How to play Texas Hold Em

The massive recent increase in the popularity of Poker -- and specifically Texas Hold'em -- stems from the fact that the basics are very easy to learn. Beginners can comfortably start playing Poker within minutes. That being said, it is also true that this, like a lot of games takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master.

Poker is based on 5 card hands. These hands are ranked in order of the difficulty in achieving these specific combinations of cards.

Cards from a standard playing deck are numbered 2-10, J, Q, K, A, from lowest to highest value. Each card also has one of four different "suits" -- hearts (h), clubs (c), spades (s), diamonds (d).

Specific combinations of these cards represent the Poker Hands, and here is a picture of them in descending order of rank:

Texas Hold'Em Rules

Our game involves tables starting with a maximum of 8 players. Before a card is dealt, everyone at the table draws a card, with the person drawing the highest card becoming the initial dealer. Play starts to the left of the "dealer", and continues in a clock-wise order.

After each hand, the "dealer" designation moves one position to the left. So every player at the table has his fair share as "dealer". The "dealer" position is advantageous because that player is the last to act during betting. Everyone else must either bet or fold before the "dealer" has to act.

Before any cards are dealt, two forced bets, or "blinds" must be placed. The person to the left of the dealer is called the "Small Blind" and must place an amount half the size of the minimum required bet at the time. The person to the left of the small blind is called the "Big Blind" and must place an amount equal to the minimum bet at the time. The blind bets are paid regardless of whether the players likes their cards or not

First 2 Cards

After the blinds are posted, each player is dealt two cards face down. These are the player's private cards and should not be shown to anyone else. Each player looks at their cards and a round of betting ensues. Play starts to the left of the blinds already placed on the table and the other players must call (or raise) the blind bet or else they must fold. The player in the small blind must make up the difference between the Big Blind and the Small Blind in order to stay in the hand. So if the big blind was 100 and the small blind was 50, the player in the small blind would have to pay 50 more to stay in the hand.

If a player "raises" by increasing the bet, then subsequent players must either match that raise ("call") re-raise by betting more than the original bet, or fold (put down their cards). Betting continues until everyone still playing (ie. hasn't folded) has contributed an equal amount of money to the "pot".

If no-one has raised the bet before it gets to the Big Blind, the Big Blind has all of the same options as someone who has voluntarily bet money. They can check and see the flop without putting any more chips in, or they can raise the pot by betting.

The Flop

Once the initial round of betting has finished, one card is dealt face down, or "burnt", then three cards are dealt from the deck face-up in the middle of the table. These three cards are known as "The Flop" and represent community cards shared by everyone at the table. At this point, each player has a 5 card hand composed of two private cards and the three community cards.

Another round of betting/raising/folding ensues.

The Turn

After everyone has bet on The Flop, another card is "burnt" and a 4th community card is dealt -- called "The Turn". Another round of betting ensues.

The River

After betting, one final card is burnt before a final community card is dealt -- called "The River". A final round of betting ensues. And once this is complete, players reveal their two private cards.

The player with the best possible hand out of their set of cards is the winner and wins the money from the pot. If at any point during the betting rounds described above, only one person remains betting, while all other people have folded, then that one person wins the pot by default.

That's it! The rules are very simple, so anyone can start playing right away.