This article talks about Texas Hold’em only mainly because of the very fact that it is now the most popular type of online poker worldwide. Likewise if you would enter any off-line safe casino and sit down on a poker table it is very likely to be Texas Hold’em again. Within Texas Hold’em you have the options of playing tournaments or cash games, limit or no limit. Playing tournaments in usually not very different from playing cash games when it comes to the poker rules applied, yet your poker strategy must be quite different if you ever intend to be a successful player later on. Further known poker games are Card-Stud, Omaha High/Low, Draw-Poker and Razz where any of these game types would need to be described in a separate article.

My personal viewpoint is the fact that Texas Hold’em will be the most exciting and easiest to learn variation of poker and so ideal for beginners. You get a whole lot of action and there is a huge range of possibilities to win or lose a hand. A famous saying is: “You only need one minute learn Texas Hold’em but you need your entire life to master it”.

Dealer, hole cards and blinds

The dealer shuffles a deck of 52 cards without Joker. The game can be played with a minimum of two as well as a maximum of 11 players. The dealer is generally a player himself. The dealer button moves clockwise from round to round. The dealer button is a big chip that lies in front of the dealer. The button also defines the 2 players which are forced to place a bet (blinds). The dealer also another function: He needs to push the game and make sure that everything is running correctly. He is responsible for the correct bets and that the 2 players left from the dealer place the small and big blind before the start of every single round. Then each player is given two cards (hole cards) through the dealer and also the first betting round will be around to start.

The first betting round begins with the player left of the big blind. In the first betting round only the 2 players with the small and big blind are skipped as their first bets will be the blinds. The very first player after the big blind is under the gun. What that implies is that he is forced to do the very first move without having any opportunity at all to gather information from other players.