Re: Poker & Texas Hold'em: is it a sport or is it gambling? Poker is more to sport than to gambling, and poker is not just luck or bad luck, it has skill involved, but it needs a lot of luck! How to play Texas holdem poker? Texas Hold 'em is normally played using small and big blind bets forced bets by two players. A dealer button is used to represent the player in the dealer position; the dealer button rotates clockwise after each hand, changing the position of the dealer and blinds.

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Any post with an ambitious title claiming that the concepts in the post are the most important is bound to generate controversy. Texas holdem is a complex enough game with enough levels of thinking that there are probably hundreds of concepts you could discuss in a blog post. Just thoroughly covering 7 concepts takes more space than most blog posts do.

At any rate, I’m going to give it a shot. These are Texas Holdem concepts that are less related to the play of individual hands and have more to do with your overall approach to the game.

One of my favorite poker writers, Steve Badger, often points out that poker isn’t a game where you should slavishly follow a cookbook recipe. He told me once that it’s more like making a stew—the exact amounts of each ingredient are open for negotiation, but you want a reasonable balance of those ingredients.

That’s what I’ve tried to do with my blog posts related to Texas Holdem ideas.

1- Game Selection Is Important

Being able to choose the most profitable game for your skill-set might be the most important poker concept to learn. It’s also probably one of the lease talked about skills, too. In fact, you can be a relatively poor player and make more money than a better player if you’re better at choosing the appropriate game.

This skill comes in most handy when you’re dealing with online poker because you have such a large number of games to choose from at any time.

But game selection comes up and is important in live play at brick and mortar poker rooms, too. Your goal is to find a game with more players who call a lot and play a lot of hands. (These are called “loose passive” players.) You want to avoid games with a lot of players who only play a few hands but bet and raise with them when they play them. (These are called “tight aggressive” players.)

You can read more about categorizing poker players in the section on concept #5, below. For now, just know that your goal is to find a table where you’re at least one of the best players at the table, if not THE best. You can make money if there are better players than you at the table, but you’ll probably avoid confrontations with them. If you’re good, they’ll avoid confrontations with you, too.

Finally, unless you have a big bankroll, stay away from games where there’s a lot of loose, aggressive action. Even if you have an edge, you might not be able to withstand the swings of luck that are part and parcel of playing at such a table.

2- Attention Is an Important Prerequisite Skill for Learning to Read Hands

One of my biggest leaks as a new poker player was my tendency to not pay attention to any hand I wasn’t involved in. You’ll see plenty of players who do this. They’re often wearing earbuds. Sometimes they’re watching TV or just gabbing away with the other guys at the table.

When I learned to start watching what was going on more closely, my game improved dramatically. Paying attention gives you a better idea of your opponents’ playing tendencies (see concept #5 below). It will also help you figure out which hands are likelier to win in various situations.

I know from reading that big pairs win more often against smaller fields, but I need stronger hands to win against larger fields. Some of this depends on the texture of the overcards but getting a real feel for what wins in which situations requires attention and experience.

You might think that being patient enough to fold until you get premium cards is the most important Texas Holdem skill you could have. If that’s the only trick you have up your sleeve, you’re in trouble. That will beat a lot of competition at the lower levels, but even at low stakes holdem, you’ll find opponents who are paying attention to how you play and are compensating accordingly.

I’d suggest that being able to put your opponents on a range of hands is a more important skill. In fact, it might be the most important skill. This isn’t something someone has an innate talent for, either. You have to work for it, and that requires paying attention and thinking.

If you’re having trouble concentrating at 1st, I suggest singling out one opponent and pay attention to his playing tendencies. How aggressive is he? Does he bluff? Is he a calling station? Does he defend his blinds?

These are all questions you can answer about opponents if you pay attention to them for a while. Some players are easy to evaluate in this way. I often tell a story about a guy who played every hand preflop, and he raised with all of them, too. Putting him on a range of hands preflop was easy—he could have anything. He tightened up a little bit after the flop, though.

Most players are going to have subtler playing tendencies than this, though. The only way you’ll be able to pick up on these tendencies and put them on a range of hands is by paying attention to what they’re doing, even when you’ve folded and aren’t involved in the hand.

3- Bluffing Is Part of the Game, but It’s a Smaller Part of the Game than Some Beginners Think

People who watch poker on television or in the movies think that bluffing and tells are the 2 biggest components of the game. Both of those skills matter, but neither of them are hugely important compared to things like hand selection, aggression, and calculating outs and pot odds. But you can’t succeed in Texas Holdem if you never bluff at all, either—not unless you’re playing at the lowest limits imaginable.

One rule of thumb I learned early is that you should never try to bluff more than 2 opponents at a time. To win a bluff, all your opponents must fold so that you can win the pot. The more opponents you’re trying to bluff, the less likely you are to succeed. Your best option is to bluff against a single opponent.

Look at it this way:

If you’re bluffing one opponent who you estimate will fold 50% of the time, you don’t need a huge amount of money in the pot to make this a profitable play. You only need even money to break even.

But if you’re bluffing 2 opponents, each of whom has a 50% probability of folding, your chance of succeeding drops to 25%. (To calculate the probability of multiple events happening, you multiply the probability of each of them.) You need 3 to 1 to break even.

If you’re bluffing 3 opponents like that, your probability drops to 12.5%. Now you need 7 to 1 to break even. You won’t usually be getting pot odds good enough to warrant bluffing in this situation.

The best times to bluff are when you see scare cards come up on the flop or the turn or when an otherwise strong player starts acting weak. If you can find a situation where both situations are true, then you’re well-positioned to win a bluff.

The worst times to bluff are when you’re dealing with calling stations. These are players who play passively but rarely fold. Often they’ll check in front of you, but then when you bet into them, they call you down.

4- Don’t Tilt

Poker players are said to go “on tilt” when they get upset about how a hand turns out. They start betting and raising aggressively with lousy cards. Or sometimes they’ll start calling bets with hands they should fold. Players on tilt are trying to force an outcome.

If you’re going to play winning Texas Holdem, you absolutely must learn how to avoid going on tilt.

If you’re new to the game, you might think you’re immune to going on tilt. That’s a common beginner mistake, too. Until you’ve experienced getting your aces or kings cracked several times in a single session, you don’t know how you’re going to react emotionally. It’s easy to get discouraged and think that short-term variance means that everything you know about poker is meaningless in the face of random chance.

The best thing to do if you go on tilt is to quit playing temporarily. You can lose tremendous amounts of money while you’re on tilt. The money you save by getting away from the table when you’re upset is worth just as much as that same amount of money in a pot.

Learning to keep calm and handle the swings of the game is a skill like any other and takes practice. It’s also easy to tilt and not realize you’ve tilted. Recognizing when you’re not playing your best game because of your emotions is a critical skill.

One way to develop this skill is by practicing meditation, by the way. People who meditate pay better attention. They’re more easily able to recognize what’s going on, both inside and outside. I’m not sure about other benefits of meditation, but I’m convinced that poker players who meditate on a regular basis have better luck than those who don’t.

5- Categorizing Your Opponents Is a Crucial Skill

One of the 1st things I learned about poker strategy had to do with playing styles. I’d never given the concept of playing style much thought until I read Andy Bellin’s book, Poker Nation—which was my 1st poker book, by the way.

The different styles of play make poker so interesting. Luckily, the number of styles can be categorized into a handful of groups. How you should play against opponents of a specific style varies based on how they play.

If you pay attention to your opponents’ general tendencies, you can put them into 1 of 4 categories:

1. Tight and aggressive
2. Tight and passive
3. Loose and aggressive
4. Loose and passive

Think of these as being 2 continuums. One—the tight-loose continuum—describes how often a player participates in a hand. Tight players fold a lot and only play premium hands. Loose players don’t fold often, so they might have any kind of cards.

The other continuum—the aggressive and passive continuum—describes how often a player bets and raises versus checking and calling. Aggressive players drive the action by betting and raising. Passive players, on the other hand, check and call more often.

But these aren’t binary categories, either. You can face a tight player who folds 90% of his hands preflop, or a tight player who folds 80% of his hands preflop. You can face a loose player who only folds 50% of his hands preflop, or you could even face a player so loose that he plays 100% of his hands preflop. (I played a guy like this at the Winstar in Oklahoma not long ago.)

Also, some players play looser from the blinds even if they play tight the rest of the time. Other players might play loose before the flop but tighten up considerably on the flop and the turn.

That’s why I suggested that these categories are continuums.

The consensus is that tight aggressive is the best playing style, so that’s the style you should emulate. Don’t play many hands, but when you do, bet and raise with those hands. Go big or go home.

The 2nd best approach is loose aggressive. If you’re facing the right opponents, being willing to bet and raise a lot is enough to get you an edge at the poker table. You get extra equity if you’re facing tight players because you win a certain percentage of pots just because your opponents fold. And even if you have 2nd best cards, you’ll occasionally hit your draw.

A passive poker player is always the worst. Rocks (tight-passive players) tend to lose their money in the face of aggression. Calling stations (loose-passive players) tend to pay off their tighter opponents. Passive players of either persuasion never (or rarely) give their opponents an opportunity to fold.

When you categorize your opponents, you can make better-educated guesses about what kinds of cards they might be playing. If you get good enough at that, it’s like playing poker with someone whose hole cards are always exposed.

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6- Learn When to Play for Higher Stakes

If you’re a winning player at the $2/$4 tables, you might also be a winner at the $5/$10 tables. You won’t know until you take a shot at that level. If you ARE able to win at the higher limits, you should be able to make more money just because there are larger amounts of money in play in those situations.

One thing to think about is how big your bankroll is. Even if you have an edge, short-term variance (i.e. bad luck) can cause you to lose all your money and go broke. You should have about 300 big bets at a given level if you want to avoid risking going broke. Of course, if you’re a bad player, it won’t matter how big your bankroll is. The size of your bankroll only starts to matter when you’re a winning player.

That’s only one aspect of moving up in stakes, though. You also need to be skilled enough to win at that next level. You might be ready; you might not.

My suggestion is to start with a bankroll that will get you through to the lowest limit game in the cardroom. If you’re playing $2/$4, then you should have a $1200 bankroll.

Set yourself a goal of winning enough money to move up to the $3/$6 tables. That means you have to win $600 at that level before moving up.

If you lose that $600 and get back down to $1200, you go back to the $2/$4 tables.

But if you’re winning, you move up in stakes to the $4/$8 tables once your bankroll has increased to $2400.

This kind of approach guarantees that your skills are improving, because it’s almost impossible to grow your bankroll like that without being able to win at the higher stakes, too.

In other words, you’ll know when you’re ready to move up because your bankroll will tell you.

7- Tells Can Take Your Profits to the Next Level

If you watch TV or movies about poker, you might think that picking up tells is the #1 most important skill in poker.

It’s not.

But learning to read your opponents’ tells can help you win more money than you might win otherwise. It won’t make up for a lack of ability to fold or a lack of ability to read other players. But if you’ve mastered the basics, looking for and finding tells can take your game and profits to the next level.

Not all tells are individual, either. Some players fall into predictable categories. You can read Caro’s Book of Tells by Mike Caro or Read ‘Em and Reap by Joe Navarro to learn about some common tells that apply to most players.

Here are some tells you can look for without reading an entire book on the subject, though:

Shaking hands – A player whose hands are shaking when he goes to bet or raise isn’t bluffing, usually. That’s a release of subconscious excitement about how strong is hand is. Keep this in mind when putting that opponent on a range of hands.

Are they going to play the hand? – Most players learn pretty quickly that they’re not supposed to act out of turn. But if you watch the players to your left, you can often see clues to what they’re planning to do before they do it. It’s obvious when a player puts his chips on top of his cards that he’s planning to play his hand. If he’s picking up his chips even though it isn’t his turn to act, he’s getting ready to call, bet, or raise. Paying attention to this tell can help you avoid some of the disadvantages of playing out of position.

Weak is strong, and strong is weak. – Players who act one way are usually representing the opposite. A player who’s trying to stare you down when he’s betting or raising into you often has a weak hand and is hoping you’ll bluff. A player who’s staring at the television and calling in a disinterested manner probably has a monster and is hoping to get some action with it. Most of the time, players try to be deceptive and act in the manner opposite of their hand strength.

It’s easier to pick up on your opponents’ tells when you’re not involved in a hand. See concepts #2 and #5 above.

Conclusion

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that “most important Texas Holdem concepts” is a highly subjective idea. These are the concepts I think are most important, especially if you’re just getting started. I’ve tried to focus on concepts that apply to the game as a whole and your overall approach to it.

You’ll find other blog posts with specific details about how to play hands of certain types from certain positions at certain levels. There’s nothing wrong with those posts, either. I just think you need to grasp some of these other elements of poker first, or at least concurrently, with those tactics.

Imagine how exciting it is to drag a pot and suddenly not have to worry about paying rent next month. Maybe you have been dying to plan a vacation but need the extra spending money. Sounds like it is a good time to start learning Texas hold’em, so you can start making money like so many other people have.

Whether you are going all in with the best hand or bluffing with the worst hand, it’s all part of no limit Texas hold’em. It’s the most popular version of poker; it’s the game you see being played on ESPN for millions of dollars.

This page is specifically designed to break down the rules of NL hold’em in its most simple form so you can understand how a poker hand plays out and what it takes to win.

We will transition into ideas like what it means when a player “3-bets preflop” or who has to show first when a river bet is called. Anything and everything you would want to know about the rules of the game can be found below thanks to our poker experts.

This guide wasn’t designed to give you strategies on how to play, although we have that here if you are interested in learning tips and advice. This specific article was written to get you comfortable and confident that you are going to be able to play and win.

We understand that playing poker at the online casinos can be intimidating to players with little to no experience. The easiest way to explain the rules of no limit Texas hold’em is to simply go in order. Let’s break down how a hand will play out, and you will feel like a veteran of the game in no time.

How a Hand Is Played

Whether you are playing in a casino in Las Vegas or on one of the top online gambling sites, the objective of the game remains the same. The goal is to win hands. You can do that by either making the best five-card hand or by making your opponent fold a better hand, which is known as bluffing. As we get into a how a hand plays out, you are going to need to be aware of which hands beat other hands.

The hand ranking chart below explains this, starting with the highest ranked hand at the top, the infamous Royal Flush.

**c=clubs, d=diamonds, h=hearts, s=spades.

**J=Jack, Q=Queen, K=King, A=Ace.

Now that you know which hands beat the others, let’s jump into the discussion of how a hand is going to play out, starting with the setup of the table. When you play cash games, sites will give you the option to play against one opponent (head-to-head), “6-max” (maximum of 6 players), or full-ring, which is up to 9 players.

A tournament will almost always feature 9-10 players unless otherwise noted, as players fill in the empty seats as other people get knocked out.

Regardless of how many players are competing at the table, a hand is going to start like this:

Preflop

The dealer will deal each player two cards known as the “hole cards,” face down. Don’t worry about the cards being visible on the screen when playing online. No other players can see your two hole cards. What happens next is known as the preflop action.

You are going to have the option of choosing whether or not you want to continue in the hand, but be prepared to commit more money if you want to see the community cards.

Let’s use a $1/$2 no limit cash game as an example.

Unless you are the small blind ($1) or the big blind ($2), you haven’t been forced to commit any chips into the pot yet. If you are first to act or nobody has opened with a raise, you will have 3 options:

• Fold – You can simply fold your two cards, putting no money into the pot and ending the hand.
• Call – You can call $2 and proceed to see the flop, assuming another player behind you doesn’t raise.
• Raise – You can raise to as little as $4, and all the way up to all of your chips.

The order of who acts is simple. We will get to the explanations of all the different positions on the table in a section below, so bear with the terminology for now. The player to the left of the big blind is the first player to act. After he or she has decided on one of the three options listed above, the player on his or her left is next.

These actions are repeated in that clockwise fashion until everyone has had a chance to either fold their cards or call the existing amount that is out there.

Sometimes, the pot can be raised or even re-raised before the action ever arrives on you. Regardless of what happens preflop, when it is your turn you must either match the current amount or raise yourself in order to advance in the hand. If you don’t like your hand and do not want to put in any additional money, just fold and wait for the next hand.

Once the field is narrowed down to the players that committed enough chips to see the flop, off we go!

Flop

The dealer will spread three community cards face-up. These three cards are for all the players to use to combine with their two hole cards in order to make the best five-card hand possible.

Starting with the small blind, or player who is closest to the left of the button, the action goes around. The first player now has the option of either checking or betting.

Checking simply means passing the action to the next player. You are neither folding nor betting, but merely allowing the next player to decide how much the bet will be in order to see the fourth community card.

Betting means that you are betting a number of chips, thus determining the price the other players will have to play in order to see the next card. If your two hole cards did not connect with the flop or you do not wish to call whatever bet is in front of you, you may fold your cards and be done with the hand.

Once the players have either checked around or called a bet, the fourth card is revealed.

Turn Card

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“Burn and turn,” as they say. Once the fourth card is dealt, the same action as the previous street (the flop) ensues. Players either check or bet, and have the option to fold when they do want to risk any additional chips.

Whichever players are remaining after this round of betting are off to the fifth and final card!

River Card

The fifth community card is known as the river, or “Fifth Street.” This is the final card, and it also represents the final round of betting. Similar to the flop and the turn, the player closest to the left of the dealer button leads off the action by either checking or betting.

The difference on this street is that there will be no more cards and no more betting once this round is completed. This is your final chance to either getvalue from your hand or try and bluff out your opponent.

If you are betting on the river and nobody calls your bet, you are deemed the winner and awarded the pot. If a player calls your river bet, you (the original bettor) are required to show your hand first. In the scenario where a bet is made and called on the river, the player with the best five-card hand drags the pot.

Now that you are starting to get the gist of how a poker hand plays out in no limit Texas hold’em, you are going to want to be familiar with the different positions on the table. We briefly touched on how important knowing and understanding these positions is, as you will learn in any strategy guide you come across.

Let’s go over the positions so you feel comfortable and educated next time you start a poker session.

Positions on the Table

As you start to play no limit Texas hold’em and get into the strategies, you will learn more and more how vital position becomes. Where you are positioned on the table determines the order in which you will act on each street.

Let’s examine what we are talking about by defining each of the primary positions. Now you will know what it means when you hear someone say they “defended their big blind” or “re-raised from the cutoff.”

Button

The button is the most prized position at the table. Not only do you not have to post a forced blind – which you will read about below – but you will be the last player to act on each street. This is significant because it means you get to react to what the other players do first, before having to make a decision about how you want to proceed.

The button rotates clockwise at the end of each hand, making sure each player at the table is acting as “the button” an even amount of times. Better players end up playing a higher percentage of hands from the button than from any other position on the table. This is solely because of how valuable it is to be able to make decisions after seeing how your opponents respond and act.

Small Blind

The small blind is the player to the left of the button. This player will post a fixed amount of money out on the table before the dealer deals any cards. When you hear a game referred to as “$5/$10 no limit,” the first number ($5) is considered the small blind.

Besides putting in half the amount of the big blind, the small blind is the player who will act first after the flop, turn, and river. For the same reasons that the button is the best position, the small blind is often considered the worst position to play a hand from post flop.

This is purely because each player in the hand will be able to react and make a decision after learning what your decision was. The one advantage to this is that by being the first player allowed to bet on each street, you can “lead out” and apply max pressure whenever you feel like it makes sense.

Big Blind

To the left of the small blind sits the big blind. This player is responsible for posting the fixed amount of money that it costs to see a flop, permitted that there is no additional raise. In a $1/$2 NL game, the $2 player is known as the big blind.

If no player opts to raise preflop, the big blind has the option to check. That means he or she will now see the flop without wagering any further chips. However, if no player has raised by the time the action lands on the big blind player, that player most certainly has the option to “raise it up” just like their opposing players did before them.

As the button rotates to the left, both the small and big blinds do as well. For example, no player will be the big blind in back-to-back hands.

Other Positions

Clearly, the three positions above are the most common positions people talk about. Don’t let that mistake you into thinking they are the three most important, as all of the positions provide value in one way or another.

In order to be completely comfortable in a poker session, you will want to have a good grasp on the positions below, that way you avoid any confusion at the table.

When you hear poker players use the words “under the gun” or UTG, here’s what it means.

It is the player to the immediate left of the big blind. This is the player who will be the first player to act after the initial two hole cards have been dealt out. They refer to the position as “under the gun” because once everyone receives their two hole cards, the action is on that player. He or she sets the tone for how the preflop action will begin.

UTG +1 is the player sitting directly to the left of the “under the gun” player. Poker players will use this term when explaining hand histories to fellow players. For example:

“I opened JJ from UTG +1 and got two calls.” Don’t be overwhelmed. All this means is that this player was dealt pocket jacks and the first player to act folded. The player then raised with his pair of jacks and two opponents called his raise.

The player in the cutoff position is the player sitting immediately to the right of the button. While the player “on the button” will be the last to make decisions on each street, the “cutoff” will be the second-to-last player to act.

This is a nice position to play hands from as you will be acting after each player (besides the button) throughout the hand.

The player sitting in the “hi-jack” position is the player directly to the right of the cutoff. Only the cut-off and the button will act after the hi-jack on each betting street.

We understand the terminology might seem confusing at first, but there is nothing to worry about. These positions will become second-nature to you after just a couple of sessions. Don’t be overwhelmed. When you play Texas hold’em online, the button and blinds automatically rotate. Just play your cards to the best of your ability and let the online software do its job!

The Betting Action

The beauty of no limit Texas hold’em is that you can wager all of your chips at any point in the hand. By now you know about checking, betting, and folding. Those are the most basic and common ways to proceed through a hand. However, no limit Texas hold’em is a wild and crazy game, and you will see other bets made.

3-Bet and 4-Bet

When you start playing NL Texas hold’em, you will see more aggressive betting, such as “3-betting” and “4-betting.” This is just a fancy way of talking about re-raising.

Say you are playing $1/$2 NL and you open for a raise preflop to $10. If a player then re-raises to $30, that player is “3-betting to $30.” That’s really all that means.

A 4-bet would just be one more raise. Let’s look at the example above. You raised to $10 and a player “3-bet” to $30. Now say the next player decides to re-raise again and make it $100. That player is now “4-betting to $100.” When the action folds back to you, you can fold, call $90, or even put in a 5-bet and perhaps go all-in!

Q & A

Before we close things out, we wanted to mention a couple questions that frequently get asked. Despite being a fairly straightforward game to learn, there are terms and scenarios you will encounter during a poker session, and you will want to understand what’s going on.

What does “bluffing” and “value betting” really mean?

Don’t get caught up with these terms without knowing what their true meanings are. Here is exactly what a “bluff” and a “value bet” accomplish.

Bluffing- Betting an amount that forces your opponent to fold a better holding than you.

Example- After the turn card, you have a pair of 7s with an ace kicker. You go all in and your opponent folds a pair of 9s. You just “bluffed” your opponent by making him or her fold a better hand.

Value Betting- Betting and getting called by a worse hand.

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Example- After the river, you are holding a “Queen-high flush” and bet $200. Your opponent calls with a smaller flush and you scoop the pot. You just made $200 by value betting.

I heard someone say, “The bubble burst, I’m ITM.” What does that mean?

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ITM stands for “In the Money.” This term is used when playing a poker tournament. Generally, somewhere between 10-15% of the field will get paid out. Say there are 100 players in the tournament and the structure says that the top 10 players get paid.

When there are 11 players remaining, this is known as the “bubble.” This is because the player who is knocked out next receives nothing, while the remaining 10 players cash in the tournament. Try not to be the “bubble-boy” or “bubble-girl” when you are on the bubble. Finishing “in the money” is a much better result.

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Summarizing

Texas hold’em is an exciting game to play, especially when playing it in its purest form – no limit. The ability to wager all of your chips at any point in the hand means you have to be on your toes at all times. There are a lot of intricacies that go into to being a successful player. The first step to turning a profit is having a full understanding of the rules of the game, and how hands play out.

Our site has plenty of material covering different areas of Texas hold’em. From strategy guides to the differences between online vs live, and cash games vs tournaments, you can find all of that on our poker hub page.

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Our goal was to provide you with an organized rules catalog that you could use as your foundation for becoming a winning player.

You should have a good grip on what the setup of a poker table is like and how a hand will play out. “You can’t run without learning how to crawl first.” That is why we explained what preflop, flop, turn, and river mean and displayed a hand ranking chart to show you where hands rank from top to bottom.

By understanding the different positions on the table, you will be fully aware of where raises and calls are coming from, and the order in which the action will play out on each street of betting. Being aware of the 3-bets and 4-bets is significant as you will want to take notice of which players seem to be re-raising repeatedly and which players seem to only call or fold.

The point is, the first phase to mastering no limit Texas hold’em is learning the basics. Hopefully this page provided you the confidence you need moving forward to start crushing the online sites!