You will often hear players say that poker takes seconds to learn and a lifetime to master; well this is the second to learn page!

You play Hold’em with a standard 52 card deck (a regular deck minus the jokers). Prior to each deal, the dealer must shuffle and cut the cards to ensure no cheating is happening. The dealer always deals to the button. The button is a symbol of where the dealer would be sitting, without making the dealer move every hand. Bellow you will see the stages of a regular Hold’em hand, separated into four sections, pre-flop, flop, turn and river. These are terms you will often hear in poker. If you want to know more about phrases then why not check out our poker dictionary.

Pre-flop

To start two players (to the left of the dealer button) lay compulsory blinds into the pot. They are there to make sure there is something to play for each hand. There are two blinds (small and big) the small blind is always half the big blind. 

Each player is dealt two ‘hole cards’ face down, these are the player’s cards and cannot be used by anybody else.

A round of betting begins, starting with the player to the left of the big blind. Each player can fold, call or raise, only the big blind can check at this stage.

Flop

Once the pre-flop is over the dealer will ‘burn’ (discard) the top card from the deck and deal three cards, which are used by every player still involved in the hand.  There will be another round of betting, this time starting with the small blind. If at any point if this player is not available then play will progress with the player closest to the left of the small blind. Once again players can check, call, raise or fold.

Turn

The dealer then ‘burns’ another card and places just one face up onto the table. Another round of betting proceeds, once again with the player on the small blind. (or closest)

River

Exactly the same happens for the river. After the dealer, deals the final card onto the table, one more round of betting proceeds. If there are still two players in the pot by the end, they must show their cards and the player with the best hand wins. The player that made the last raise must show their hand first.

The five cards that have been dealt onto the table are called community cards; these cards are used alongside the player’s two hole cards to give them the best five card hand. Check hand rankings for the best hands you can have. In the event of a tie, the players that have tied will split the pot.

These are the basics of Hold’em poker until you know these and a few other things, you should be nowhere near a table, please have a look at the next section in our poker advice section to master your game.