How to Play Texas Holdem Poker
Texas Holdem is a community card game, probably the single most popular poker game in North America right now! It's what they play on the World Poker Tour, the Celebrity Poker Showdown, and all those other shows you've been seeing lately. It's probably the easiest game to learn, but don't let it fool you: Texas holdem really does take a lifetime to master!
The dealer - or the person representing the dealer - has a disc in front of them called the Button, that moves clockwise from player to player after each hand. Before the players are even dealt any cards, the player to the left of the button adds half of the table's minimum bet to the pot, called the Small Blind. The player next to the small blind is the Big Blind, and that player puts in the full amount of the minimum bet. These are called forced bets because they're FORCED to be added to the pot to make sure there's always money to be won.
After this, players are each dealt two cards face down called pocket cards. Based on the strength of these cards and how well they think they'll be able to play with them, there s a round of betting where players can check, bet, call or raise depending on where they are in the rotation. This is the "Preflop" round.
Next the dealer deals three cards face up on the table that can be used by any and all of the players when trying to make their poker hand. These cards are known as the "Flop." After this there is another round of betting. (Betting rounds are made up of four types of betting: bet, raise, re-raise and the cap)
After this round of betting the dealer deals a fourth community card, called the Turn card (also called Fourth Street), and as before there is another round of betting.
The fifth and last round of betting comes after the dealer lays out the last card, called the River (also called Fifth Street), and then the remaining players show their cards and the winner takes the pot. Players can make their poker hands out of any combination of the cards in their hand and the cards on the table, and don't even need to use the cards in their hand if they don't need to.
