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• Learn the thrilling game of Texas Hold'em with one of our resident professional poker teachers. Download our poker software and click on the "Practice Table" tab. Once there, join any one of the practice tables during class hours below and you will be joined by our friendly poker teachers. You can use the live chat to ask questions and get advice.

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The Poker Academy

If you follow the lessons in our Poker Academy you will finally learn how to become a successful poker player. You just need to spend a few minutes of your time to improve you poker skills significantly. After you have read the beginners article you can also brush up your knowledge by clicking through the interactive tutorial on our website. Learn the poker basics, the hand rankings in Texas Hold'em and test your newly acquired knowledge in our new Poker Quiz. If you pass the Quiz successfully we will put a 5 cash into your poker account!

Lesson 1: Texas Holdem - Fixed Limit

Introduction:

If you read this article you will be able to answer the following questions:

1. What are community cards?

2. How is a poker hand constituted?

3. How does the betting round work?

The first lesson discusses the rules of Texas Hold'em. The game itself is very easy to learn. Each player is dealt two cards, after which five cards are dealt face-up on the table. First three (the flop), then one (the turn), and another one (the river card). These are called community cards, because everyone can use them in conjunction with their own two cards to form their hand. In between them are four rounds of betting.

The first round is the so-called pre flop round. This is the round where you are dealt your two cards.

a) Pre flop - The cards are dealt

Before the cards are dealt, two players must post a blind. They are called blinds, because they haven't seen their cards yet. There is one small bet, the Small Blind, and one big bet, the Big Blind, usually double the small blind.

These bets aren't posted by just anyone, but always by the two players sitting on the left of the dealer. Since the dealer position moves around the table in a clockwise fashion, so does the responsibility of posting the blinds. In order to recognize the current dealer, a special chip is placed in front of the current dealer. This chip is called the Button, or Dealer Button.

b) Every player at the table receives two cards

Now each player is dealt two cards and the first round of betting begins. Do you have strong enough cards to commit chips or money, or will you throw away your cards? How does the the betting work? Read more to find out!

c) What are your options in a betting round?

Fold

If you don't want to continue in the hand, you can throw your cards away and "leave" the current round.

Bet

When no-one ahead of you has bet anything, you can do it yourself. You would say, for example: "I bet 10 chips" and place your chips in the pot, so that anyone who wants to play on must pay your bet. If they don't, because it is too expensive, they can fold.

Betting all of one's chips is called going all-in. Once you are all-in, you can't bet anything more, but also cannot be forced to fold anymore. Indeed, when you are all-in, you will automatically be in the hand until its end, giving you the possibility to win by showing the best cards.

Raise

You can also raise a bet, for example, raising an opponent's bet of 10 chips to 20 chips. By doing this you are making the bet more expensive to call for anyone who wants to play on. If they don't want to pay extra, they must fold.

Call

If someone in front of you has bet, you have the possibility to call this bet. For this you just pay whatever the price of the bet was. If an opponent bets 10 chips, you would call 10 chips to stay in the hand.

Check

If no-one has bet yet, then you can check. This means that you don't place any bet and let the next player act. It is like saying "I'll wait and see what happens".

To keep betting rounds organized, there are a few rules to know who's turn it is. Basically, the action goes round the table clockwise. When one player has acted, the player to his left can act.

In the first round of betting the player on the left of the big blind is first to act. From the second round on, it is always the first player on the left of the button.

Once everyone has acted all the bets are collected and placed in the middle of the table. This is called the pot. Whoever wins the hand wins the pot.

Read on to learn about the community cards!

The Flop - The first three community cards

After the initial round of betting the dealer deals three cards face up on the table, so that everyone can see them. They do not belong to one particular player, indeed everyone can use them to create their 5-card poker hand. This is why they are called community cards.

Now begins the second round of betting, during which you can place additional money in the pot, or fold. At the end of the round, the bets are collected as usual and put into the pot. Then comes the turn.

The Turn - The fourth community card

A fourth community card, the turn, is dealt on the table. It is also used in combination with the other cards to form your poker hand. The players who are still in the hand engage in a third round of betting, at the end of which the bets are collected and placed in the pot. After the turn comes the river.

The River - The fifth community card

The river is the fifth and final community card to be dealt. It is of course also used in combination with the other cards to form each player's hand.In the ensuing fourth round of betting you can bet once more. After this round of betting, the players who are still in the hand show their cards. This is called the showdown. Read more and learn how to evaluate the winning hand.

The showdown - Do you have the best hand?

At the showdown all the players still in the hand reveal their cards, to find out who has the best holdings and wins the pot. This raises the question: what poker hands are there and how are they ranked?

A poker hand is always made of five cards. You only hold two cards, which you combine with the community cards. You won't always need both of your hole cards to form your poker hand. Indeed, you can use four of the community cards, or even all five, it doesn't matter. The only requirement is that there be five cards.

There are a number of different combinations that can form a hand in poker. For example if you have five clubs, then you have a flush. All the possible hands are explained under hand rankings.

Summary

Now you know the rules of Texas Hold'em. You know that in a game there are four rounds of betting, one before the flop, one on the flop, one on the turn and the last one after the river. The flop, turn and river are the so-called community cards which are dealt face-up on the table. Also try out our interactive tutorial to visualize the lesson that you have learned.

It appears to be a fairly simple game, but appearances can be deceiving. Texas Hold'em can present some very complex situations, which is why inexperienced players often lose very quickly. To master the game, you will find in the following articles some basic strategy to learn the variant you choose. Finally nothing will stand in your way to a successful poker career.

Lesson 2: Texas Holdem - Fixed Limit

Before the flop - The first betting round

If you read this article you will be able to answer the following questions:

1. How does the position at the table affect the strength of your pocket cards?

2. How do you evaluate a good or bad starting hand?

3. What is an early or late position at the table?

What is your position at the table?

Rule of thumb: The earlier your position, the better cards you need!

Position is in fact only another way of representing how many players will still act behind you. From a logical point of view this is important, because the more players are behind you, the higher the probability that one of them has a better hand.

Therefore: The more opponents act behind you, so the earlier your position is, the better your own hand has to be.

Starting from the dealer, you count the seats counter-clockwise.

To determine your own position, you start at the current dealer (Button) and count the seats between you and him counter-clockwise. Take a look at the following chart:

Blinds		Late		Middle		Early

The four group position:

As you probably noticed, there are four different groups of position:

• 2 late positions: The dealer himself and the player to his right represent the late position.


• 3 middle positions: The following three players are the middle position.


• 3 early positions: Subsequently, the next three are in early position as they always have to act early in each betting round.


• 2 blind positions: The two players who paid the blinds make up their own group.The player next to the dealer is the small blind, followed by the big blind.

The first round is the so-called pre flop round. This is the round where you are dealt your two cards.

What happens if a player leaves the table

When this happens, the first early position simply drops out. Thus there are only two early positions instead of three. If another player leaves the table, only one early position remains.

The strength of your pocket cards

The tables below shows how to determine the strength of your starting hands and takes into account what your opponents have done before you and what position at the table you are in. It should give you an idea about the chance/risk ratio of your starting hand by taking into consideration:

• - Your starting hand


• - What action your opponents have taken before you


• - Your position at the table

Abbreviations:

A = Ace

K = King

Q = Queen

J = Jack

o = off suited

s = suite

BB = Big Blind

Summary

Now you know about the importance of the position at the table and how you can use this information for your game play. You know that there are 4 different positions, the blind, the early, the middle and the late position. You should now also be able to evaluate the strength of your starting hands which is crucial for a successful game play. Try out our out interactive tutorial to visualize the lesson that you have learned.