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Texas Hold'em

This is by far the most popular and simplest form of poker. Make sure you learn this game first. Casino card rooms are always filled with tables of Texas Hold’em games. Except for very high stakes or a Tournament, you don’t have to ante in this game. Only 1 big blind and 1 small blind and you receive ONLY two cards face down. No more, no less. Everyone can easily understand the mechanics of this game and the hands go quick which is why the tables are full of Hold'em players. But watch out, this is a very difficult game to master in the long run and there are some players in the casinos that are making a living from playing this game.

You receive two cards to start the hand and there is a bet session just on those two alone, then there is a Flop, Turn, and River , each with a bet session. The Flop is the name given to 3 cards the dealer puts face up on the table after the 1st betting round. The two cards in your hand are only for you but the 3 cards on the table are shared for everyone. When the 2nd round of betting is over the dealer puts a 4th community card face up called the “Turn Card” and there is another round of betting. Finally a 5th card known as the “River” is place face up and the forth and final round of betting is over.

In Texas Hold'em you can use both cards in your hand, one card, or NEITHER by just playing the table face up cards themselves. For example, if you have (6,7) and the table is (66699) you use just the 6 and have a four of a kind, if it was (77799) you would use the just the 7. But if it was (66723) you would use both the 6 and the 7 since your hand would be (66677) for a full house, sixes full of sevens. However, if the board was (AAAKQ) you would use NEITHER card in your hand. Your best five out of seven cards would actually be the whole face up board. This is very rare because in many cases you would have folded your hand before this could occur. This is termed "Playing the Board". Obviously you can't win when you are playing the board but you could miraculously tie and split the pot on extremely rare occasion. An example you be if you had a pair of fives in your hand and so did the only other player in the hand and the board came out Ace King Queen Jack Ten and neither of you bet or folded. You would both have a Straight from Ace to Ten, use neither card from your hand and split the pot evenly.

Click here to run a DOS Texas Hold'em Simulator

 


Some very common hands played in Hold'em are suited Aces and suited connected cards.

Below are several example hands taken from actual live Texas Hold’em games.

Many players play a suited Jack Ten in Hold'em since you can make a straight all the way from (6 7 8 9 10) to (10, J, Q, K, A) and anywhere in between, plus you can make a flush. In the example above this player had four to a straight on the flop (7 8 10 J). On the Turn she needed a 9 to win but instead a King of hearts came. This card even though wasn’t the 9 she was looking for gave her many more ways to win on the last card or the River card. Now she had four hearts or four to a flush, so any heart makes her win too. But also if you notice she can also get a higher straight than the one she initially needed to win. If a Queen comes she will have A K Q J 10, the highest possible straight. So if the river was a 9, a queen, or any heart she will beat her opponent who had a pair of Aces. As it turned out and got the 2 hearts for and the flush won. Using the two in her hand and the three on the board she made a (K J 10 8 2) heart flush. Her opponent ended up using just the Ace from his hand for a total best Five Card Hand of (A, A, 7, 8, K), and Pair of Aces with a King loses to a flush by far. Since you only receive two cards in this game, the average hand is just one pair, so most people don't fold a pair of Aces since it’s the highest pair. So obviously the best hand you can get before the flop is a pair of aces in your. But don't get upset if you get "A-A" and lose, it happens. You’re just a huge mathematical favorite just as if you bought a million lottery tickets. It doesn’t guarantee anything. If you notice in the hand above, the losing player with the Ace-6 could have had A-A and the result would not have changed. He would have just had 3 Aces instead and still lost to a flush. The flush was a flush.

Since this was a 4-8 Limit game, the player with the Ace-6 could only bet 4 dollars on the Flop and 8 dollars on the Turn, therefore it is possible that the outcome of this hand may have been different if the betting structure and the game limits were different.







Another more common way players with different hands split the pot is below.


The player with the Ace-3 thought he had the win for sure when he FLOPPED two pair right away. (A, A, 3, 3, 10). On the Turn he still had two pair and the Ace-9 player still only had A-A-9-10-K. But after the river when the kings paired BOTH player's could use them so both players had a better hand than Aces's and threes, now they had Aces and kings with the ten on the table since the ten was higher than either player's second cards or "Kicker" card. So again the pot was split evenly and both player's hands were (A, A, K, K, 10).






When four cards to a straight appear on the table, the players who haven't folded usually have that fifth card. In this example the Ace-Jack player already had the straight when the King came on the Turn card and clearly should have won, but when the Ace hit on the last card ANYONE with a Jack had an unbeatable hand with that particular board which was and Ace through 10 straight. (Ace, K ,Q, J, 10) The Queen-Jack player could ONLY have gotten an Ace on the end to win half that pot, even a 3rd queen would still have lost to his opponents already made straight.


 

It took a while to find a real example of this, but it does happen now and again.

Here both the players raised each other before the Flop and after the Flop. But on the Turn and the River they both stopped betting since they each feared the other may have a least 1 club which would make a flush. Since a 5th club came on the river when their hands were turned over they were both forced to use NONE of their cards and "Play The Board". So they both had the same club flush and the pot was split evenly between them. Rare but happens.

Even though a pair of Jacks beats a pair of nines, those are disregarded since five clubs can be used by either player. Now if both players had a the same hands but black, a black pair of Jacks vs. a black pair of nines, then the pair of Jacks would win because he would be able to use his Jack of Clubs and his hand would now be a (3, 6, 7, J, Q) club flush which would beat his opponents new hand, a slightly smaller (3, 6, 7, 9, Q) high club flush.

 

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