The 2nd Table
VARIANTS
Texas Hold Em:
In it's peak form, Texas Hold' em can be played with a standard 52-card deck and as many as 10 players. A dealer "button" indicates the position of the player who is dealing the cards. The player in question acts last and thus has a positional advantage that remains throughout the hand. After each hand, the button moves one position clockwise, so that all players in the game have same number of opportunities with the positional advantages.
Positional advantage can be explained hence, being the player to act last, you have more information available to you when your turn to bet arrives. Similarly being forced to act first is a disadvantage. The advantages held by the remaining players is based on their position in the game.
The two players on the dealer's left must post the "blind" bets. These are called hence since betting occurs before they see the cards. Typically, the bet by the player in the very first position is one-half the size of the bet of the player in the second position, although in some games, the first bet (called the "small blind") may be as little as one-third or as much as two-thirds the size of the second bet (called the "big blind").
The dealer distributes two unique cards to every player. These cards are called the hole cards and belong exclusively to their "owners". A round of betting takes place during this point, which is called "pre-flop."
In the pre-flop betting round, the player in third position (after the blind bets) has only three choices. Because a blind bet has been made prior to him, the player can do any of the following:
- Fold. If a player folds, he is said to have resigned from the game.
- Call, by matching the size of the big blind; or
- Raise. The raise made by the player depends on the type of game that he in playing i.e pot-limit, or no-limit. For ease of discussion, we will assume the game played in our sample hand is limit poker, with $5 and $10 blinds, which means it is a "10-20 game."
If he calls, he places $10 in the pot. If he raises, he places $20 in the pot.
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