| Basic Poker Tutorial |
|
Texas Hold’em poker is played with a 52 card deck. Five cards are dealt face up on the table – these are called the community cards and are shared by all players. Each player also gets two face-down cards which are called hole or pocket cards. A round starts by each player receiving their hole cards. After this the first betting round begins. At the end of each betting round new community cards are dealt out face-up on the table. First comes the flop (Three cards), then the Turn (one card, also called forth street), then the last card which is called the River card. After the last card has been dealt the player that can combine one or two of his hole cards with the five community cards to make up the best ranking five-card hand wins the pot. In case two players share the same ranked hand, e.g. a pair of aces, that is made up of one hole cards and a community card the one with the highest kicker (the second hole card) wins the pot. If two players have an equally ranked hand the pot is shared by the two. Hand rankingsBelow you’ll find the ranking of hands. The player that can make the highest ranking five-card hand out of either one or two of his hole cards and three or four community cards wins the pot.
The buttonThe button is a marker which rotates clockwise and decides in what order the players are to act. The player sitting with the button deals the hole cards and the person to the left of him is first to act in the betting round. The dealer thus becomes the last to act which is very favorable since he can evaluate the actions of the other players before choosing his own action.The blindsThe blinds are forced bets that are paid by the two persons to the left of the button before the first betting round. The blinds system makes sure that the pot of all rounds has an initial value and has quite a large effect on the strategy of Texas hold’em. (Players who have placed blinds are more reluctant to fold, etc) The values of the blinds vary from table to table and can usually be seen in the information given about the table in the pokerroom lobby.The betting roundsThe first betting round starts once the blinds have been paid (this counts as an action and passes the turn to the next player) and the hole cards have been dealt i.e. before the flop. There are five different actions that a player can make during his turn; call, bet, raise, fold or check. Calling simply means matching the current bet while raising means adding to the previously wagered amount. Folding means leaving the round and forfeiting your claims to the pot. A check can only be made if the wagered amount has not been increased by any previous player. In effect it means that you pass the turn to the next player in turn.The betting round ends once all players have either folded or matched the highest wager. After this a new card is dealt and a new betting round begins. (Note that the forced blinds are only paid during the first betting round.) Limit versus no limitIn limit Texas Hold’em the bets and raises are limited to the size of the blinds e.g. $5/$10. This means that you can get a pretty good feel of how big the game is from just looking at the table info in the lobby. In no limit Texas hold’em however there are no restrictions to how much a player can bet. This means a player can go all-in i.e bet all his chips at once. This is by far the most popular variation on poker and usually seen on TV-poker shows, etc. |
