Poker for Dummies (Mini Edition) (12 page)

Making smart moves when the pot gets big

Texas Hold’em is the most popular game played in casino poker rooms. Although playing expertly requires a great deal of skill, Hold’em is easily learned and deceptively simple. It is a subtle and complex game, typically played with nine or ten players to a table, and is a faster, more action-filled game than Stud or most other games. Texas Hold’em is also the fastest growing poker game in the world, and it is the game used to determine the world champion at the World Series of Poker.

Basic Rules

In Hold’em, two cards are dealt face down to each player, and a round of betting takes place. On the first round, players may either call or raise the blind bet, or they must fold their hand. Most casinos allow a bet and three or four raises per betting round, with one exception: When only two players contest the pot, there is no limit on the number of raises permitted.

When the first round of betting is complete, three communal cards, called the
flop,
are turned face up in the center of the table. That’s followed by another round of betting. On this and each succeeding round, players may check if no one has bet when it is their turn to act. If there is no bet, a player may check or bet. If there is a bet, players may fold, call, raise, or reraise.

A fourth communal card — called the
turn
— is then exposed. Another round of betting takes place. Then the fifth and final community card — known as the
river
— is placed in the center of the table, followed by the last round of betting. The best five-card poker hand using any combination of a player’s two private cards and the five communal cards is the winner.

That’s all there is to the play of the game. Yet within this simplicity lies an elegance and sophistication that makes Texas Hold’em the most popular form of poker in the world.

Blind Bets

Before cards are dealt, the first two players to the left of the dealer position are required to post blind bets, which are used instead of antes to stimulate action. (Those two players post their bets before they see any cards and, thus, are “blind.”)

In a $10–$20 Hold’em game, blinds are usually $5 and $10. Each blind is considered
live.
Because blinds represent a forced, first bet, the blind bettors can raise (but only on the first round) after the betting has gone around the table and it is their turn to act again.

Unlike Stud, where position is determined by each player’s exposed cards, referred to as his
board,
the player with the dealer button (see the “Position, position, and position” section, later in this chapter) acts last in every round of betting — with the exception of the first one.

Hold’em in General

Although Hold’em is exciting, exhilarating, and enjoyable, you should know
something
before diving in and plunking your money down — even if Hold’em is the lowest-limit game in the house. This section offers a few of those
somethings
we wish we had known when first making the transition from Seven-Card Stud to Texas Hold’em.

Hold’em only looks like Stud — it plays differently

With a total of seven cards, some of which are turned face up and others down, Hold’em bears a resemblance to Seven-Card Stud. But this furtive similarity is only a “tastes like chicken” analogy.

One major difference is that 71 percent of your hand is defined on the flop. As a result, your best values in Hold’em are found upfront; you get to see 71 percent of your hand for a single round of betting.

Staying for the turn and river demands that you either have a strong hand, a draw to a potentially winning hand, or good reason to believe that betting on a future round may cause your opponents to fold. Because only two additional cards are dealt after the flop, and because the five communal cards play in everyone’s hand, there are fewer draw-outs in Hold’em than Stud. (A draw-out happens when you draw cards that make your hand better than your opponent’s.)

Also, because Hold’em uses exposed communal cards in the center of the table that combine with two hidden cards in each player’s hand to form the best poker hand, it is more difficult for an opponent to draw-out on you than in Stud poker. For example, if you were dealt a pair of Jacks and your opponent held a pair of 9s, the presence of a pair of 5s among the communal cards gives each of you two pair. But you still have the best hand. Unless one of those 5s helped an opponent complete a straight, the only player helped by that pair of 5s would be an opponent fortunate enough to have another 5 in his hand.

The first two cards are critical

You’ll frequently hear players say that any two cards can win. Although that’s true as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough. The whole truth is this: Any two cards can win, but they won’t win enough to warrant playing them. Like all forms of poker, you need starting standards (a decision on which hands to start with, before you even sit down at the table). Players who lack starting standards take the worst of it far too often.

Position, position, and position

There’s an old real estate bromide that says the three most important features of any property are location, location, and location. In Hold’em, the important features are position, position, and position. Where your place is at the table (your
position
) is so important that some two-card holdings, which can’t be played profitably from early position, are cards you might raise with when you’re last to act.

In a typical nine-handed game,
early position
includes both blinds and the two players to their left. The fifth, sixth, and seventh players to act are in
middle position,
and the eighth and ninth players are in
late position.

Because casino games are dealt by house dealers, a small disk — called a
puck,
a
buck,
or, most commonly, a
button
— is used as a marker to indicate the player in the dealer position. That player is always last to act. The button rotates clockwise around the table with each hand that’s dealt. The expression “passing the buck” does not refer to dollar bills, but to poker. And President Harry S. Truman, an avid poker player himself, had a sign on his desk in the White House that read, “The buck stops here.”

The flop should fit your hand

No matter how sweet your first two cards may appear, an unfavorable flop can render them nearly worthless. A key concept is that the flop must fit your hand. We call this concept fit or fold. If the flop doesn’t strengthen your hand or offer a draw to a very strong hand, you should usually release it.

Suppose you called on the first round of betting with A
J
, and the flop is Q
5
3
. You don’t have a strong hand at this point. What you do have, however, is a hand with extremely strong potential. If another diamond falls on the turn or the river, you’ll make a flush. Not any flush, mind you, but the best possible flush, because your Ace precludes any of your opponents from making a higher one.