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Texas Hold'em

Poker rules

Texas Hold'em works like this: every player gets two cards only they can see, five cards are dealt face up in the middle for everyone, and whoever makes the best five-card hand out of those seven wins. In between, there are four rounds of betting.

Said straight through, that means nothing. So let us deal a hand and play it out, card by card, until you can see where each rule comes from.

One hand, start to finish

Three players at the table. You have the button, the seat that acts last and is therefore the best one. The chips are not worth money: they are how you measure who is ahead.

The deal Contents

  1. The deal

    The five in the middle

    3 Pot
    • Victor posts the small blind 1
    • Dottie posts the big blind 2

    Before anyone sees a card, two players have to put chips in. They are called blinds and they exist so there is always something worth playing for. Victor posts the small blind, one chip. Dottie posts the big one, two. Then everyone gets two cards only they can see.

  2. Before the flop

    The five in the middle

    13 Pot
    • You opens 6
    • Victor folds
    • Dottie calls 4

    Now people act for the first time. You have the jack and ten of spades: two cards that are nothing yet, but could become something. You open to six chips. Victor looks at a seven and a three and folds. Dottie calls, and the two of you go on.

  3. The flop

    The five in the middle

    Q 9 4
    29 Pot
    • Dottie checks
    • You bets 8
    • Dottie calls 8

    Three cards go face up in the middle, and they belong to everyone. This is where it all changes, because until now nobody had anything. You can see four spades of the five that make a flush. Dottie has hit a pair of nines. She checks, you bet eight, she calls.

  4. The turn

    The five in the middle

    Q 9 4 2
    69 Pot
    • Dottie checks
    • You bets 20
    • Dottie calls 20

    A fourth card in the middle, the two of spades. That is five spades. That is a flush, and it is the first thing you have actually made all hand. Dottie checks again, you bet twenty, she calls again.

  5. The river

    The five in the middle

    Q 9 4 2 9
    129 Pot
    • Dottie checks
    • You bets 30
    • Dottie calls 30

    The fifth and last card is the nine of clubs. Dottie has just made three of a kind, and she is now sure she is ahead. She checks, you bet thirty, she calls.

  6. Cards on the table

    The five in the middle

    Q 9 4 2 9
    129 Pot

    Each player makes their best five out of their two cards and the five in the middle. Dottie has three nines. You have a flush. A flush sits above three of a kind, so the pot is yours.

    You Flush

    Their best five

    Q J 10 9 2

    Wins the pot

    Dottie Three of a kind

    Their best five

    9 9 9 A Q

What can I do when it is my turn?

Four things, and only four. None of them is braver than the others: they are different tools.

Fold
You give up the hand. You lose what you already put in and not one chip more. It is the most used action and the worst regarded.
Check
You put nothing in and stay in the hand. You can only check if nobody has bet before you in that round.
Call
You match exactly what someone else bet and carry on seeing cards.
Bet
You put chips in and make everyone else match them to continue. Betting more than someone already bet is called raising.

How many cards does each player get?

Two, face down, seen only by the player holding them. Those two are yours for the whole hand and are never swapped. The other five go face up in the middle and everyone uses them at once, which is why two players can end up with the same hand.

What are blinds and why do they exist?

They are two forced bets posted before the cards come out. If nobody had to put anything in, the sensible play would be to sit and wait for two aces. Blinds break that wait: there is always something in the middle worth contesting. They rotate, so everyone pays them equally.

What if my two cards are useless?

Then you play the five in the middle and everyone has the same hand. It is rare, but it happens, and when it does the pot is split. You are not required to use your own two cards: you use whichever five of the seven work best.

Who wins when two players make the same hand?

You compare card by card. If you both have a pair of kings, the higher side card wins. If those tie too, you keep going down the line. And if all five cards really are equal, the pot is split down the middle.

Can you learn poker without betting money?

You can, and it is how anyone should start. Chips are not the game: they are how a decision gets measured. What a learner needs is to get it wrong many times in a row at no cost, which is precisely what a casino does not offer.

What beats what?

This is the part worth learning by heart, and the only one. Everything else in poker is decided by this ladder.

See the full ranking of hands

Keep going

Quick reference Who wins the hand Fifteen tie breaks settled in two lines: kickers, split pots and suits. The variant Texas Hold'em Why it is the poker played everywhere, and how it differs from Omaha. For the table Poker cheat sheet The ten hands in one table, for your phone or for printing.

You know how it is played. Now for the other half.

The rules take ten minutes to read. What takes work is knowing what to do with them when it is your turn and you have no idea whether you are ahead. That is not read: it is practised.

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