How to play Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em is the poker variant almost every home game plays. Two cards each, five shared, best five-card hand wins. Everything else is betting.

The deal

Every player gets two cards face down — their hole cards. Nobody else sees them, ever, unless the hand goes to a showdown.

Then five community cards come out in three stages, face up in the middle, shared by everyone:

• The flop — three cards at once
• The turn — one card
• The river — one card

Your hand is the best five cards you can make from your two plus the five in the middle. You can use both of your cards, one, or neither.

The blinds

Before any cards are dealt, two players put money in so there is something to play for. The player to the dealer's left posts the small blind, the next player posts the big blind, usually double it. The dealer button moves one seat clockwise every hand, so everybody pays both in turn.

In a tournament the blinds go up on a timer. That is the entire engine of a tournament — rising blinds are what stop it lasting forever and force people to play hands they would otherwise fold.

The four betting rounds

Betting happens after the hole cards, after the flop, after the turn, and after the river. On each round, in clockwise order, a player can:

• Check — bet nothing, only allowed if nobody has bet yet this round
• Bet or raise — put money in, or increase somebody else's bet
• Call — match the current bet
• Fold — throw the hand away and lose whatever you have already put in

A round ends when everybody still in has either matched the largest bet or folded. If everybody folds to one player, the hand is over and they take the pot without showing anything.

Hand rankings, best to worst

1. Royal flush — A-K-Q-J-10, all one suit 2. Straight flush — five in a row, all one suit 3. Four of a kind 4. Full house — three of one rank, two of another 5. Flush — five of one suit 6. Straight — five in a row 7. Three of a kind 8. Two pair 9. One pair 10. High card — none of the above

Suits have no ranking in Hold'em. Two identical hands split the pot.

The rules that cause arguments

These are the ones worth agreeing before you deal, because every one of them comes up eventually.

The board plays. If the best five-card hand is the five community cards, everybody still in has it and the pot is split.

A straight can't wrap. A-2-3-4-5 is a straight, the lowest one. Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight at all.

Verbal declarations are binding. Saying "raise" means you have raised, even if you then reach for the wrong chips.

One player to a hand. No advice from the rail, no discussing a live hand with the person next to you.

A single chip is a call unless you say otherwise. Throwing one large chip in without announcing a raise is a call. This is the single most common dispute in a home game — announce your raises.

Showdown order. The last person to bet or raise shows first. If everybody checked the river, the player closest to the dealer's left shows first.

Running one at home

The mechanics above are the easy part. What actually makes or breaks a home game is the admin: who owes what, who is out, whether the blinds went up. That is what this site is for — [set up a cash game](/guides/host-a-cash-game) or a [full tournament](/guides/host-a-poker-tournament) and it keeps score while you play.