Texas
hold 'em (also hold'em, holdem) is the most popular
poker game in the casinos and poker card rooms
across North America and Europe. Hold 'em is a
community card game where each player may use
any combination of the five community cards and
the player's own two hole cards to make a poker
hand, in contrast to poker variants like stud
or draw where each player holds a separate individual
hand.
After
slow but steady gains in popularity throughout
the 20th century, hold 'em's popularity surged
in the 2000s due to exposure on television, on
the Internet, and in popular literature. During
this time hold 'em replaced 7 card stud as the
most common game in U.S. casinos, almost totally
eclipsing the once popular game. The no-limit
betting form is used in the widely televised main
event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and
the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Because
each player only starts with two cards and the
remaining cards are shared, it presents an opportune
game for strategic analysis (including mathematical
analysis). Hold 'em's simplicity and popularity
have inspired a wide variety of strategy books
which provide recommendations for proper play.
Most of these books recommend a strategy that
involves playing relatively few hands but betting
and raising often with the hands one plays.
Objective
In
Texas hold 'em, like all variants of poker, individuals
compete for an amount of money contributed by
the players themselves (called the pot). Because
the cards are dealt randomly and outside the control
of the players, each player attempts to control
the amount of money in the pot based on the hand
the player holds.
The
game is divided into a series of hands or deals;
at the conclusion of each hand the pot is awarded
to one or a few players. A hand ends either at
the showdown (when the remaining players compare
their hands), or when all but one player have
folded and abandoned their claims to the pot.
The pot is then awarded to the player(s) who have
not folded and have the best hand. (This is usually
only one player, but can be more in the case of
a tie.)
The
objective of winning players is not winning every
individual hand, but rather making mathematically
correct decisions. By making such decisions, winning
poker players maximize their long run winnings,
which is achieved by maximizing their expected
utility on each round of betting.
History
Although
little is known about the invention of Texas hold
'em, the Texas State Legislature officially recognizes
Robstown, Texas as the game's birthplace, dating
the game to the early 1900s.
After
its invention and spread throughout Texas, hold
'em was introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group
of Texan gamblers and card players, including
Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo
Slim. Addington said the first time he saw the
game was in 1959. "They didn't call it Texas
hold 'em at the time, they just called it hold
'em... I thought then that if it were to catch
on, it would become the game. Draw poker, you
only bet twice; hold 'em, you bet four times.
That meant you could play strategically. This
was more of a thinking man's game."
For
several years the Golden Nugget Casino in Downtown
Las Vegas was the only casino in Las Vegas to
offer the game. At that time, the Golden Nugget's
poker room was "truly a 'sawdust joint,'
with... oiled sawdust covering the floors."
Because of its location and decor, this poker
room did not receive many rich drop-in clients,
and as a result, professional players sought a
more prominent location. In 1969, the Las Vegas
professionals were invited to play Texas hold
'em at the entrance of the now-demolished Dunes
Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. This prominent
location, and the relative inexperience of poker
players with Texas hold 'em, resulted in a very
remunerative game for professional players.
After
a disappointing attempt to establish a "Gambling
Fraternity Convention", Tom Moore added the
first ever poker tournament to the Second Annual
Gambling Fraternity Convention held in 1969. This
tournament featured several games including Texas
hold 'em. In 1970 Benny and Jack Binion acquired
the rights to this convention, renamed it the
World Series of Poker, and moved it to their casino
Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. After
its first year, a journalist, Tom Thackrey, suggested
that the main event of this tournament should
be no-limit Texas hold 'em. The Binions agreed
and ever since no-limit Texas hold 'em has been
played as the main event. Interest in the Main
Event continued to grow steadily over the next
two decades. After receiving only 8 entrants in
1972, the numbers grew to over 100 entrants in
1982, and over 200 in 1991.
During
this time, Doyle Brunson's revolutionary poker
strategy guide, Super/System was first published.
Despite being self-published and priced at $100
in 1978, the book revolutionized the way poker
was played. It was one of the first books to discuss
Texas hold 'em, and is today cited as one of the
most important books on this game. A few years
later, Al Alvarez published a book detailing an
early World Series of Poker event. The first book
of its kind, it described the world of professional
poker players and the World Series of Poker. It
is credited with beginning the genre of poker
literature and with bringing Texas hold 'em (and
poker generally), for the first time, to a wider
audience.
Interest
in hold 'em outside of Nevada began to grow in
the 1980s as well. Although California had legal
card rooms offering draw poker, Texas hold 'em
was prohibited under a statute which made illegal
the now unknown game "stud-horse". However
in 1988, Texas hold 'em was declared legally distinct
from "stud-horse" in Tibbetts v. Van
De Kamp, 271 Cal. Rptr. 792 (1990). Almost immediately
card rooms across the state offered Texas hold
'em. (It is often presumed that this decision
ruled that hold 'em was a skill game, but the
distinction between skill and chance has never
entered into California jurisprudence regarding
poker.) After a trip to Las Vegas, bookmakers
Terry Rogers and Liam Flood introduced the game
to European card players in the early 1980s.
The
hold 'em explosion
In
the first decade of the 21st century, Texas hold
'em experienced a surge in popularity worldwide.
Many observers attribute this growth to the synergy
of five factors: the invention of online poker,
the game's appearance in film and on television,
the 2004-05 NHL lockout, the appearance of television
commercials advertising online cardrooms, and
the 2003 World Series of Poker championship victory
by online qualifier Chris Moneymaker.
Television
and film
Poker on television
Prior
to poker becoming widely televised, the movie
Rounders (1998), starring Matt Damon and Edward
Norton, gave moviegoers a romantic view of the
game as a way of life. Texas hold 'em was the
main game played during the movie and the no-limit
variety was described, following Doyle Brunson,
as the "Cadillac of Poker". A clip of
the classic showdown between Johnny Chan and Erik
Seidel from the 1988 World Series of Poker was
also incorporated into the film.
Hold
'em first caught the public eye as a spectator
sport in the United Kingdom with the Late Night
Poker TV show in 1999. Fueled by the introduction
of lipstick cameras, which allowed spectators
to see the players' private cards, hold 'em exploded
in popularity as a spectator sport in the United
States and Canada in 2003. ESPN's coverage of
the 2003 World Series of Poker featured the unexpected
victory of Internet player Chris Moneymaker, an
amateur player who gained admission to the tournament
by winning a series of online tournaments. Moneymaker's
victory initiated a sudden surge of interest in
the World Series, based on the egalitarian idea
that anyone – even a rank novice –
can become a world champion.
In
2003, there were 839 entrants in the WSOP Main
Event, and triple that number in 2004. The crowning
of the 2004 WSOP champion, Greg "Fossilman"
Raymer, a patent attorney from Connecticut, further
fueled the popularity of the event among amateur
(and particularly internet) players. In the 2005
Main Event, an unprecedented 5,619 entrants vied
for a first prize of $7,500,000. The winner, Joe
Hachem of Australia, was a semi-professional player.
This growth continued in 2006, with 8,773 entrants
and a first place prize of $12,000,000 (won by
Jamie Gold).
Beyond
the World Series, other television shows –
including the long running World Poker Tour –
are credited with increasing the popularity of
Texas hold 'em. In addition to its presence on
network and general audience cable television,
poker has now become a regular part of sports
networks' programming in the United States.
Literature
Twenty
years after the publication of Alvarez's groundbreaking
book, James McManus published a semi-autobiographical
book, Positively Fifth Street (2003), which simultaneously
describes the trial surrounding the murder of
Ted Binion and McManus' own entry into the 2000
World Series of Poker. McManus, a poker amateur,
finished 5th in the No-Limit Texas Hold 'em main
event, winning over $200,000. In the book McManus
discusses events surrounding the World Series,
the trial of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, poker
strategy, and some history of poker and the world
series.
Michael
Craig's 2005 book The Professor, the Banker, and
the Suicide King details a series of high stakes
Texas hold 'em one-on-one games between Texas
banker Andy Beal and a rotating group of poker
professionals. As of 2006, these games were the
highest stakes ever played, reaching $100,000–$200,000
fixed limit.
Online
poker
The
ability to play cheaply and anonymously online
has been credited as a cause of the increase in
popularity of Texas hold 'em. Online poker sites
both allow people to try out games and also provide
an avenue for entry into large tournaments (like
the World Series of Poker) via smaller tournaments
known as satellites. Both the 2003 and 2004 winners
of the World Series qualified by playing in these
tournaments.
Although
online poker grew from its inception in 1998 until
2003, Moneymaker's win and the appearance of televisions
advertisements in 2003 contributed to a tripling
of industry revenues in 2004.
Betting
structures
Hold
'em is normally played using small and big blind
bets – forced bets by two players. Antes
(forced contributions by all players) may be used
in addition to blinds, particularly in later stages
of tournament play. A dealer button is used to
represent the player in the dealer position; the
dealer button rotates clockwise after each hand,
changing the position of the dealer and blinds.
The small blind is posted by the player to the
left of the dealer and is usually equal to half
of the big blind. The big blind, posted by the
player to the left of the small blind, is equal
to the minimum bet. In tournament poker, the blind/ante
structure periodically increases as the tournament
progresses. (In some cases, the small blind is
some other fraction of a small bet, e.g. $10 is
a common small blind when the big blind is $15.
The double-blind structure described above is
a commonly used and more recent adoption.)
When
only two players remain, special 'head-to-head'
or 'heads up' rules are enforced and the blinds
are posted differently. In this case, the person
with the dealer button posts the small blind,
while his/her opponent places the big blind. The
dealer acts first before the flop. After the flop,
the dealer acts last for the remainder of the
hand.
The
three most common variations of hold 'em are limit
hold 'em, no-limit hold 'em and pot-limit hold
'em. Limit hold 'em has historically been the
most popular form of hold 'em found in casino
live action games in the United States.[2] In
limit hold 'em, bets and raises during the first
two rounds of betting (pre-flop and flop) must
be equal to the big blind; this amount is called
the small bet. In the next two rounds of betting
(turn and river), bets and raises must be equal
to twice the big blind; this amount is called
the big bet. No-limit hold 'em is the form most
commonly found in televised tournament poker and
is the game played in the main event of the World
Series of Poker. In no-limit hold 'em, players
may bet or raise any amount over the minimum raise
up to all of the chips the player has at the table
(called an all-in bet). If someone wishes to re-raise,
they must raise at least the amount of the previous
raise. For example, if the big blind is $2 and
there is a bet of $6 to a total of $8, a raise
must be at least $6 more for a total of $14. If
a raise or re-raise is all-in and does not equal
the size of the previous raise, the initial raiser
can not re-raise again. This only matters of course
if there was a call before the re-raise. In pot-limit
hold 'em, the maximum raise is the current size
of the pot.
Most
casinos that offer hold 'em also allow the player
to the left of the big blind to post an optional
live straddle, usually double the amount of the
big blind, which then acts as the big blind. No-limit
games may also allow multiple re-straddles, in
any amount that would be a legal raise.
Play
of the hand
Play
begins with each player being dealt two cards
face down. (Like most poker games, the deck is
a standard 52 card deck, no jokers.) These cards
are the player's hole or pocket cards. These are
the only cards each player will receive individually,
and they will only (possibly) be revealed at the
showdown, making Texas hold 'em a closed poker
game.
The
hand begins with a "pre-flop" betting
round, beginning with the player to the left of
the big blind (or the player to the left of the
dealer, if no blinds are used) and continuing
clockwise. A round of betting continues until
every player has either folded, put in all of
their chips, or matched the amount put in by all
other active players. See betting for a detailed
account. Note that the blinds are considered "live"
in the pre-flop betting round, meaning that they
contribute to the amount that the blind player
must contribute, and that, if all players call
around to the player in the big blind position,
that player may either check or raise.
After
the pre-flop betting round, assuming there remain
at least two players taking part in the hand,
the dealer deals a flop, three face-up community
cards. The flop is followed by a second betting
round. This and all subsequent betting rounds
begin with the player to the dealer's left and
continue clockwise.
After
the flop betting round ends, a single community
card (called the turn or fourth street) is dealt,
followed by a third betting round. A final single
community card (called the river or fifth street)
is then dealt, followed by a fourth betting round
and the showdown, if necessary.
In
all casinos, the dealer will burn a card before
the flop, turn, and river. Because of this burn,
players who are betting cannot see the back of
the next community card to come, which might be
marked.
The showdown
If
a player bets and all other players fold, then
the remaining player is awarded the pot and is
not required to show his hole cards. If two or
more players remain after the final betting round,
a showdown occurs. On the showdown, each player
plays the best five-card poker hand he can make
from the seven cards comprising his two hole cards
and the five community cards. A player may use
both of his own two hole cards, only one, or none
at all, to form his final five-card hand. If the
five community cards form the player's best hand,
then the player is said to be playing the board
and can only hope to split the pot, since each
other player can also use the same five cards
to construct the same hand.
If
the best hand is shared by more than one player,
then the pot is split equally among them, with
any extra chips going to the first players after
the button in clockwise order. It is common for
players to have closely-valued, but not identically
ranked hands. Nevertheless, one must be careful
in determining the best hand; if the hand involves
fewer than five cards, (such as two pair or three
of a kind), then kickers are used to settle ties
(see the second example below). Note that the
card's numerical rank is of sole importance; suit
values are irrelevant in Hold'em.
Most
poker authors recommend a tight-aggressive approach
to playing Texas hold 'em. This strategy involves
playing relatively few hands (tight), but betting
and raising often with those that one does play
(aggressive). Although this strategy is often
recommended, some professional players successfully
employ other strategies as well.
Almost
all authors agree that where a player sits in
the order of play (known as position) is an important
element of Texas hold 'em strategy, particularly
in no-limit hold'em. Players who act later have
more information than players who act earlier.
As a result, players typically play fewer hands
from early positions than later positions.
Because
of the game's level of complexity, it has received
some attention from academics. One attempt to
develop a quantitative model of a Texas hold'em
tournament as an isolated complex system has had
some success, although the full consequences for
optimal strategies remain to be explored. In addition,
groups at the University of Alberta and Carnegie
Mellon University are developing poker playing
programs utilizing techniques in game theory and
artificial intelligence.
Cash
games
Ring game
Prior
to the invention of poker tournaments, poker games
were played with real money where players bet
actual currency (or chips which represented currency).
Games which feature wagering actual money on individual
hands are still very common and are referred to
as "cash games" or "ring games".
The
no-limit and fixed-limit cash game versions of
hold 'em are strategically very different. Doyle
Brunson claims that "the games are so different
that there are not many players who rank with
the best in both types of hold 'em. Many no-limit
players have difficulty gearing down for limit,
while limit players often lack the courage and
'feel' necessary to excel at no-limit." Because
the size of bets is restricted in limit games,
the ability to bluff is somewhat curtailed. Since
one is not (usually) risking all of one's chips
in limit poker, players are sometimes advised
to take more chances.
Lower
stakes games also exhibit different properties
than higher stakes games. Small stakes games often
involve more players in each hand and can vary
from extremely passive (little raising and betting)
to extremely aggressive (many raises). The difference
of small stakes games have resulted in several
books dedicated to only those games.
Tournaments
Poker tournament
Texas
hold 'em is often commonly associated with poker
tournaments largely because it is played as the
main event in many of the famous tournaments,
including the World Series of Poker's Main Event,
and is the most common tournament overall. Traditionally,
a poker tournament is played with chips that represent
a player's stake in the tournament. Standard play
allows all entrants to "buy-in" a fixed
amount and all players begin with an equal value
of chips. Play proceeds until one player has accumulated
all the chips in play. The money pool is redistributed
to the players in relation to the place they finished
in the tournament. Usually only a small percentage
of the players receive any money, with the majority
receiving nothing. As a result the strategy in
poker tournaments can be very different from a
cash game.
Proper
strategy in tournaments can vary widely depending
on the amount of chips one has, the stage of the
tournament, the amount of chips others have, and
the playing styles of one's opponents. Although
some authors still recommend a tight playing style,
others recommend looser play (playing more hands)
in tournaments than one would otherwise play in
cash games. In tournaments the blinds and antes
increase regularly, and can become much larger
near the end of the tournament. This can force
players to play hands that they would not normally
play when the blinds were small, which can warrant
both more loose and more aggressive play.
Similar games
There
are several other poker variants which resemble
Texas hold 'em. Hold 'em is a member of a class
of poker games known as community card games,
where some cards are available for use by all
the players. There are several other games that
use five community cards in addition to some private
cards and are thus similar to Texas hold 'em.
Royal hold 'em has the same structure as Texas
hold 'em, but the deck contains only Aces, Kings,
Queens, Jacks, and Tens. Pineapple and Omaha hold
'em both vary the number of cards an individual
receives before the flop, but are dealt identically
afterward. Alternatively, in Double-board hold'em
all players receive the same number of private
cards, but there are two sets of community cards.
The winner is either selected for each individual
board with each receiving half of the pot, or
the best overall hand takes the entire pot, depending
on the rules agreed upon by the players.
Manila
is a hold'em variant popular in Australia. In
Manila, players receive two private cards from
a reduced deck (containing no cards lower than
7). A five card board is dealt, unlike Texas hold
'em, one card at a time; there is a betting round
after each card. Manila has several variations
of its own, similar to the variants listed above.
(Credit:
Wikipedia).
