Texas Hold’em
One of the most popular variants of poker, Texas Hold’em provides each player with two hole cards that they use along with five community cards to form the best poker hand. Played in Limit, No Limit & Pot Limit.
Hold’em is a Poker game in which each player receives two cards as his initial hand. Each player will use his two-hole cards along with the five community cards to form the best five-card poker hand. The board cards are dealt in three sequences known as the “flop” (first three cards), the “turn” (fourth card) and the “river” fifth card.
Betting Structure
In order to start the betting action, Hold’em uses what are called blind bets (blinds) to stimulate action and initiate play. Blinds are posted before the dealer deals the first cards. Blinds count as part of the player’s bet unless the structure of a specific game or situation requires part or all of a particular blind to be “dead”. Dead chips are not part of a player’s bet.
Blinds are posted by players who sit in consecutive clockwise order from the dealer button with the first player posting a predetermined amount called the “small blind”. The next person in order posts what is known as the “big blind”. Action is initiated on the first betting round by the player on the immediate left of the big blind. The blinds act last on the first betting round and are “live”, which means the player is allowed to raise his own blind bet.
In Hold’em there are four rounds of betting. The first round of betting takes place after each player has been dealt his initial two-card hand. The second betting round takes place after the “flop” has been dealt. The third round of betting takes place after the “turn” card has been dealt, and the fourth and final round of betting will take place after the “river” card has been dealt.
After the final round of betting has been completed, a player may use any combination of five cards to determine his best hand.