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This is how we play No Limit Texas Hold-em. Any similarity between this page and the official rules of the game is entirely coincidental.

The basics

Every player is dealt two "hole" cards, face down. Five community cards are dealt face-up on the table. The player who can make the best five-card poker hand out of any combination of their hole cards and the community cards wins.

Here's a nice graphic of the various poker hand rankings. Just remember that in Hold'em, your best five-card hand could include only one, or even neither of your hole cards, and that only five cards count - the best six-card hand isn't going to help you.

Except that would be the most boring game on the planet, equivalent to just sitting round all day rolling a dice and saying "well done" to whoever gets the highest number. The important part of poker is the betting.

  • Everybody is dealt their hole cards
  • There is a round of betting
  • The first three community cards are dealt (the flop)
  • Another round of betting
  • The fourth community card (the turn) is dealt
  • Another round of betting
  • The final community card (the river) is dealt
  • Another round of betting
  • The winning hand takes the pot.

How Betting Works

Betting in poker is really quite simple. Everybody gets a chance to bet. If somebody bets, everyone else must either match that bet, put in even more money, or give up on the hand. Once everyone's either bet the same amount or given up, the betting round is over.

More formally:

  • Betting starts from the left hand side of the dealer, and proceeds clockwise.
  • When it's your turn:
    • If nobody has bet yet, you can do nothing (check)
    • If somebody has bet, you can match it (call)
    • You can increase the size of the bet everyone else has to match (raise)
    • You can give up on the hand (fold)
  • Once everyone has bet the same amount (or everyone has checked), the round is over.

Here's an example, featuring our good friends Alice, Bob, Carol and Dave.

  • Alice is first to act, but she doesn't think much of her hand. Because nobody has bet yet, she can choose to "check", which means she bets nothing.
  • Bob has a decent hand, and bets two dollars.
  • Carol likes her hand as well, and wants to stay in. She calls, which means she matches Bob's two dollar bet.
  • Dave thinks his hand is worth more than two dollars, so he raises the bet to five dollars.
  • Alice definitely doesn't want to bet five dollars on her crappy hand, so she folds.
  • Bob thinks his hand was worth two dollars, but definitely not five. He folds, but because he already bet his two dollars, it stays in the pot.
  • Carol thinks Dave is full of shit, so she puts another three dollars in, which combined with the two dollars she bet earlier means she's called Dave's five dollar bet.
  • Because now everyone has either bet the same amount or folded, the betting round is over.

So at the end of the round, Alice and Bob have folded and can no longer take part in the hand, Carol and Dave survive to the next betting round, and there's twelve dollars more in the pot than when we started.

The Blinds

At the beginning of each hand, the two players to the left of the dealer are forced to bet. These forced bets are called blinds and are put out before any cards are dealt. Generally there are two blinds, a 'small blind' and a 'big blind'.

Because of the blinds, the first round of betting is slightly different to any of the others. Since the blinds have already bet, the action starts with the player to the left of the blinds. But because the blinds are forced bets, even if nobody raises the bet, the big blind still gets the chance to check or raise when the betting has gone all the way around the table.

Bet Sizes

  • If you're opening the betting, the minimum bet in any betting round is the size of the big blind
  • If you're raising, you have to raise by at least the size of the previous raise. So in the above example, because Alice's raise was two dollars, David had to put at least four dollars in (a two dollar raise). And if Carol had wanted to re-raise Dave instead of just calling, she'd have had to bump it up by at least $3 (Dave's raise) to a total bet of $8.
  • Because it's no limit hold'em, there's no maximum bet. You can bet anything up to the number of chips you have in front of you (going all-in).
  • If you don't have enough chips to call someone else's bet, you can still call it by going all-in. If you win the hand, though, you may not win the whole pot because you can't win more money than you've legitimately called.

Etiquette

Poker is a game that we play for fun, sure, but that doesn't mean we don't also take the game seriously. We're playing poker because we like poker, if we just wanted to ignore the game we could sit around the table drinking beer and leave the cards at home.

So it pays to keep in mind the following things so you don't piss off your fellow players. In casinos, ignoring these rules can get you kicked out. In home games, you just end up annoying everybody, and reducing the chance you'll be invited back.

  • Everybody hates a slow game: it's the number one complaint after every poker night. Don't get so caught up in conversation or drinking that you forget it's your turn, and don't spend forever making simple decisions.
  • Don't bet, check or fold until it's your turn. If you act out of turn, you're giving the people who were supposed to act before you an unfair advantage, because now they know what you're going to do and can adjust their play because of it.
  • Keep clutter like drinks or snacks off the table. At all times, everyone should be able to see:
    • Who's still in the hand, so keep your hole cards in plain view close in front of you.
    • How many chips everyone at the table has.
  • If you've folded, don't let on what was in your hand until the hand is over. Even if all you do is grab your hand back from the muck and wince when you see the flop, you're giving the players still in the hand unfair information about what cards are no longer in play.
  • If somebody else has folded, don't look at what their cards were.
  • Keep your bets for the current round in front of you, so everyone can see who's put how much in so far. Don't throw your bets straight into the pot.
  • Don't try to fool people by pretending to call or raise then changing your mind when you see a reaction. You can in fact be forced to go with your first move. (The safest course is to say "I raise" or "I call" before you start moving chips around)