This article talks about Texas Hold’em only simply because of the fact that it is now the most common form of good online casino gambling agent poker worldwide. Likewise if you would enter any off-line casino and sit down on a poker table it’s very more 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 with regard to the poker rules applied, yet your poker strategy has to be quite different if you ever arrange to be a successful player down the road. 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 that Texas Hold’em is the most exciting and easiest to learn variation of poker and as a consequence ideal for novices. You get a whole lot of action and there’s 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 may need your entire life to learn it”.

Dealer, hole cards and blinds

The dealer shuffles a deck of 52 cards without Joker. The game can be played with no less than two and a maximum of 11 players. The dealer will likely be 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 ensure that everything is running correctly. He is responsible for the correct bets and that the two players left from the dealer place the small and big blind ahead of the start of almost every round. Then each player is given two cards (hole cards) by the dealer as well as the first betting round will be close to to start.

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