Texas Hold'em For Dummies

Introduction

Poker has moved itself to the front of the world’s gaming conscience. Thirty years ago, when I’d play Hold’em in a casino, it wasn’t unusual for people to stop and ask me about the game. (I just have one of those ask-that-person-they-look-harmless kind of faces, I guess.) Now my mom can tell me about it.

The public poker frenzy isn’t as fervent these days as it was a decade ago, but interest in the game is still keen.

Hold’em is a deceptively simple game: You have four chances to bet (pre-flop, flop, turn, and river) and five ways to act when you do (check, bet, call, raise, or fold). Yet within that simple framework, you’ll find truth and trickery, boredom and fear, skill and misfortune — in other words, direct reflections of the things that make life worth living.

Hold’em is a game of both skill and chance — and infuriatingly, which of those things is the most important often changes without warning. Needless to say, the interaction between skill and chance is what makes the game gut-wrenching at some times and great at others. If you want to find a sucker, don’t hang out at a chess table. Then again, if you can’t take being beaten by chance, it’ll be better for your blood pressure if you spend your spare time knitting instead.

Amazingly, about 95 percent of the people who play Hold’em in a professional card room (be it online or at a casino) lose money — all because of the insidious nature of the rake (a small cut of every pot the house takes). But don’t lose hope. Hold’em is a game that can be beaten, and by buying this book and referring to it often, you’re absolutely taking the right first step.

About This Book

Texas Hold’em For Dummies, 2nd Edition, is a grand overview of Texas Hold’em.

This book, like all Dummies books, is designed as a reference. You don’t have to read it from beginning to end, cover to cover. My advice is to treat it like a salad bar: Load up on the things you’re most interested in and pass on the parts that don’t appeal to you.

In some of the later chapters, I make reference to concepts and ideas I cover earlier, but the cross-referencing here is heavy. I always point you back to the fundamental concepts for brush-ups.

Don’t stress out as you read these pages. You’re not expected to remember everything, and, hey, you can always come back to anything you need a refresher on.

Tip If you run across any poker terms you’re not familiar with, just flip back to the glossary to flex your mind.

Foolish Assumptions

I’ve made several assumptions about you as a reader — might as well clear ’em up right here to avoid any future embarrassment. I assume that

You’re familiar with playing cards. You know that a deck has 52 cards, with four suits and 13 cards in each suit. You know what a Jack, Queen, King, and Ace are.

You would rather beat other people in poker than have them beat you.

You have any range of poker experience, from none to a lot.

You want to improve your game, no matter how good it is, right now.

You know that trying in vain to get a cocktail server’s attention is worse than having one stop by your table when you don’t need them.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are those little pictures in the margin that flag your attention for a particular reason.

Tip When you see this icon, you’ll find suggestions that save you time or money. When you see the Tip icon, think clever.

Warning Careful! This icon highlights things that could cost you time or money if you ignore them.

Technicalstuff When you see this icon, you’ll find information meant for the hard-core poker player. If you see something with a Technical Stuff icon that you don’t understand, don’t sweat it: You don’t need to know it to improve your game.

Remember Items flagged with this icon are things you’ll need to know either at the poker table or later in the book.

Nolimit While I strongly advise against playing No-Limit ring games as a beginner, you could run across a No-Limit tournament situation when you’re just starting off. I mark No-Limit special cases with this icon.

Beyond the Book

On the Cheat Sheet, which you can find by searching for this book’s title at www.dummies.com/, you’ll find a life preserver to help you stay afloat in the poker seas: what you should be playing, why you should be playing … and how you should be playing!

Where to Go from Here

Where you go as you explore this book is totally up to you. If you’ve never played Hold’em or poker before, just carry on into Chapter 1. If you have played, but you find yourself always losing, I suggest going to Chapter 8 and reading about the other players you’re up against. If you’ve played a lot and just happened to pick up this book, either on a whim or at a friend’s house, flip to Chapter 13 to discover some things about Hold’em you may not know.

And you can always email me at redsdeal+HEFD. I try to respond to every message I get (as long as you aren’t a spammer).

MY BANKROLL, THIS BOOK, AND YOU

Before I started writing the first edition of this book, the last time I played Hold’em was in the 2005 World Series of Poker (money winner, thank you very much). I figured I should be playing as I wrote, to keep the game more alive.

Playing only in tournaments (mostly small single-table affairs) over the course of three months, and never playing in tournaments where my entry fee was more than $33 (although some of my wins were to satellites in bigger-entry-fee events), I won

$3,596.85 in cash

A $535 satellite seat for the World Series Main Event

A $535 satellite seat for the World Series H.O.R.S.E. Event (Hold’em, Omaha, Razz [7-Card Stud Low], 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud Eight or Better [high hand splits with low hand])

I mention this not to brag (well, at least not too much) but to illustrate a point: Because you play Hold’em against people, the game is beatable. I won using nothing more than years of practice combined with the exact concepts I put forward in this book.

If you practice and pay attention, you can — and will, over time — win.

Good luck to you.

Part 1

Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Welcome to Texas Hold’em!

IN THIS PART …

Understand the who, what, when, where, and why of Texas Hold’em.

Get familiar with the hand rankings.

Bet the five cards that make your hand.

Chapter 1

A Bird’s-Eye View of Texas Hold’em

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Setting your poker goal

Bullet Scoping out the game

Bullet Getting more hard core

Bullet Finding a place to play

Thirty years ago, Texas Hold’em lived in relative poker obscurity. When I was playing in casinos, it was fairly common for people to come up and ask me about the game.

A decade ago, the perfect Hold’em storm was created: Chris Moneymaker won the $10,000 Main Event of the World Series of Poker (pocketing more than $2 million off an $86 entry fee satellite), the World Poker Tour became the most successful program in the history of the Travel Channel, and online play became prevalent.

The poker craze got so out of hand that my mom now tells me about watching poker on TV: It’s a lot like quilting. You really have to pay attention to catch the nuances. Not exactly the way I look at the game, but the fact that she’s even watching speaks volumes.

In this chapter, I give you an overview of everything else you can expect from the book. Read on and then venture forth where you will.

Oh yes, and good luck to you! Time to shuffle up and deal.

Considering Why You Want to Play

Remember Before you ever cozy up to a card table, you should ask yourself a critical question: Why am I here?

There are several possible answers to this question:

I want to make money.

I want to just chill out with my pals and have a good time.

I want to sharpen my game.

Hold’em has just crossed onto my mental radar, and I want to find out more about it.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Your reason may even be a combination of those things. Whatever your motive for being at the table, setting a main goal for your play and trying to reach it is critically important.

What I’m about to say will sound like I’m joking, but I assure you I’m not: You do not have to set a goal of making money at the table. Media pressure, and general public attention on Hold’em, has set up an expectation that you can, must, and should win.

The sad fact is that roughly 95 percent of the people who play poker in professional establishments lose money. It’s a devilishly hard game to beat. Because of the rake (a small percentage of the pot that the house takes to run the game — see Chapter 3 for more), and because the vagaries of chance even out over time, you have to truly maximize your wins and minimize your losses, or you’ll watch your wallet slowly shrink.

If you decide from the outset that you have a goal other than winning, you won’t beat yourself up when you don’t. And believe me, no one at your table will argue with you if you don’t mind losing.

Don’t get me wrong, one of my requirements for sitting at a table is that I play to win — when I don’t, it puts me in a foul mood for hours if not days. Because you’re playing against other mortals — people full of pride and fallibility — you can beat the game. My friends and I have proven it over a mathematically significant period of time.

But winning takes perseverance, attention, and thought. Reading this book is a great start. Keep going. Your will is already stronger than the average Friday-night player — now’s the time to get your ability up there as well.

Working with Game Dynamics

To begin appreciating the complexities of Hold’em, you need to understand two basic elements of the game: your position at the table and the particular way the game is dealt.

The importance of position

When Hold’em is played in a professional card room (be it online or in a brick-and-mortar casino), a dealer button acts as the theoretical point that the cards are being dealt from. This button moves one position clockwise around the table at the conclusion of every hand.

The player in the position immediately to the left of the dealer (that is to say, clockwise) posts an automatic bet called the small blind, and the player immediately to their left (or two places to the left of the dealer) posts an automatic bet known as the big blind. These are forced bets that players must make to get dealt into the game. All other players get to see their hands for free. (To get a better understanding of the dealer button and blinds, flip to Chapter 3.)

Players decide whether to play or fold (quit) in a clockwise position, starting with the player immediately to the left (clockwise) of the big blind.

In Hold’em, your position relative to the other players is critical. When you’re in the beginning of the betting order, your cards have to be of higher quality than the cards you would normally play in a later position — especially if lots of players are left in the hand — because you have no idea what evil may lurk beyond. (For more detail on playing by position, see Chapter 4.)

Likewise, if you’re riding at the back of the calling order, you can afford to play looser hands (those that aren’t as high quality) and hope to catch cards to break your opponents’ dreams. In fact, pot odds (the amount you bet relative to the amount you would win) say that sometimes you should call, even when you have a lesser hand. (Chapter 12 gives you more detail on pot odds and all things mathematical.)

Playing move by move

Like all poker games, Hold’em has a very specific order in which the cards are dealt and played. (Chapter 2 has diagrams of Hold’em hands being dealt if you want to see what they look like in action on a table.)

Hole cards

At the start of a Hold’em hand, after the two blinds have been posted, all players are dealt two cards facedown. These are known as the hole or pocket cards. Players then make a decision to call the blinds (match the big blind), raise the blinds (increase the bet), or fold (quit playing and throw their cards away, facedown, to the middle of the table — known as mucking).

In the form of Hold’em known as Limit, the bets have to be of a specified amount. In No-Limit, players may bet any amount of their chips on the table. (You can find more on the different types of betting limits and how they work in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 [and on the Cheat Sheet], you can find more on the types of hands you should play as hole cards, according to your position, as well as information on how to bet them.)

Tip If you’ve just been invited to a poker party and don’t have the time to even browse Chapter 4, here’s a general rule I tell newbies that works remarkably well:

If both of your hole cards are not 10s or higher (Jacks, Queens, Kings, or Aces), fold.

Yes, it sounds harsh, but it’ll keep you pretty much playing only the cards that you should — and about the right frequency of hands.

Warning Make sure not to show your hole cards to other players at the table (even if those other players are no longer in the hand). And after you’ve looked at your cards, you should protect them from being collected by the dealer by placing an extra poker chip (or some other small object) on top of them.

The flop

After the betting action is done on the round with the hole cards (also known as pre-flop), the dealer displays three cards simultaneously to the center of the poker table — this is known as the flop. At this point, each player at the table has a unique five-card poker hand consisting of their two hole cards and the three community cards.

Because of the raw number of cards involved, the flop typically gives you the general tenor of the poker hand and definitely gives you a good idea of the kind of hand to look for as a winner. For example, an all-Spade flop (especially with a lot of players still in the hand) will be hinting at a flush as a strong possibility for a winner.

Betting begins with the first person still in the hand to the left (clockwise) of the dealer button. As a general rule, you want your hand to match the flop, and you should fold if it doesn’t; sharpies call this flop or drop. (Chapter 5 is all about how to play the flop.)

In Limit play, the size of the bet you can make on the flop is identical to the amount you can wager pre-flop.

The turn

After the flop betting round is completed, another community card is placed, known as the turn (or sometimes fourth street). Each of the remaining players now has a six-card poker hand made up of their two private hole cards and the four community cards. Hold’em is a game where only five cards count toward a poker hand, so everyone has a theoretical extra card at this point.

In Limit, the betting is now twice the amount that was bet pre- and post-flop.

Poker wags like to say the turn plays itself, meaning your hand gets better and you bet it, or it doesn’t and you start giving serious thoughts to folding. This is more or less true. (You can swerve over to Chapter 6 for details about playing the turn.)

The river

After the betting round of the turn, a final community card is exposed, known as the river (sometimes called fifth street).

Each player left in the game now has their final hand, consisting of the best five cards of the seven available (two private hole cards and the five community cards). Players may use two hole cards along with three community cards, one hole card combined with four community cards, or just the five community cards (known as playing the board). Again, poker hands are made up of the best five cards — the other two available to any given player don’t count. After the river is dealt, there is one final round of betting. (Chapter 7 washes you with the river details.)

The showdown

The showdown is what happens after the final river bets have been placed. Although it isn’t formally required, typically the person who initiated the final round of betting is first to show their hand. The action then proceeds in a clockwise fashion with players either mucking their hands if they can’t beat the exposed hand or showing a better hand (at which point the dealer mucks the old, worse hand and continues around the table for any remaining hands).

Winners and losers are determined by the standard poker hand rankings. (Chapter 2 gives more details on those if you’re not already familiar with them.)

Warning If you’re ever unclear about who is winning a hand, just turn your cards faceup and let the dealer decide. Never take a player’s word on what they have in hand until you’ve actually seen their cards with your own eyes — when you muck a hand, it’s officially dead.

Moving Up a Notch

After you understand the basics of how Texas Hold’em is played, it’s time to move into the deeper levels of the game.

Gleaning your opponents

Tip By far, the most important thing in a poker game is figuring out, and then playing specifically to, your opponents. When you’ve been bet into, what may be a raise against one player can be an easy and fast fold against another.

You need to factor in such questions as

How likely is your opponent to bluff?

Does your opponent sense weakness in your betting action or in the way you’re behaving at the table?

Is your opponent’s table position influencing the way they play?

Do the board cards hint at a good hand (or possibly a hand that has been missed, and is your opponent now bluffing)?

If you read no other chapter of this book, look over Chapter 8 for much more detail on playing the players at the table.

Playing the roles

When it’s your turn to bet, you really only have some subset of five choices:

Check: If no one else has bet yet

Bet: If no one else has bet

Call: If a player in front of you has bet and you want to match the amount to stay in the game

Raise: If a player in front of you has bet, but you want to increase the amount

Fold: If you’ve decided you can’t take it anymore

With such limited choices, some people may think there isn’t a whole lot to the game — but nothing could be further from the truth.

Bluffing

One of the things poker is best known for is bluffing (acting as though you have a hand that you don’t actually have, in an effort to get your opponent to fold). Bluffing is the point where the psychological rubber hits the steely money road — and it’s the glorious difference that separates poker from nearly any other game you can think of.

Bluffing works best when

You’re playing against a weaker opponent (who is likely to fold).

There is a large amount of money at stake — where winning the hand would make a difference to your stack.

People have reason to believe you aren’t bluffing.

The community cards hint at a hand you could have (for example, a straight or a flush) but you actually don’t.

Warning Bluffing is a bad idea when

You try to get a player who is very prone to calling, just to see what you have, to fold.

There is no other obvious reason for you to bluff.

You’re playing with people who think, Sure, I’ll call — that guy always bluffs.

You gain nothing (or nearly nothing) by doing so.

For more on bluffing, see Chapter 9.

Slow playing

Slow playing is the expression used to describe a player who has an extremely good hand but doesn’t bet it strong from the start in an effort to squeeze more money out of their opponent.

The good news is, if you slow-play, it can help camouflage your hand, leaving the unsuspecting at your disposal. The bad news is, it can backfire and give your opponent a chance to draw cards that can ultimately beat you.

Chapter 10 is your slow-playing headquarters. In the name of indirection, it’s best to act like you’re actually going somewhere else as you mosey on over to Chapter 10 and take a look.

Figuring in math

If playing your opponents is the most important thing to know at a poker table, the next most important factor is mathematics.

The math behind poker isn’t complicated — much of it you can already do off the top of your head, assuming you know little things like the fact that a deck has 52 cards: four suits, each with 13 ranked cards (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace). What you can’t (or don’t want to) figure out, you can memorize.

The two important things to pay attention to are the chances of making your hand on a draw (for example, you have four Clubs between your hand and the community cards through the turn — what’re the chances of seeing one on the river?) and the pot odds if you do (that is, how much do you win relative to how much you bet?).

I cover mathematics in detail in Chapter 12 — and I promise it’s not the yawner that it was in school.

Places You Can Play

Playing poker is easy, assuming you can find a game. Of course, thanks to the popularity of poker, you can find a game nearly anywhere.

Home games

For poker, there’s truly no place like home. For one thing, there’s no rake. For another, you can slap on your Judas Priest album and bang your head — and your tablemates can just join in.

The upsides:

You get to play with your pals. (This is an upside only if you actually like your pals.)

You get to play as naked as you’d like.

You call the shots on everything.

The downsides:

Your dog may eat the snacks you spread out on the counter.

The equipment isn’t as nice as a professional card room.

Your place tends to get a little bit trashed.

For more on home games, take a look at Chapter 14. Chapter 20 has some ideas on making your home games better.

Casinos and poker rooms

As far as a place to play goes, you can’t beat the equipment, comfort, and waitstaff of a professional card room. A professional dealer lets you focus all your attention on the game (without having to fumble with the cards yourself), and gaming commission rules ensure that you’re getting a fair deal.

When you go to a professional card room, you should check in with the board person (the person responsible for the waiting lists) to find out the limits and games that are being spread. The floor person will seat you and help you get your chips.

Chapter 16 has the rundown on professional card rooms, and hey, don’t forget to tip your dealer!

Online

The biggest poker room in the world is no farther away than your computer. All you need to do is transfer money from your bank account to a third-party transfer agent and then from there to the poker site of your choice. (This is a process similar to using PayPal for buying stuff on eBay.)

As soon as you have money in your account, you can be off and playing. The good news is, the rakes tend to be lower and there are more bonuses than at brick-and-mortar card rooms. The bad news is, the physical absence of a player at your table makes reading tells much harder.

See Chapter 15 for more on the online world of poker. Chapter 18 details some differences between the online and real worlds

Chapter 2

Ranking and Reading a Hand

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Figuring out poker