Texas Holdem, An Overview

Texas holdem is the most popular type of community card poker game played in the casinos and poker card rooms (both real-life and online based) throughout the world. Just like any other poker game, in Texas holdem community cards (also known as “shared cards” or “window cards”), which are dealt face up in the center of the table and shared by all players, are also used. Each Texas holdem player uses any five combinations of community cards. Hole cards, dealt privately, are also used. Each Texas holdem player own two hole cards, combined with the community cards, to make a complete poker hand.

There are several variations of Texas holdem, three most common are: limit holdem, no-limit holdem and pot-limit holdem.
Limit holdem has been the most popular form of Texas holdem found in casinos all over the United States. While no-limit holdem is most commonly found in poker tournaments broadcast in television and in the games played in the World Series of Poker main event.

Betting in Texas holdem involves two kinds of bet: the small and big blind bets (bets forced by two players) and antes (forced contributions by all players), the latter is to be found mostly in tournaments. Blind bets are placed by players sitting next to the dealer button, the player in the dealer position, which rotates clockwise after each hand in order to change the position of the dealer and the blinds. The big blind is placed by the player sitting to his right. While the small blind, usually half of the big blind, is placed by the player sitting to his left. In tournaments, the betting structure increases periodically as the game goes.

The game play is to eliminate players one by one until two people remains. This is a situation that calls for special rules: head to head or heads up, where the blinds are posted differently. In this situation the dealer button places the small blind, while his or her opponent places the big blind. The dealer button acts first before the flop and acts last after the flop.

To win a Texas Holdem game is not by winning every individual hand. It is rather making correct decisions on when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold.

From the very beginning of its existence till the late of 20th century, Texas Holdem had gained slow but steady popularity. It had a blast in the first decade of the 21st century. Many observers believe that this rapid growth happened because of following five factors: the birth of online poker, the game’s appearance in movies and television shows, the 2004 and 2005 NHL lockout, the appearance of television commercials advertising online card rooms and the 2003 World Series of Poker. Since then Texas holdem has become the most common poker game played in the United States casinos. Many books on it have been written, mostly recommend strategies that involve playing relatively few hands but betting and also raising often with the hand one plays.