See also

• Holdem: Positional Concepts - Your Position
• Holdem: Positional Concepts - Your relative position
• Holdem: Manipulating Your Opponents

Texas Holdem is the most favorite variant of poker in the world. It’s a community card game, with straight poker rules, where each participant is dealt 2 hole cards which can be used in conjunction with the five exposed cards on the table to accomplish the strongest possible 5 card hand. This guide details the general Hold’em Poker rules.
Similarly to offline Holdem games, in online Holdem the poker table can have up to ten players. One of these players will hold a button in front of their place, also called the dealer button. This button indicates that the two players playing to the immediate left have to post blinds.
Though the button stems from the tradition in offline poker game, but in online poker the Dealer’s task is carried out by a virtual dealer whose sole function at the table is to deal cards.

Blind bets. Most hands of poker begin by some form of forced bets. This is to ensure that there is activity with every series of betting. Holdem is played with 2 blind bets (before the pocket cards are received).
The first two players directly to the left of the Button start with placing blind bets. The small blind is paid by the first and the big blind by the second. The value of the SB and BB is determined by the table's betting structure. The BB is always minimal bet at the poker table and the SB is equivalent to half of the BB.

Antes. An ante is a mandatory bet that all persons have to put in before the hands are dealt. It is commonly approximately 10% of the small bet.

1-st Round. Pre Flop. When the blind bets are made, the dealer flips two dark cards, called hole cards, to each person in a clockwise order.
Then the players decide if they would like to bet. The player to the left of the big blind acts first. In the pre-flop round of betting the bettors has not right of checking, however the players can do any of the following alternatives: Call, Fold, Raise or Bet. All gamblers shall put the equal amount in the pot in order to keep playing. So if one player raises, the other players must either call or reraise, or fold their hands.
The first round of betting completes when all persons have either folded or called the last raise.

Flop. Once all pre-flop action is over, it's time to move on to the next phase of the game - the Flop. 3 of the 5 board cards are dealt face up in the middle of the playing area. These are board cards available for use by everyone as part of the strongest 5 card poker combination. Now, the action in the 2nd round of betting begins with the first remaining player left of the dealer, who has the choice to bet or check.
Bets at this round are of the lower betting level, which is the same as the BB (e. G., $8 in the $8/$16 limits). A check is just declining the possibility to bet, and can be done if there have been no bets so far. Action continues in a clockwise direction until all persons have posted the current bet or folded, and thereafter we move to the Turn.

3rd Round. The Turn. Once betting is over for the flop round the button deals the fourth board card on the poker table, so all remaining gamblers have 6 cards to play with. A betting action occurs again.

4th Round - The River. Once third betting is complete, the last community card, called the river, is dealt face-up into the center of the playing area and the final betting round begins with the active player to the dealer's left. This player can bet, check, raise or fold within the bounds of the limits and stakes structure. Remaining players can thereafter check, call, fold or raise (a opponent has the choice of checking if no bet has been posted).

Showdown. After the final round of betting is finished, remaining players still left in the game at this phase open their pocket cards and the one with best combination grabs the money.
In the case that you don't want to reveal your hole cards you can elect to muck at this level, which simply means to fold your cards.
In order to win the pot you must make the best five-card combination, which can be made up of your hole cards and/or any of the board cards. It is not required to use any of pocket cards if you don't want to. In the event that 2 or more opponents have equally strong hands, the pot is equally divided between them.