If you still don't know how Texas Hold'em Poker works, you have come to the right place. Here you will find all the rules necessary to begin playing Hold'em.

There are two cards, face-down, for each player and five face-up community cards. The player who makes the best five-card poker hand with any combination of their two face-down cards and the five community cards wins the round. In a Texas Holdem game, a disc or other marker is used to indicate which person is the dealer for the round. The person to the left of the dealer posts a bet called the small blind. But the person to the left of the small blind posts the big blind. The first two cards, called the hole cards, are dealt to each player face down and the person to the left of the big blind starts the first round of betting. In the first round each player has three options: call, raise or fold. To call, the player must place a bet that is equal to the last bet placed. The first three community cards are dealt face-up on the board, after all the players have finished the first round of betting. This is called the flop.

The second and all subsequent betting rounds start with the first player to the dealer's left. By checking, the player indicates interest in the pot without placing a bet. Any player may choose to place a bet, which the other players must then call. If a bet has been made, players can still raise, but if their hand is not favorable - fold.

After the second betting round, the fourth community card - turn card, is dealt face-up. In limit games, the minimum bet doubles in the last two rounds of betting.

After the third betting round, the fifth and final community card, known as river card, is dealt.

A final round of betting ensues, and afterwards every player turns their hole cards face - up. The highest hand that can be made with any combination of a player's holecards and the five community cards wins the pot.

The usual poker rules apply in Texas Hold'em when deciding which hand is the best. Royal Straight Flush is the highest hand, followed by Straight Flush, Four of a kind, Full house, Flush, Straight, Three of a kind, Two pair, Pair and High Card (when you've got nothing at all).
If two or more players have the same hand, the next highest card in the player's hand (the kicker) is used to break a tie. If there is no kicker card, then the pot is split between them.

Different types of poker
There are also a few different types of Texas Hold'em. There's No Limit-Hold'em, Limit-Hold'em and Pot Limit-Hold'em. The rules vary a bit between these three types, but only a little.
In Limit-poker, you can only bet a certain amount every time you place a bet. If the table is a $10/$20-table, then $10 is the lowest bet, and $20 is the highest. You can't bet any more or less than $20, though, after the Turn card has been shown.
No Limit-poker is actually an incorrect expression, if you are a know-it-all. Of course there is a limit, even though it's a lower limit. There is no limit on how high bets you can make, but there is a limit on how low bets you can make. Only in No Limit-poker you can go All-in (if you don't have very little money).
There's also Pot Limit-poker. In this type of poker, the bet's can't be higher than the pot when the bet is placed.

Tournament rules
A lot of people choose to play their poker in tournaments. In tournaments, you don't have your real money. Instead, you buy yourself in to the tournament for a certain amount of money. Everybody pays the same amount, and therefore get the same amount of chips (not potato snacks, these are made of plastic). Mostly, you get 1.000 or 1.500 chips in the beginning of the tournament, whilst in big tournaments you get chips at a value of your buy-in.

To keep tournaments from going on forever, the blinds are raised on a regular basis. If you start with 10/20 blinds, with 100 players, it would be ridicolous to have the same, small blinds, with only five players left (and it would take very long time to finish the tournament). By then it's more likely to have 100/200 blinds, as the remaining players ought to have a lot more chips than they started with.

That's all the rules I think you need. Now, go to my guide! Move along! (click here)