Texas Hold'em
Texas Hold'em is the poker variant where each player gets two private cards and shares five more dealt face up in the middle of the table. Whoever makes the best five card hand out of those seven wins. It is the version played almost everywhere, and when somebody says poker with no further explanation, this is usually what they mean.
What follows is what sets it apart from the other variants, why it took over, and how it differs from Omaha and from the five card poker of every western film.
What sets it apart
Every poker variant deals cards and runs betting rounds. What changes between them is how much each player sees and how much of it is shared. In Texas Hold'em, almost everything is shared.
- Two cards of your own, and only two
- You get them at the start, face down, and they never change during the hand. Everything private in this variant fits into two cards.
- Five cards for everyone, face up
- They come out in three instalments: three, then one, then one. Everybody sees them at the same time and everybody uses them, which is why two players can end up with the same hand.
- The best five out of seven
- Your hand is the best five cards available from your two and the five in the middle. You are not obliged to use your own: if the five in the middle beat anything you can make with yours, you play those.
- Four rounds of betting
- You bet before the flop, after the flop, after the turn and after the river. Each round arrives with one more card on the table, so every time you decide you know a little more.
Why it is played everywhere
It did not take over by being the best. It took over because of three things no other variant has at once.
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1
You can watch it from outside and follow what is happening. Five of the seven cards are face up in the middle, so a spectator sees nearly what a player sees. No other variant lets itself be followed like that, and that is what put it on television and took it from there to everywhere else.
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2
The rules take five minutes. Two cards, five in the middle, four rounds of betting. The hard part of Texas Hold'em is not the rules: it is deciding with them.
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3
Almost all the information is shared. If you have a flush, anyone can see in the middle that a flush was possible. The game is about working out what the other player is thinking, and that only works when you are both looking at the same thing.
How it differs from the others
Omaha
Played the same way, with the same five cards in the middle and the same four betting rounds, except you get four private cards instead of two. And one obligation changes everything: you must use exactly two of yours and exactly three from the middle. Not one more, not one less.
The consequence is that strong hands stop being rare. Where a top pair wins plenty of hands in Hold'em, Omaha usually demands a good deal more. It is the same game played much further up the ranking, which is why it is worth learning second rather than first.
Five card poker
This is the one from the films and the saloon, and from the family game of decades ago. You get five cards face down, discard the ones you do not want, get replacements, and bet. There are no shared cards: nobody sees anything of what anybody else holds at any point.
Which is why it has faded from the tables. With no cards in the middle there is nothing to reason about beyond the other player's face and how many cards they took. There is more betting in the dark, less to learn from each hand, and nothing to follow from outside.
The three, side by side
| Texas Hold'em | Omaha | Five card | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private cards | 2 | 4 | 5 |
| Cards in the middle | 5 | 5 | None |
| Private cards you must use | None | Exactly 2 | All 5 |
| Betting rounds | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Cards get exchanged | No | No | Yes |
| Can be followed from outside | Yes | Yes | No |
No limit and fixed limit
Inside Texas Hold'em itself there is a distinction worth knowing, because it is always announced and hardly ever explained. In the no limit version you can bet everything in front of you at any moment. In the fixed limit version each bet has a set size and cannot go past it. The first is what is played almost everywhere, and it is the one taught here.
The ranking of hands
It is the same in all three variants, and it is the only part of poker worth learning by heart. From one pair to a straight flush, with the tie breaks.
Knowing the rules is not the same as playing
The rules of Texas Hold'em fit on one page. What does not fit is what to do when it is your turn, you have made nothing, and there are three cards in the middle that might be helping the other player.
A course from zero, no money and no casino.
