Texas Hold'em Rules

Texas Hold’em in general
Hold’em is a variation of 7-card stud poker. As in other poker-games, the object is to win pots by getting the better 5-card hand or by bluffing.

The hands of hold’em are listed below in ranked order:

Royal flush	The best possible hand in hold’em. It consists of A, K, Q, J and 10, all in the same suit.
Straight flush	Five cards in the same suit in ascending order. In ties, the highest card wins.
Four of a kind	Four cards of the same value. Highest value wins if ties occur.
Full house	Three of a kind and a pair. In ties, the value of the three of a kind counts first.
Flush	Five cards in the same suit. In ties, the highest card wins. If the highest card doesn’t break the tie, proceed to the second highest and so forth.
Straight	Five cards in ascending order. The highest card decides ties.
Three of a kind	Three cards of the same value. If tied, the highest value wins.
Two pairs	Two sets of pairs. The value of the highest valued pair is the tie-breaker, fol-lowed by the value of the second pair.
One pair	Two cards of the same value. If tied, the pair of the highest value wins.
High card	In the event that none of the hands above are present, the highest card wins. (Ace is highest)

Remember that a poker-hand consists of 5 cards, therefore, should it happen that two or more hands are tied after the rules above have been applied, the extra card(s) can be decisive. The highest ‘kicker’ wins the pot, i.e. if two players are tied with a pair of Ks each, and one of them has A, J, 5 as his or her 3rd, 4th and 5th card, while the other has J, 8, 5, the A comes into play, and wins the pot, being the highest kicker.

The setup
The ‘dealer-button’ is used to indicate the dealer position, and moves one seat to the left (clock-wise) after each round. Before the players receive any cards, the ‘blinds’ are posted. The blinds are fixed-amount bets used to start off the betting. The small blind is a bet made by the person to the left of the dealer position, and the big blind is a raise made by the person to the left of the small blind. The big blind is usually twice the small.
NOTE! In tournaments the blinds are raised as the game moves forward. In a 10-player tournament the blinds are raised (usually double up) whenever the dealer-button has passed 10 players.

Playing the game
1)
Each player is dealt two cards face down. These are called the ‘hole-cards’ or ‘pocket-cards’. Then the action is on the person to the left of the big blind. He or she has the option to fold the cards, call the bet or raise the bet. He or she can’t check, since the blinds are to be considered a bet and a raise. If nobody raises the bet ahead of the person in the big blind position, he or she can either check or raise. When all players have decided to fold or pay the amount of money required, the round of betting ends.
2)
Then it’s time for the first three community-cards to be turned. This is called ‘the flop’, and is followed by a betting-round.
3)
Next up is ‘the turn’ – the fourth community-card, followed by another round of betting.
4)
The last community-card, called ‘the river’, is turned, followed by the last round of betting.
5)
If more than one player is left after the final round of betting, it’s time for the showdown. The best hand wins the pot.

 

 

See also:
Poker Hand Ranks
Probabilities in Poker (Texas Hold'em)
Playing Texas Hold'em