Texas Hold’em – How to play Texas Hold’em Poker
Texas Hold’em is by far the most popular poker game in the world. All of the biggest tournaments and cash games such as the WSOP Main Event, which is the Poker World Championship, are played in this format.
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The great thing about Texas Hold’em Poker is that it takes only a few minutes to learn. If you want to master the game, it will take a whole lifetime though as it is constantly evolving.
That’s why it’s very important to inform yourself and stay up to date with the latest Texas Hold’em poker strategy. We therefore have included the most profitable Texas Hold’em strategy below on this page.
But before we start talking about poker strategy, we will provide a detailed explanation of the Texas Hold’em Rules and Poker Hand Ranking, so that you can start playing this fantastic game straight away.
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Texas Hold’em Rules
Let’s kick things off with explaining the Texas Hold’em Rules. At the beginning of a poker hand all players are dealt two cards face down, the so-called hole cards, before the first round of betting starts.
After that, five community cards are dealt face up in three stages: Flop, Turn and River. Those stages consist of a series of three cards (Flop), followed by two single cards (Turn and River).
The five community cards are dealt in three separate stages:
- Stage 1: The first three community cards are called the Flop
- Stage 2: The Flop is followed by just one card, which is called the Turn
- Stage 3: The fifth and final community card is called the River
There are 4 betting rounds: Preflop, Flop, Turn and River. In each betting round players have four different options check, call, raise or fold.
The aim of the game is to make the best-possible 5-card-poker-hand from any combination of the seven available cards: 2 hole cards + 5 community cards. The player, who shows the best 5-card-poker-hand at showdown wins the pot.
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Poker Hand Ranking
To be able to determine, who has the best hand at showdown you need to know what beats what, which is defined in the poker hand ranking:
Texas Hold’em Gameplay
A white dealer button is used to determine the player in the dealer position. The button rotates clockwise after each hand.
Texas Hold ’em is played using forced bets to keep the game going. Those forced bets called the blinds need to be placed by the two players to the left of the button.
The small blind is posted by the player to the left of the dealer and is usually equal to half of the big blind. The big blind, posted by the player to the left of the small blind and is always double the size of the small blind.
In addition to that, antes or big blind antes, the big blind is posting the antes for the whole table, are now commonly used in both tournaments or cash games to speed up the gameflow.
After one betting round (Preflop, Flop, Turn, and River) is finsihed the next betting round will start with the person in the small blind.
As soon as the final betting round after the river is finished, all remaining players have to open their hole cards, this is called the Showdown.
At the Showdown the player with the best 5-card-poker-hand according to the above poker hand ranking wins the pot.
How to play Texas Hold’em
As we want to focus on explaining a winning Texas Hold’em poker strategy, this is a basic explanation of the Texas Hold’em Rules, but enough to be able to start playing Texas Hold’em. For a very detailed and in-depth explanation of the gameplay please watch the video below:
The different formats of Texas Hold’em
There are four differen variations of Texas Hold’em: No-Limit Hold’em, limit hold ’em, pot-limit hold ’em and the relatively new Six Plus Hold’em, also called Short Deck Poker.
No-Limit Hold’em is the Cadillac of Poker as it is by far the most popular poker game. Almost all big tournaments such as the World Series of Poker, EPT, WPT or partypoker Millions and cash games are played in this format.
Six Plus Hold’em, more commonly referred to as Short Deck Poker is based on Texas Hold’em and massively on the rise, especially in Asia as well as in high stakes cash games and tournaments. Short Deck Poker is played with a deck of 36 cards in contrary to 52 cards in Texas Hold’em as all cards from 2 to 5 are removed from the deck. Short Deck is an action-game and frequently generates massive pots that’s why it’s becoming very popular among cash game players. You can play Short Deck online at partypoker or Natural8 Poker.
Pot-Limit Hold’em can be played online for real money as well as in a couple of tournaments at the World Series of Poker. The player numbers are considerably lower than in Texas Hold’em though as there is much less action.
Limit Hold ’em used to be really popular in the 90s in casinos throughout the USA as well as online, but is basically dead nowadays as it is mathematically solved.
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Texas Hold’em Poker Strategy
The most famous saying about Texas Hold’em Poker is: “It takes five minutes to learn but a lifetime to master.” We couldn’t agree more as you never stop learning, when playing Texas Hold’em.
If you want to become a successful poker player, the key to success is therefore to work hard and a lot on your game and keep up to date with the latest poker strategy developments.
As you can easily fill a whole website with poker strategy content on Texas Hold’em, we have to stick to the most important strategy advice here. However, if you follow the steps given below your results will improve drastically and you are already on your way to become a winning player.
Here are 4 Golden Texas Hold’em poker strategy tips:
Don’t play too many hands!
The by far most important Texas Hold’em poker strategy advice is to only play the top 15% of hands as well as to play them aggressively by raising and 3-betting.
By playing only the best 15% of starting hands you have a huge range advantage against your opponents and can easily avoid making big mistakes postflop. Stick ot a tight-aggressive strategy and your results will improve soon!
Mind your position at the table
The importance of position in Texas Hold’em can’t be overstated! Playing in position is the way to go and playing out of position against strong opponents should be avoided at all cost as it will prove costly!
By playing your hands in position you have a huge informational advantage over your opponents, which you should make consequently make use of by raising frequently on the button or betting small when checked to.
Bankroll Management is the key to success
Having a good Bankroll Management is another key to long-term suscess in poker. Don’t play limits that your bankroll can’t afford as this is the recipe to go broke.
The basic rule is: You should have 30 – 50 buy-ins for a cash game limit to be able to play it safe and 100 buy-ins for tournaments or in other words
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