How to play Texas Hold’em

Every hand, the dealer deals two private cards to each player and five shared cards to the middle of the table. Your job is to build the best five-card poker hand using any combination of the seven cards available to you. Two are yours alone; five are shared with everyone.

You do not have to actually hold the best hand. You just need to be the last player still in the pot, or — if the hand goes to the end — to have the best five cards at the reveal. Both routes win you the same chips.

Two players to the left of the dealer button post forced bets before any cards come out: the small blind and the big blind. This ensures there’s always something worth fighting over.

Then the dealer gives everyone two hole cards, face down. Action starts left of the big blind and moves clockwise. Each player, in turn, picks one of:

• Fold — throw the hand away. You lose anything you’ve committed. You’re out of this pot.
• Check — pass the action without committing more chips. Only legal if nobody has bet yet this street.
• Call — match the current bet.
• Bet / Raise — increase the stake. In no-limit, you can go as high as your whole stack.

1. Pre-flop. Two hole cards; first betting round.
2. Flop. Three community cards come out together; second betting round, starting left of the dealer.
3. Turn. A fourth community card; third betting round.
4. River. The fifth and final community card; last betting round, then a showdown if two or more players are still in.

Position is which seat you’re in relative to the dealer button. It decides whether you have information when you act, or whether you’re acting blind. The later you act, the more you know about the rest of the table’s hands. Professional players play roughly twice as many hands on the button as under the gun. The math rewards them for it.

When the hand is close, let position be the tiebreaker. In early position, play tight. On the button, open things up.

An out is a card that would give you a winning hand if it came. If you have four hearts on the turn, you have nine outs to complete your flush (13 hearts in the deck minus the four you see). On the turn, multiply outs by two for an approximate percentage you’ll hit by the river. On the flop, multiply by four.

Weigh that against pot odds: the size of the current bet as a fraction of the pot after you call. If the pot is 100 and you’re facing a 20-chip bet, you need 20 / 120 ≈ 17% equity to break even on a call. If your hit probability is higher than that, the call is profitable on average.

Say you have A ♥ 5 ♥, the board is K ♥ 9 ♥ 2 ♣. You have four hearts: nine outs for the nut flush. Two streets to come, ~36% equity.

An opponent bets 50 into a 100 pot. To call, you put in 50 to win 150: 25% pot odds. 36% > 25%, so the call is profitable even ignoring fold equity on later streets.

When a player is all-in for less than the current bet, the extra chips can’t legally reach them — they can only win what they put in. So the dealer builds a separate side pot for the players who can still bet, and the all-in player is eligible only for the main pot. If two more players then go all-in at different levels, there can be multiple side pots stacked up like a ladder.

PokerZeno computes these automatically. The UI labels each pot separately on the felt when one exists.

Blinds

Forced pre-deal bets: small blind (half a big blind) and big blind.

Ante

A smaller forced bet every player posts; rare in cash games, common in tournaments.

UTG

Under-the-gun — first seat to act pre-flop. Plays the tightest range.

BB / SB

Big blind / small blind, both a seat name and a chip amount.

Button

The dealer position — indicated by a disc. The best seat at the table.

Cut-off

Seat right of the button. Second-best pre-flop position.

Flop / turn / river

The first three, the fourth, and the fifth community card, respectively.

Pot odds

The price you are being offered to continue vs the equity you need.

Equity

Your share of the pot if the hand ran to river infinite times.

Implied odds

Extra money you expect to win on later streets if you hit your draw.

Fold equity

The probability an opponent folds to your bet — value that exists even when you are behind.

Nuts

The best possible hand given the board. Unbeatable right now.

Hero call

A bold call with a marginal hand against a suspected bluff.

Check-raise

Check to an opponent and raise when they bet — a trap for strong hands.

Four-bet

The third raise in a betting sequence (open → 3-bet → 4-bet).

All-in

You push in every chip you have. You cannot lose more than that this hand.

• Act in turn. Don’t signal intent before the action reaches you.
• State your action clearly: “call,” “raise to 200,” “fold.”
• Don’t slow-roll. If you have the winner, show it promptly.
• Criticism of other players’ play is bad form at any stakes.
• At PokerZeno: the only opponent who cares is made of JavaScript. Go wild.