Rules for Texas Hold Em Poker

When you sit at the table, your first questions probably are like, where am I and how should I play? In this article, I will try to do my best and explain the best I can, how you play the most popular poker game - Texas Hold Em.

The first thing you must have noticed, is that you play with 9 players (10 if counting you). These are players just like you, playing from their homes on their computers. On some online poker sites (not on all) there are people called “dealers” who deal the cards. Usually “dealers” are marked with D sign. Before start of every hand, dealer changes clockwise.

2 players, who are sitting after the dealer, are required to pay bids. The player who sits right after the dealer is Small Blind, and the 2nd players after the dealer is Big Blind. The required bid depends on the bid,which is currently on the table. For example, if bid is $0,25-$0,50, then Small Blind will pay $0,25 (no matter if he wants to play or not), and Big Blind will pay $0,50. When bets are done, cards are dealt.

The players target is to get the best combination he can. At first, you are given 2 cards, and 5 cards after. The 2 cards are only yours, but the 5 cards (which are on the table) belong to all players.

Player received 2 cards, which can see only himself. This stage is called “Preflop”. You have 3 actions to choose from:

Fold - Drop your cards and don’t bet anything (this way you’re exiting from current hand)

Call - Bet the required amount of chips and play with your cards

Raise - Raise the bet

Right after all players took their decision, 3 cards appear on the table. This stage is called “Flop”. Please note that these cards belong to all players, and they start to build possible combinations from their 5 cards now (2 theirs and 3 on the table). You also have actions to choose from, but now 4 of them:

Fold - If some did bet before you and you don’t want to play, pressing Fold will drop your cards

Check - If no one did bet before you can just press Check and continue playing.

Call - If someone did bet before you, you can just “Call” his bet, and continue playing.

Raise - Raise action will raise the bet till how much you want.

After everyone took their decision, 4th card is being shown on the table. People now build combinations out of 6 cards. This stage is called “Turn”. The process with betting repeats as in “Flop”

After everyone have the betting process done, the 5th card is shown. This stage is called “River”, but it isn’t the last round. The last round is “Showdown”, which means all players reveal their cards, and who has the best combination takes the pot.