1. The Basics

Hold'em poker is played with a standard 52 card deck. What makes Hold'em stand out from many other card games is the use of five community cards – cards dealt face up on the table that all players share. Each player also receives two face-down cards each – hole or pocket cards. These two cards make up your starting hand.

A round of poker starts with every player being dealt their two hole cards. The winner is the player that at the end, after several betting rounds, can use his hole cards together with the five community cards and make the best ranked five card poker hand.

2. Hand Rankings

This is the ranking of hands. The player making the highest ranked five card hand out of the seven cards (the five community card plus his own two hole cards) wins the pot. It doesn’t matter if he uses four of the community cards on the board and one hole card or both hole cards and three from the board. Sometimes even the five communal cards may rank as the best hand. Then all the players share the pot since they all have that hand!

A hand always consists of five cards. In the case of two players holding a pair of aces for example the high card kicker will decide the winner.

3. Example Of Hands

An example of showdown hands:

• Player A has a pair of aces with a king as high card kicker.
• Player B also has a pair of aces but he’s only got a queen kicker and thus will lose to Player A.
• Player C holds three of a kind. His pocket nines (hole card pairs are known as pocket pairs) have matched with the communal nine and given him a strong three of a kind. He is in the lead.
• Player D however, has and even stronger hand! Using the nine, ten and jack he has made a straight (eight to queen).
• Lastly, player E with his same-suit diamond hand uses the three diamonds on the board and makes a flush, winning the pot!

4. The Button

The order of play in a round of poker is decided by the button. This is a visible marker that rotates clockwise between players before the start of each new hand. The player seated left of the button always acts first in any given betting round. The player in front of the button thus acts last. This is a huge advantage since that player can await the actions of the other players before deciding on his own actions. In this case Player A acts first. Player B is second, and Player C, on the button, acts last.

5. The Blinds

The next thing that happens after players are dealt their hole cards is the placing of blinds. These are small forced bets that ensure that every single pot has a value. In Hold'em, it’s the two players left of the button that places these small bets. Blinds MUST be placed. As the button moves before each round begins, so does the obligation to place blinds. It’s always the two players left of the button that pay the blinds. The value of the blinds depends on how big a game you are playing.

Player A and B places blinds this round. It is only before the first betting round that blinds are placed.

6. Betting Rounds

With the blinds in place, it’s time to start the betting!

The first betting round, the pre-flop betting round, begins with just the hole cards in play. When it is completed the flop betting round begins - with three of the communal cards now in play. Next is the turn betting round, an additional community card is dealt, and, lastly, comes the river betting round - with all five community cards now on the board.

7. Actions

When it’s the players turn to act, he has five options; call, bet, check, fold or raise. Making a bet means wagering an amount, adding it to the pot. A call is matching a previously made bet. To make a raise is to increase the wagered amount. Folding means dropping out of the pot, not wanting to call any made bets or raises. A player can check only if no bets are yet in play. It simply passes on the action to the next player in turn.

A betting round does not end until all players have either matched the highest amount bet, or folded. Then all chips wagered are added to the total pot and a new round of betting begins. The player left of the button again acts first. Note that placing a forced blind counts as an action. So during the pre-flop (first) betting round it is in effect the player in seat three from the button who acts first, since player one and two are forced to place blinds.

8. Limits

All poker tables have a certain limit. This limit determines the forced blind amounts. In a $1/$2 game the blinds would be $0.50 dollar for the small blind (seat 1) and $1 for the big blind (seat 2). Notice that the blinds are different. Usually the small blind is the half the value of the big blind. In a $3/$6 game the big blind would be $3 and the small $1.5. It’s important to choose the right level of play. If you have say $100 you don’t want to play at a $10/$20 since you would risk having to force bet your entire stack before even getting any good cards.

9. No Limit

No limit is the most popular variant of Hold'em. It means that any player at ANY time can bet or raise an amount limited only by the amount of stacks in front of him. By going “all-in” he bets all the chips he has in one go. If someone with an even bigger stack raises him, the first player does not automatically lose but will only win the amount equal to the size of his own stack. In limit Hold'em bets and raises are restricted to the blind levels. In a limit $3/$6 first bet must be $3. A raise would mean betting an additional $3. No more. No less.

10. Enjoy!

Note: Taken from http://www.holdempoker.com/basics/

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