The basics of Texas hold ‘em
Posted on July 7, 2008
Filed Under Poker |
Texas hold ‘em (also known as hold’em, holdem) is one of the most popular poker games in the casinos and poker card rooms across North America and Europe. Hold ‘em is a community card game which requires at least two players for the game to start. Each player may use any combination of the five community cards and the player?s own two hole cards to make a poker hand, in contrast to poker variants like stud or draw where each player holds a separate individual hand.
One of the main reasons for the raising popularity of Texas Holdem is the ease with which players can learn the rules. Despite that, Texas Holdem is often referred to as the game that takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.
After slow but steady gains in popularity throughout the 20th century, hold ‘em’s popularity was boosted in the 2000s due to exposure on television, on the Internet, and in popular literature. During this time hold ‘em replaced 7 card stud as the most common game in U.S. casinos, almost totally eclipsing the once popular game. The no-limit betting form is used in the widely televised main event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Because each player only starts with two cards and the remaining cards are shared, it presents an opportune game for strategic analysis (including mathematical analysis). Holdem’s simplicity and popularity have inspired a wide variety of strategy books which provide recommendations for proper play. Most of these books recommend a strategy that involves playing relatively few hands but betting and raising often with the hands one plays.
In Texas holdem, like all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money, called the pot, contributed by the players themselves. Because the cards are dealt randomly and outside the control of the players, each player attempts to control the amount of money in the pot based on the hand the player holds.
The game is divided into a series of hands or deals. At the conclusion of each hand the pot is awarded to one or more players. A hand ends either at the showdown, when the remaining players compare their hands, or when all but one player have folded and abandoned their claims to the pot. The pot is then awarded to the player(s) who have not folded and have the best hand. (This is usually only one player, but can be more in the case of a tie.)
The objective of winning players is not winning every individual hand, but rather making mathematically correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold. By making such decisions, winning poker players maximize long-term winnings by maximizing their expected utility on each round of betting.
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