Poker Rules: How to Play Texas Hold 'Em

Players wanting to learn to play Texas Hold 'em Poker can do it very quickly and easily with UltimateBet. Before reading this guide, we recommend that you download our free online poker software. As you probably know, Texas Hold'em poker is the most popular version of the game in the United States and is the preferred game in the main event of the World Series of Poker. The game of Texas Hold'em moves very quickly and has lots of fun variations. The Texas Hold 'em rules shown here apply to the traditional form of the game as played at Ultimatebet. If you’re interested in variations on the game of Texas Hold 'Em, you can read about Pot Limit Texas Hold'em and No Limit Texas Hold'em.

Texas Hold'em is played with a standard 52-card deck and as many as 10 players at the table. When you play Texas Hold 'em poker online with us, a dealer "button" is used to indicate the position of the player who would be dealing the cards if UltimateBet’s software did not perform this task automatically. The player holding the dealer button acts last and thus has an advantage that remains throughout the hand. After each hand is played, the dealer button is moved one position clockwise so that all players in the game have the same opportunity to hold positional advantage.

Texas Holdem

Why is acting last in Texas Hold'em an advantage? The player in the last position has much more information available to them, allowing them to make a more informed bet when their turn arrives. For exactly the same reasons, being forced to act first is a disadvantage – that player has no idea how the others at the table will bet. Players acting in the middle are somewhere in-between on the advantage/disadvantage scale - the later you act, the better your position.

One of the most confusing concepts to some players who want to learn to play Texas Hold 'Em poker is blind bets. These are bets that are placed in the pot before cards are dealt. When playing, the two players on the button's immediate left post these "blind" bets. These are bets that are placed in the pot before those players see their cards. Typically, the player in the very first position posts a blind bet that is half the amount bet by the player in the second position, although in some games, the first bet (called the small blind) may be as little as one-third or as much as two-thirds the size of the second bet (called the big blind).

After the blinds are placed, participants in the Texas Hold'em game are dealt two cards face down. These cards belong exclusively to their "owners," and are not seen by the other players at any time until the showdown that occurs at the end of the hand. A round of betting takes place before the first three community cards are dealt in the flop. This is commonly called "before the flop" or "pre-flop" betting.

Texas Holdem

In the pre-flop betting round, the player in third position has only three choices. Because a blind wager has already been made, the player can do any of the following:

  1. Fold. If the third player folds, he is out of the hand and cannot participate again until the next deal of the cards (when, because of the way the button moves around the board, he will be the big blind)
  2. Call, by matching the size of the big blind; or
  3. Raise. How much the player can raise depends on whether the game is limit, pot-limit, or no-limit. For ease of discussion, we will assume the game played in our sample hand is Limit Texas Hold'em poker, with $5 and $10 blinds, which means it is a "10-20 game".
If this player calls, he places $10 in the pot. If he raises, he places $20 in the pot.

The betting continues clockwise around the table, with each player in turn having the option to fold, call or raise. If the third (or another) player has raised, the player who acts after the raiser must now decide whether he wishes to call $20, or raise to $30.  You should note that there is a limit on the number of raises per round.  In some brick and mortar casinos, the limit is three raises while in others, it’s four raises. At UltimateBet, we use the 4-raise rule.

In this example, the third player does raise to $20, and that everyone else folds until the player at the button position, who calls this bet for $20. After the button player calls, the player in the small blind must decide if they are going to call for $15, or raise to $25 (note that the player in the small blind already had $5 in the pot, making the amount of his raise smaller). If the player in the small blind position calls, the big blind must decide if he is going to call for $10 or raise another $10. If no one had raised, the player in the big blind would have an opportunity to raise.  This is called the option, and it’s available to the big blind because he was forced to bet his original $10 without having looked at his cards.

The Flop

With the pre-flop betting complete, the dealer (or, in this case, UltimateBet now deals out three cards face-up. In Texas Hold'em poker games, these "community" cards belong to everyone and the first three cards dealt are called the flop. 

Here’s an example of how community cards work: if the two cards you were dealt at the beginning of the hand are a Queen and a Jack and the flop comes Q-5-4, you would have a pair of Queens with a Jack "kicker" (secondary card). In Texas Hold'em this isn't a bad position, unless someone else has a hand like King-Queen, in which case you both have a pair of Queens, but you are losing, because the other player has a better kicker.

After the flop occurs, a second round of betting follows.  In this round, the player closest to the left of the button (who is still in the hand) acts first. However, unlike the first betting round where the options were call, raise or fold, players have the following two options:

  1. Check, which means to decline to wager now but to retain the option to call or raise bets made by other players; or
  2. Bet, in this case, because of the game's 10/20 structure, $10.
Why is there a difference between the first and second betting rounds in Texas Hold ‘em Poker?  In the first round, the blinds were placed in the pot to give the players a reason to play. If there were no blinds in Texas Hold'em, there would be very little incentive for a player to enter a hand without the absolute best possible cards because there would be nothing to win. As the first player in, the big blind would be risking their $10 bet to win nothing.  If you were in the big blind position, the only way you could win something would be if someone after you decided to call or raise your bet, and one would assume that the player after you, knowing that you had a strong hand (because you were the first to bet) would only raise or call if they also had a strong hand.

The blinds thus give players something to shoot at, a reason to play with something less than the best hand. But once we reach the flop, there is already money in the pot, so there is no longer a need for blinds, and the first player can choose to bet $10, or to check.

In fact, it’s possible that all players still in the hand will check in the second round of betting, meaning that pot does not increase on the flop. But if someone bets, players must decide whether they are going to call or raise, with the same 4-raise limit applying.

The turn

After the third round betting concludes, the dealer reveals a fourth community card, which, in Texas Hold'em, is called the Turn or Fourth Street. In limit Texas Hold'em poker games, the size of the betting amount now doubles, to $20.  This is why this game is called a "10-20" game. The greater bet size aside, the process of betting and checking is identical to that of the flop’s betting round.

After this third round of betting concludes, the dealer reveals the fifth and final community card.  This card is called the River or Fifth Street. Again, the betting in this round is identical to the pattern used on the third (Turn) round.

The River

At the end of this fourth round of betting, any players still remaining in the hand must turn their cards over. (If at any point during the hand, one player makes a bet that all others decline to call, they must fold and the hand is over immediately, and the player who made the final wager takes the pot without the need to show his cards.)

In Texas Hold'em, the player who can assemble the best five-card hand, out of the seven possible (the two in their hands and the five in the middle) wins the pot. The players can thus use both of their private cards, just one, or neither of them. Although it is unusual to use none of one's private cards, it is possible, if the five cards on the board form a strong hand such as a straight, flush, or full house.

If, for example, two players remained in the Texas Hold'em hand at the end, one of whose private cards were two kings (K-K), and one of whose private cards were two aces (A-A), and the board was 5-6-7-8-9, the players would split the pot, because each has exactly the same nine-high straight. Before the river card, the player with the two aces had a very large advantage, but the concluding nine cost him half the pot (as would have a concluding Four, which also would have put a straight on the board).