded, they then have the option to show their cards.
The winning player receives the entire pot (except for players that go all-in) less a small fee charged by the poker room, called a rake. Rake is charged as a small percentage of each pot and is based on the pot size and the number of players at the table. The amount of rake taken from each pot is displayed in the middle of the board, along with the pot size. For more information on rake, see the Rake Page.
