The most popular poker game today – live and online – is No-Limit Texas Hold’em, where each player receives two cards and the dealer adds five additional cards belonging to everyone.

Your goal is to make the best possible poker hand using any combination of your two cards – called Hole Cards – and the five cards the dealer added, called the Community Cards.

To start with, learning the ranking of poker hands is your first step. With that, you can learn how to build big hands that can win you money! We’ll move on to the basic rules of Hold’em once we go through the hand rankings.

High Card – as its name implies, a High Card hand is one where your best five-card combination does not create a ‘made’ poker hand, so your highest card is your best. Cards are ranked from Ace as the highest, to King, Queen, Jack and then the numbered hands from high (10) to low (2).

One Pair – Two matching cards out of your best five create a One Pair hand.

Two Pair – Double up from one pair, as Two Pair means you have two combinations of matching cards.

Three of a Kind – When three of your five cards match, you have Three of a Kind, also known in poker games as a Set (when your two Hold Cards match) or Trips (when two of the matching cards are Community Cards)

Straight – Any sequence of five consecutive cards (5-6-7-8-9, for example) creates a Straight.

Flush – Any order of five cards where all cards have the same suit (Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds or Spades) makes a Flush.

Full House – When your best hand consists of one pair and also three-of-a-kind, you have a Full House.

Straight Flush – Five consecutive cards also of the same suit create a Straight Flush.

Royal Flush – Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten – all of the same suit – create the ultimate poker hand, a Royal Flush.

Now, for playing the game.

Action in a Hold’em game begins with the player in the Big Blind – two to the left of the Dealer Button – placing out chips to equal one bet. The player in the Small Blind – one to the left of the Dealer Button – places out chips equal to one-half of a bet.

The Dealer proceeds to deal face down two cards, called Hold Cards, in a clockwise manner to each player. This is called Preflop action, and the betting decisions begin, starting with the player to the immediate left of the Big Blind. Players decide whether to Bet (match the size of the Big Blind), Raise (increase the size of the Big Blind by at least double), move All-in (commit all your chips) or Fold (turn in your cards back to the dealer).

Once all Preflop betting decisions are complete, the dealer places three cards, called the Flop, face up in the middle of the table, and betting continues in a clockwise manner starting with the Small Blind. Players have the choice to Check (commit no chips, as long as no bet has been made), Bet, Raise, move All-in or Fold.

When Flop betting completes, the dealer adds one more card face up, called the Turn, to the middle of the table. The same betting continues and a fifth card, called the River, is then added by the dealer, with one last round of betting.

A poker hand is completed when one player shows the best hand after the river card and all betting is complete – called the Showdown – or at any time in the hand when only one remaining player has bet, and all other players have folded their cards.

When the hand is finished, the Dealer Button moves one position to the left, and the game continues, the players to the left of the button become the blinds, and the next hand begins.

There’s a ton of poker strategies – from beginning to very advanced – we can go into at another time. This, however, is the basics needed to jump in and give the game of No-Limit Texas Hold’em a try.

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