How to Play Poker: Understanding Initial Bets
All hands have to start with some money in the pot - otherwise there'd be nothing to play for. This is achieved by a method of forced betting known as posting blinds. Before the cards are dealt at the beginning of each hand, the two players to the left of the dealer place forced bets.
The first forced bet is made by the player on the dealer's immediate left and is called the small blind. This can be any amount you all agree on, say £1. Then the player on his left places another forced bet, called the big blind which is usually double the small blind, in this case £2. These bets go into the pot, meaning they're placed in the middle of the table.
This scheme may not sound particularly fair on those two players but, since the position of the dealer moves around the table after each hand, everyone gets to be small and big blind at some point. If you are the big blind in one hand, you will be the small blind in the next hand, and dealer in the hand after that.
Another way of getting money into the initial pot is by having an ante . Here everyone puts the same amount of money into the pot before the hand begins. If five players all put in £2, then the pot will be worth £10 before play begins. Antes have no effect on subsequent betting rules (although they will affect strategy). In hold'em, antes, when used, are used in addition to blinds rather than instead of them.
If you're playing casually with friends it's up to you to decide whether to use antes as well as blinds. We would recommend dispensing with antes altogether since they're rarely used outside of large live (as opposed to online) tournaments these days. For the purposes of describing the rudiments of the game we will assume you are playing with blinds and no antes.
We will now walk you through a basic hand of no-limit Texas hold'em - by far the most popular poker game in the world.
By the way, don't call the game Texas hold'em or you'll sound like a beginner (which you might be, but you don't want everyone to know that). Just call it hold'em.
Betting Rounds
Each hand of hold'em consists of up to four betting rounds:
- Pre-flop
- The flop
- The turn
- The river.
In each round, cards are dealt and then the players bet. We'll discuss the rules of each round in turn.
Round One - Pre-flop
Posting the blinds
The first round commences with the small blind and the big blind placing their bets.
Dealing the cards
The dealer first shuffles the cards thoroughly and cuts the deck (or, if the dealer is also playing, offers the deck to the player to his left to cut). He deals a card face-down to each player in a clockwise direction, starting from his left and finishing with himself. He then repeats the deal (but not the shuffle or cut) so that players end up with two cards each. Players look at their cards, taking care not to let anyone else see them. These hidden cards are called hole cards, or pocket cards .
The betting
The player to the immediate left of the big blind now starts the ball rolling. He has three choices; he can fold, call or raise.
Folding (also known as passing) means withdrawing from the current hand completely. If you fold then you're no longer required to bet but you'll lose any money you've already put into the pot. You should normally fold if your cards are poor, although there is no necessity to do so - it's up to you. If you're folding, announce "fold" clearly so everyone hears, and push your cards face down into the muck in the centre of the table where all discarded cards are thrown. No matter how dire they may be, don't discuss your cards or tell anyone what you had until the end of the hand. Otherwise you may prejudice the continuing play.
Calling means matching the largest bet previously made in the round by adding this amount of money to the pot. Whenever you call, you will have contributed the same amount of money as the player who's contributed the most in total so far this hand. If you're first to act, the largest amount bet so far will be the bet placed by the big blind. So if the big blind put in £2, announce "call" and place chips to the value of £2 in the pot.
By calling you stay in the hand and add to the available pot. In general you should call when you think your cards are good enough to give you a chance of winning.
Raising means exceeding the largest bet previously made in the round so far. Using the example shown above, the biggest bet so far is £2 from the big blind. So raising will mean matching his bet by putting in £2, and then adding more of your own, which is the raise. In general you should raise when your cards are good, or when you want your opponents to think your cards are good.
In no-limit hold'em, you can raise as much as you like, up to the amount of money you have on the table. (It must actually be on the table from the start of the hand, not hidden in your pockets.) There are rules about what happens if a player doesn't have enough money to call the raise.
In other forms of poker, such as limit or pot-limit hold'em there are constraints on the amount you can bet - these are explained later.
Note the following points about raising:
- If somebody has already raised the original bet before you, then your raise is known as a re-raise .
- Before you raise (or re-raise) you must announce "raise" clearly so that everyone can hear you. Otherwise your bet is treated as a call even if you put enough chips in to raise. What you can't do is say something like "I'll call your £2 and I'll raise you £2", because other players might think you're finished in the pause in the middle. Once you've announced "raise" however, you can put in the chips required to call, and then subsequently and separately add your raise.
- On the first round of betting you can't check (unless you are the big blind) because the blinds force you to either fold, call or raise. But you can check on all subsequent rounds if no-one before you has bet. Similarly you can't bet on the first round (in the formal sense of the word), because only the first player to put money in is described as having bet - and in the first round, that's the blinds. Checking and betting are explained shortly.
Once the first player to the left of the big blind has made his move, the action continues around the table clockwise, with each player in turn choosing whether to fold, call or raise.
As the betting continues around the table, the players who are the small blind and big blind now get a chance to participate. Like everyone else they have the option of calling, raising or folding, although they are required to put less additional money in the pot than the others because they've already contributed their forced bets.
Completing the betting
The betting continues until it finally reaches the player sitting to the right of the last person to raise, at which point the end of the first round is reached. The last person to raise cannot do so again - you're not allowed to raise your own bet or raise, only somebody else's. If nobody raises, the betting ends after the big blind has acted.
By this point some players will have folded, and some will remain in the hand. If more than one player remains, they will all have contributed exactly the same amount of money to the pot during the round. If only one player remains, he wins the pot.
Round Two - The Flop
Dealing the cards
The second round begins with the dealer burning a card, meaning that he discards the top card of the deck. (This minimises the potential for cheating to occur.) He then places the next three cards face up in the middle of the table for everyone to see. These cards are known as the flop. They are community cards, also known as board cards , and any player can use them.
The betting
Another round of betting now follows, but this time starting with the player to the left of dealer (rather than the player to the left of the big blind); that's Player 1 in our example above. Every player who is still in the hand now has five cards - their two hole cards which nobody else can see plus the three community cards which are on the table.
The first player to act can either bet or check.
Betting means being the first player in a round to put money into the pot. Otherwise betting is exactly like raising as described above. If you don't want to bet, you can instead check.
Checking means doing nothing, i.e. not betting but not folding either. It's a sort of 'wait and see' move. If you check you'll get another chance to decide whether to bet or not a little later on in the hand (although you won't get another chance to bet in this round if everyone else checks too). You might check when your cards are not particularly good, or when you want your opponents to think they're not particularly good.
You can't check whenever you want however. A player has the option of checking only if he is the first player to act in a round, or if everybody acting before him in the round has also checked. As soon as somebody had made a bet, subsequent players in that round must either call, raise or fold - checking and betting no longer apply.
Completing the betting
As with pre-flop, the betting continues until it reaches the player to the right of the last person to bet or raise. If everybody checks, betting ends after the dealer has acted.
You have now reached the end of the second round. Again, some players will have folded, and some will remain in the hand, each of those having contributed the same amount of money to the pot. If only one player remains, he wins the pot.
Round Three - The Turn
A third round now commences with the dealer burning another card and placing a fourth community card face up on the table, next to the other ones. This is known as the turn (or sometimes fourth street).
Another round of betting takes place, starting as before with the player to the left of the dealer, at the end of which some players will have folded and some will remain in the hand. If only one player remains, he wins the pot.
Round Four - The River
You have now reached the final round. The dealer proceeds to burn another card and place a fifth community card known as the river (or sometimes fifth street) on the table. At this point all remaining players have seven cards - the five community cards and their two original hole cards. A final round of betting takes place as before.
The Showdown
At the showdown, all players still in the hand show their hole cards if they wish to make a claim on the pot, starting with the last player to bet or raise. A player's hand is the best five cards out of the seven available to him, made up of any of the following combinations:
- Both hole cards plus any three community cards
- One hole card plus any four community cards
- All five community cards - known as playing the board.
After examining the cards, the player with the best hand takes the pot. Everyone else gets nothing. Once the hand is over, the dealer button moves one place to the left and the whole process starts again.
