How to play Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em is one of the most popular card games ever, and it's really easy to understand. A poker hand is always made of five cards. In the beginning of the game you only get two cards, which you can later combine with community cards dealt later during the game. The game has four rounds where you can either bet or throw your cards away.

The first round is called Preflop round. This is where you get your two cards. Before the cards are dealt, two players must post a blind bet - as they haven't seen their cards yet. There is a small bet, followed by the Big Blind, that is usually doubles the value of the small blind. These bets are posted by the two players sitting on the left of the dealer.

The betting goes round the table clockwise. In order to mark who's dealing, a special chip is placed in front of the current dealer. If it's your turn, make your bet and place your chips in the pot. Anyone who wants to play on, must pay your bet. If anyone decides it would be too expensive, they can fold.

Betting all of your chips is called going all-in. Once you are all-in, you can't bet anything more, but also cannot fold before the showdown. In this case you will automatically be in the hand until its end, giving you the possibility to win by showing the best cards.

You can also raise a bet, making it more expensive. If the other players don't want to pay extra, they must fold. You may call the bet of someone who has one in front of you. For this you must pay whatever the price of the bet was. If no-one has bet yet, then you can check, meaning that you don't place any bet and let the next player act.

The action goes round the table clockwise. After everyone has acted, all the bets are collected and placed in the middle of the table in the pot. After the initial round of betting the dealer deals three community cards. Every player can use these to create their 5-card poker hand.

In the second round of betting you can place additional money in the pot, or fold. A fourth community card - called the turn - is dealt on the table. You can also use this in combination with the other cards to form your poker hand.

The players who are still in the game, engage in a third round of betting, at the end of which the bets are collected and placed in the pot again. After the turn comes the fifth community card, called River. again you can combine this with the other community cards.

This is followed by the fourth round of betting where you can bet once more. After this round, the players who are still in, show their cards to find out who has the best holdings and wins the pot.

Texas Hold'em is easy to understadn but can present some very complex situations, which is why inexperienced players often lose very quickly.