The dealer (in the case of online poker the computer) will start dealing cards starting with the person to his left and dealing in a clockwise motion until everyone has a card.

The blinds get passed around the table at the beginning of each hand in a clockwise direction one player at a time. The small blind is usually equal to half of the big blind. Table stakes are defined the by the size of these blinds.įor example, in a $1/$2 no-limit hold’em game, the small blind is $1 and the big blind is $2. These are forced bets to start building a pot before the flop. Basic Rules of Texas Hold’em The Blindsīefore the game begins, two players are required to post what is the big blind and small blind. You’ll usually see an event or two of it on the WSOP schedule. Pot-limit can be an enjoyable variation for a change of pace, but isn’t found very often in live cardrooms or online. Pot-Limitīy definition, pot-limit allows the bettor to decide on any bet amount up to the size of the pot. When it comes to betting rules of Texas Hold’em, there are two main variations: no-limit and fixed-limit. The now-ubiquitous “all-in” phrase originates with no-limit as you are “all-in” when you’ve bet your entire chip stack. This applies to cash games and tournaments. Just as it sounds there are no limits to what a player can bet at any time, up to their entire chip stack. No-limit overtook fixed-limit as the dominant Hold’em betting variation in the mid-2000’s as online poker blew up the game. That means that if one player bets $2, the next player raises by $2 to $4, a third player raises another $2 to $6, and a fourth player puts in a raise to make it $8 total, the betting is said to be capped, and no further raises are allowed at that point. Capped number of raisesĪlso, in fixed-limit Hold’em games most casinos and online poker rooms cap the number of raises that can be made during any betting round. You can only bet or raise a fixed amount of chips.įor example, in a $2/$4 fixed-limit game the minimum bet is equal to the big blind which is $2 for the first two rounds of betting (pre-flop and flop) and then the minimum bet is doubled is for the last two rounds of betting (turn and river.)Īll bets and raises must be the same fixed amount. In fixed-limit, the bet size is predetermined based on the size of the blinds. They all follow the same basic rules, but the betting structures dictate the minimum and maximum bets and raises that can be made during each round of betting.

There are three different betting variations in Texas Hold’em: Aggression is key to playing winning Texas hold’em poker.Rules of Texas Hold’em stay the same the strategy changes.

Texas holdem rules blinds