Rules of Poker
Whether you've never played poker
before or you know the game like the inside of your eyelids, everybody's got
rule questions from time to time.
In Texas Hold'em, the player who can assemble the best five-card hand,
out of the seven possible (the two in their hands and the five in the middle)
wins the pot. The players can thus use two, one, or none of their "private"
first two cards. Although it is unusual to use none of one's private cards,
it is possible, if the five cards on the board form a strong hand such as
a straight, flush, or full house.
Holding the button is an advantage, because as the player
to act last, you have more information available to you when your turn to
bet arrives. For exactly the same reasons, being forced to act first is a
disadvantage. The players acting in the middle are, as you might imagine,
somewhere in-between on the advantage/disadvantage scale; the later you act,
the better your position.
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The two players on the button's immediate left must
post "blind" bets...that is, amounts they place in the pot before
they see their cards. Typically, the player in the very first position posts
a blind bet one-half the size of the player in the second position, although
in some games, the first bet (called the "small blind") may be as
little as one-third or as much as two-thirds the size of the second bet (called
the "big blind").
All participants in the Texas Hold'em game are
now dealt two cards face down. These cards belong exclusively to their "owners,"
and are not seen by the other players at any time until the showdown at the
end of the hand. A round of betting takes place during this point, which is
called "before the flop" or "pre-flop."
In the pre-flop betting round, the player in third position has only three choices. Because a blind wager has already been made, the player can do any of the following:
Fold: If the third player folds, he
is out of the hand permanently, and cannot participate again until the next
deal of the cards (when, because of the way the button moves around the board,
he will be the big blind)
Call: by matching the size of the big
blind;
or
Raise:
How much the player can raise depends on whether the game is limit,
pot-limit, or no-limit.
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For ease of discussion, we will assume the game played in our sample
hand is Limit Texas Hold'em poker, with $5 and $10 blinds, which means it
is a "10-20 game."
The action continues in clockwise fashion around the table, with each player
in turn having the option to fold, call or raise. If the third or another
player has raised, the player who acts after the raiser must now decide whether
he wishes to call $20, or raise to $30. There is a limit on the number of
raises per round; in some casinos, the limit is three raises, and in some,
it is four raises.
With the pre-flop betting complete, the dealer now deals out three cards face-up. In Texas Hold'em, these "community" cards belong to everyone, and these three cards are called "the flop." To see how the community card feature works, if your "personal" cards are Queen-Jack, and the flop comes Q-5-4, you have a pair of Queens with a Jack "kicker" (secondary card). In Texas Hold'em this isn't a bad position, unless someone else has a hand like King-Queen, in which case you both have a pair of Queens, but you are losing, because the other player has a better kicker. A second round of betting follows.
In the second betting round, the player closest to
the left of the button, who is still in the hand, acts first. Unlike the first
betting round, though, where the options were "call, raise or fold,"
now the options are:
Check:
which means to decline to wager now but to retain the option to call
or raise bets made by other players;
or
Bet: in this case, because
of the game's structure, $10.
After the third round betting concludes, the dealer reveals a fourth community card, which, in Texas Hold'em, is called "the Turn" or "Fourth Street." In limit Texas Hold'em poker, the size of the betting amount now doubles, to $20 (which is why this game is called a "10-20" game). The greater bet size aside, the process of betting and checking is identical to that on the flop.
After this third round of betting concludes, the dealer
reveals the fifth and final community card, called "the River,"
or "Fifth Street". Betting is identical to the pattern used on the
third (Turn) round.
At the end of this fourth round of betting,
any players still remaining in the hand turn their cards over. (If at any
point during the hand, one player makes a bet that all others decline to call,
the hand is over immediately, and the player who made the final wager takes
the pot without the need to show his cards.) In Texas Hold'em, the player
who can assemble the best five-card hand, out of the seven possible (the two
in their hands and the five in the middle) wins the pot.