I had a nice conversation with my brother today. He called me with a couple of questions about the mechanics of Texas Hold'em, and I realized that some of my audience could probably use a quick primer on the game. For those of you who already know and/or play Hold'em, I've included a brief meditation on my problems with AK, which I have recently realized is the single biggest drain on my bankroll.
In Texas Hold'em, each player is dealt two hole cards (face-down), and then there is a betting round. At the conclusion of the betting, three community cards are dealt face-up in the middle of the table. These cards are referred to as the flop. After the flop, there is another round of betting. Then another community card, called the turn, is dealt face-up, followed by another round of betting. The final community card -- called the river -- is dealt and a final round of betting takes place. At the conclusion of this last round of betting, if two or more players are still in the pot, they turn their cards over and the best five card hand which uses any combination of hole cards and community cards wins the pot.
When Hold'em is played as a private game, the deal rotates clockwise around the table, and the dealer, who will act last in every betting round except the first has a significant positional advantage. In a casino or card-room, the house usually provides a dealer who deals every hand. However, because of the positional advantage that the player to the dealer's right would have if he always got to act last, the card-room provides a little plastic disk, called the button, which is placed in front of the player who would be dealing that hand if there were no professional dealer. The player who has the button is usually referred to as the button, and it is the player to the button's left who receives his cards first and who will act first in all rounds except the first one.
In poker games like stud or draw, all the players ante a small amount before the cards are bet, so that there will be money in the pot to begin with. This encourages players to bet, since there's a pile of money sitting there to be won. In Hold'em, instead of all the players anteing, there are two forced bets which the two players to the left of the button have to put into the pot before the cards are dealt. These forced bets are called blinds, and there is a small blind (usually half a full bet) and a big blind (a full bet). The players who post these blinds are referred to as the small blind and the big blind. Once the hole cards are dealt, because the small blind and the big blind have already acted by posting their forced bets, the betting action starts with the player to the big blind's left, who can fold his cards without putting any money in the pot, can call the full bet already placed by the big blind, or can raise that bet. In Limit Hold'em he can only raise it by one increment, so that if the big blind is $1, he can only raise the bet to $2. In No-Limit Hold'em, he can raise by any amount up to his entire stack of chips. Betting your whole stack is known as going all-in.
The action proceeds around the table, with each player either folding, calling or raising. When the action gets to the small blind, he can either fold his hand and forfeit the half-bet he's already placed, or he can call the full amount of the largest bet so far, or he can raise. If nobody has raised, calling would only involve putting in half a bet. The big blind is the only player who has the option of checking in this first round, and he only has that option if nobody has raised, because then his forced full bet already acts as a call. If the pot has been raised, he has to decide whether to fold his cards, put in enough more chips to call the highest raise, or re-raise.
Once the first round betting is complete and the flop has been dealt, the first player to the left of the button who didn't fold before the flop must act by checking or betting. Subsequent players still in the hand can check or bet if nobody before them has bet, or can fold, call or raise if someone before them has bet. This process will be repeated after the turn and the river, as long as there are still two or more players contesting the pot.
Now, for an example -- here's a hand I recently played on PokerStars:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from
FlopTurnRiver.com(Following is a list of all the players at the table when the hand was dealt, along with how much money in chips each had in front of him before the start of the hand.)
Small Blind ($10.05)
Big Blind ($10.85)
Player 3($6.55)
Player 4 ($9.10)
Heroine ($10.75)
Player 6 ($3.45)
Player 7($9.75)
Player 8 ($9.85)
Button ($5.60)
Preflop: Heroine is in middle position with Kd, Ac.
(That's me. I'm holding the ace of clubs and the king of diamonds. AK is a very strong starting hand in hold'em).
1 fold, Player 4 calls $0.10,
Heroine raises to $0.50, Player 6 calls $0.50,
2 folds, Button calls $0.50,
2 folds, Player 4 folds.
(So one player called the big blind, I raised to fifty cents -- five times the big blind -- and two players called me. The blinds folded and so did the original caller).
Flop: ($1.75 in the pot) 9d, 5c, As
(3 players)Heroine bets $1, Player 6 folds, Button calls $1.
(The flop paired my ace, and brought two relatively harmless-looking lower cards. With top pair and the best possible kicker (the king) I lead out with a bet of over half the pot and get one caller. At this point, I figure my caller has an ace and a lower kicker than my king, but not a nine or a five, because that would have given her two pair and she probably would have raised me. Right now, I really like my chances to win this hand and I plan to suck more money out of her by not betting so much that I chase her out of the pot -- I want her to call to the end and pay me off.)
Turn: ($3.75 in the pot) 8s
(2 players)Heroine bets $2.50, Button calls $2.50.
(Even though the turn put a second spade on the board, I'm not too worried. While somebody might have called my preflop raise with a suited hand like KQ of spades, they probably wouldn't have called my flop bet when only one spade came on the flop. That call on the flop really looks like a person holding an ace, and if she's got an ace, she doesn't have two spades, because the ace of spades is on the board. So in keeping with my plan, I bet well over half the pot, but not so much that a person holding an ace with a respectable kicker like a ten or better would be convinced to get out; still, if I were holding an ace and a ten in button's place, I'd be pretty worried that I was outkicked and would seriously think about folding to the $2.50 bet.)
River: ($8.75) 2s
(2 players)Heroine bets $1, Button raises to $1.60,
Heroine calls $0.60.
(Okay, the river has put three spades on the board, but I still don't think she has a flush. I bet $1 at her because she only has $1.60 in front of her. I could have bet the whole $1.60 but players are often reluctant to put all their chips in on a call, and I wanted her to call, not fold. Instead she raised me her last .60. I don't like this because I now suspect I'm losing the hand, but I'm not going to fold my hand for a 60 cent bet into a $10 pot, so I call.)
Final Pot: $11.95
Results:
Heroine has Kd Ac (one pair, aces).
Button has 2c Ad (two pair, aces and twos).
Outcome: Button wins $11.95.
(Yep. She hung around with top pair and the worst possible kicker and then caught two pair on the end when the deuce hit the board. And this is one of the reasons I lose money on AK. For the record, even on the button I would have folded A2 offsuit to a 5 times the big blind preflop raise without thinking twice about it. If I'd had some kind of seizure and called the preflop raise with the hand, I would have let it go on the turn, realizing that I was way behind.)
Hold'em newcomers -- feel free to ask questions in the comments section if this is confusing to you. Hold'em players -- feel free to use the comments section to point out errors or inaccuracies in my explanation, express sympathy, critique my play, or tell a sob story of your own. :-)
The book review project begun in my last post will resume this week. Stay tuned!
