Texas Hold'em Poker - Online Poker Game - Texas Hold'em Rules

Only two cards are actually held by the player as pocket cards. The other five are open, dealt to the middle of the table and shared by all players.

Holdem can be played with only two players or theoretically, with as many as twenty-three players (this exhausts the number of cards in the deck). In practice however, it is rarely played with more than twelve players due to the size of the table, with eight to eleven players considered the optimum range.

In Texas Holdem games, the dealer is marked by a disk called the button. For each hand the button rotates to the left. Players are identified by their seat position. The dealer is seat one, the player to the dealer's left is seat two and so on, clockwise around the table to the player on the dealer's right which is typically seat nine. Betting position significantly affects a player's opportunities so the button's position in not simply symbolic.

Holdem comes in many low-limit/high-limit forms. Beginner games are typically $1-$2 or $2-$5, but the high end can be as much as $300-$600, $500-$1000 or more. Regardless of the limits, Hold'Em is designed to be a money game. Instead of a small ante in 7-Stud, Holdem uses two forced bets, the blinds, to get Bets on the table right from the beginning of the game.