The basics of playing Texas hold'em poker
Texas hold’em is a fast-paced and easy game to understand. At a poker table in a cardroom or casino, a dealer will run the game for the players by dealing cards, monitoring and organizing the pot, determining the winning hand for each deal, and distributing the pot. To represent the rotation of the turn to deal, a button called the dealer’s button moves clockwise from player-to-player with each deal. In a public poker game, the dealer does not actually participate in the hands or hold a position at the table. He or she is the instrument for running the game, and the button shows which player has been designated as the dealer position at any given moment.
Because a player’s position relative to the dealer determines his or her turn to bet or fold, it is important to mimic the passing of the dealer’s turn around the table with the button. The placement of the button replaces the physical passing of the deck from player-to-player as it would be done in a friendly home game. An employee dealer at a cardroom simply starts each hand from the position of the button, and then for the next hand, moves the button one player and begins the deal from that point. In this manner, every player fairly gets a chance to enjoy optimal positioning throughout the game. The importance of your position will be expanded upon later, especially regarding how to decide if you should play your cards or fold.
Before any cards are dealt, the first two players to the left of the dealer’s button will have to pay blinds. The first player next to the button pays the small blind, and the second player will pay the big blind. For example, the big blind could be $2 and the small blind $1, and these chips would be placed in the middle of the table to seed the pot. (The amounts of the blinds can vary depending on where you are playing.) Every poker game has to have either blinds or antes. Blinds are a substitute for antes.
Because the dealer’s button determines which players are paying the blinds at any given time, being the player with the button is the best position. If you have the button, you do not have to pay blinds until the button goes around the table again and you will get to see how every other player bets before you must decide to make an opening bet with your hand or not. This situation is called having the button, and your advantage is derived from being the last to act.
Once the blinds are put up by the players, the dealer will deal two cards to every player at the table. In Texas hold’em, your first two cards are your pocket cards, and they will be the only cards that are exclusively yours. All other cards used to make your final poker hand will come from the cards dealt face-up on the table or board. These board cards are shared by all players participating in the hand.
Learning to assess the quality and potential of your first two cards in Texas hold’em is critical to your success. You’ll find out much more on that subject in later sections.
The initial round of betting begins after the players get their two cards. In this round of betting you will be paying to see the flop, which is the next three cards that will be revealed by the dealer on the board or table. If you decide not to proceed with your hand at this point, you will simply fold and return your cards to the dealer face-down. However, when you want to proceed, you will need to start betting. You will either call the bet of the previous player or raise it. Should a player acting after you raise the bet, then it will come around to you again, and you will have to decide again if you want to call.
When the betting round has equalized, meaning all bets and raises have been called by all people who want to participate in the hand, then the dealer will reveal the three flop cards.
The flop cards are shared by all players. At this point, you will have five cards in play and ideally you will have an awesome poker hand. Whatever your situation, you will be facing another round of betting in which you will need to make calling and raising decisions. You can also fold if you feel it would be unwise to pay to see the rest of the hand.
At times, after the flop you will be presented with the opportunity to check. This will happen when the betting round opens. If the first player to act does not wish to bet again immediately, he or she will say “check” and that is essentially a bet of nothing. There is no additional bet to call yet, so therefore to call, no bet is necessary to call. It can happen that everyone at the table checks during this round of betting. This arises when no one is terribly excited about the flop but does not feel compelled to fold if no one is going to force the issue. More likely, however, a player will make a bet and then to stay in the hand you will have to call. Or, you might find it useful to translate this situation into an opportunity to use the tactic of check-raising. You check your good hand so as to let another player bet it for you, and then you raise that bet. It’s a way of trapping players or luring them into betting into your superior hand before you put more money out there. It is done in all forms of poker, limit and no-limit. Men in their 80s think check-raising is ungentlemanly. I guess it was not cool to do in their generation before everyone went to storm the beaches, but I think you should use all the tools in your toolbox, including the check-raise.
The betting round that occurs after the flop is to see a single card called the turn card. Upon reaching equalization of bets, the turn card will be revealed. If you are still in the hand, then you will continue to assess your hand’s chances of prevailing against your opponents’ hands and check, call or raise as appropriate.
After the turn card, yet another round of betting will ensue. (Poker certainly does involve lots of betting doesn’t it?) At this point, you will be betting to see the final card, called the river card. It will complete the collection of five cards on the board that everyone shares. With the board cards plus your pocket cards you will be up to seven cards. You will use any five of the seven to make your poker hand. During this round of betting, if you feel that you have made a terrible mistake, you can still fold.
As before, upon equalizing the bets, the river card will be revealed. Then the final round of betting will begin. If you are participating at this point, I hope you are holding a nice hand. Otherwise, you will experience the unpleasant sensation of being hooked on someone’s line.
When the final round of betting is over, everyone who called will then roll over their pocket cards so that the winner can be determined. This is called the showdown. If the winner is you, then you get the pot.
Here is the ranking of poker hands from lowest to highest:
High card
Pair
Two pair
Three of a kind
Straight
Flush
Full House
Four of a kind
Straight flush
Royal Flush
As you can see, to win a hand of poker, you must weather many rounds of betting. The intensity of these betting rounds can vary. Sometimes only two or three people are involved. Sometimes almost the whole table might play, at least initially. You might have to face aggressive raising or only call a few bets in a perfunctory fashion. The level of action that occurs provides you with important information. Players, especially in no-limit games, can and will put out some beefy bets to scare other players into folding or drag them to their costly demises. Or, players might slow play and only make modest bets and mostly call the bets of others in order to lull players into betting and thereby making the pot bigger. All variations of these approaches are appropriate, and you will learn to use them yourself and assess such strategies coming from other players. Many of these strategies must also be based upon your knowledge of your opponents. Who you are playing with greatly influences your situation and what strategies you may choose to employ.
Continue: The house drop
