fling93 loves fishies

Texas Hold 'Em Poker

Update 11/17/04: Added the bit on side pots and alternative ways to handle the case when the dealer forgets to burn a card. Plus other minor edits.

Well, I’m back from the wedding and family reunion. It was most notable for the godawful service we got from the Radisson Hotel Santa Barbara. Still, it’s always cool to hang with all of the cousins, so it was a lot of fun.

Especially since we played plenty of Texas Hold ’Em Poker (and since I knew the rules this time, I did a little better than last time). I’m not really much of a poker player and don’t have a regular game, so I’m sure people like Courtney would crush me like an insignificant bug. Plus, those who know me very well know that I am very expressive and emotional, which aren’t exactly strengths when it comes to poker (I have a tendency to jump up and down with a goofy grin on my face when I get pocket aces — or when I get cookies, for that matter). But I just can’t deny the appeal. The wife is hooked, too, and was planning on setting up a weekly game among her feminist friends, so we had grabbed some inexpensive poker chips from Toys “R” Us.

It’s pretty amazing how poker has just taken off. My wife often remarks how we’re seeing it pass the Tipping Point. It seems like most everybody’s at least heard of the game, if they haven’t yet watched Bravo’s highly entertaining Celebrity Poker Showdown or ESPN’s World Series of Poker (which I haven’t yet seen). So not surprisingly, we had plenty of takers when I sent out an e-mail to the cousins, inquiring if we should bring our chips to the reunion.

One cousin asked to be reminded of the rules to refresh his memory, and as I am often wont to do, I wrote up a long-ass e-mail. In hindsight, I think he was joking about needing his memory refreshed, and the e-mail was so long that nobody even bothered reading it. So I figure I’d slap it up here, so I’d at least get a blog post out of the damn thing. And maybe there’s a small chance that there’s somebody out there not yet familiar with the game and wants to learn more. Plus, it can kinda be a companion piece to my How to Play Craps post.

Anyway, I’ve often heard it’s simple to learn, difficult to master. So far, I have to agree. Here are the rules:

Dealing the cards

Everybody gets two cards face-down (you can look at them), and there will be a total of five face-up community cards that everybody “shares” by each building the best poker hand they can by choosing the best five cards out of the seven. And only five (none of this “three pairs” business). No wild cards (you won’t need them).

There is no ante that everybody puts in. Instead, the person to the left of the dealer is the small blind and has to put in a small fixed bet into the pot, and the person to the left of the small blind is the big blind, and has to put in twice that amount. Nobody else has to put in an initial bet. The blinds and dealer rotate clockwise after each hand (use the dealer chip to keep track of this).

After everyone gets their two cards (or pocket), there’s a round of betting, starting with the person to the left of the big blind (who’s under the gun). More on the betting later. The dealer discards (or “burns”) one card face-down, then deals three community cards face-up, the flop. Another round of betting, but this time starting with the small blind. The dealer then burns another card and deals the next community card, the turn. Another round of betting, another burn, and then the dealing of the final community card, the river. After a final round of betting, the remaining players turn their cards face-up, and the best hand wins the pot (alas, not the kind that you can smoke).

In order, the poker hands from weak to strong are: high card (nothing), one pair, two pairs, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush. I’m going to assume you know what those are. Ties are broken by comparing the next highest card in the hands (the kicker), then the card after that, etc. But only up to five cards. Sometimes the highest cards are in the community cards, in which case some of the pocket cards won’t matter (this is the primary distinction between Texas Hold ’Em and Omaha). This can result in a tie which splits the pot.

After several rounds, the amount of the blinds increases to spice up the action (and to ensure that the game ends in a timely fashion). The person who ends up with all the chips is the winner, the persons without the chips are the losers, and the person who’s named Eric Gagne is a big, fat, be-goggled poopyhead!

The Betting

To call is to match the largest bet currently on the table. Before the flop, this means matching the big blind (unless someone has already raised, in which case you match their bet). If you don’t have enough chips to match the bet, you can still call. In this case, if there is only one other bettor, they have the remainder of their chips returned. If there are more bettors, their extra chips are moved into a side pot, and they will be the only ones who can win it (so note that there might be multiple winners in that hand).

To fold is to quit the hand. Just slide your cards face-down into the center of the table. Note that if you haven’t yet bet anything, you don’t lose any money (not the case if you’re one of the blinds). Don’t actually physically fold the cards, as that will make the dealer very angry! If everybody folds to the largest bet, that bettor wins the hand, and they don’t have to reveal their cards if they don’t want to.

To raise is to increase the size of the bet by putting in more chips. On television, they play “No Limit,” where you can raise by any amount you want, even going all in by betting your chips. With a limit, you can only raise a fixed amount, which doubles after the turn. Note that you can re-raise after someone else has already raised.

To blathe is to bluff, but it’s much more likely just someone who is mostly dead trying to say “true love.” Ya gotta listen carefully.

If you’ve already matched the largest bet on the table, you can check, which means passing the betting on to the next player. Note that this is generally a sign of a weak hand. Also note that the big blind can do this before the flop if nobody raises (essentially getting a free look at the flop).

And now you know how to play!

Tips on setting up a game

If you want to start a regular game, I recommend grabbing the inexpensive Cardinal’s Professional Texas Hold ’Em Poker Set. We bought ours at Toys “R” Us for just twenty bucks a piece. It’s a pretty neat deal. It comes with 200 poker chips with a chip rack, a dealer chip, a deck of cards, and a useless cheap piece of felt, all in a black tin. But it’s really just the chips you want. They’re plastic, not clay (whaddaya expect for twenty bucks?), but they’re of uniform height and feel pretty much like real chips, which is what counts. You can also buy the chips separately, but it’s $10 for 100 chips, so you’re really better off with the set (note, if you travel with them, you might want to wrap the chip rack in Saran Wrap or something to keep the chips from spilling all over the place).

You should probably get two sets if you’re going to have more than four players. Although it comes with four colors of chips, we find it easiest to just make all the chips worth the same amount, and just giving one color per player. It’s also kinda cool to see who’s won whose money. It’s also handy to have two decks of cards, and then having someone shuffle the second deck while the dealer is dealing. However, you really want to make sure the decks look very different, so that there’s no danger of them “accidentally” getting mixed up (so if you do get two poker sets, don’t just use the two decks that come with them).

Be sure to agree upon the rules beforehand. No-limit or not, how much money to put in, when to raise the blinds and by how much (e.g. double them every 20 minutes). And make very darn sure that whoever’s dealing knows when they’re supposed to burn a card! You might want to agree ahead of time what to do if they forget (since any revealed card affects strategy — you now know that it’s a card other players cannot have — you might want to just use it, but alternately you can reshuffle it back into the deck or leave it as an exposed burned card). It might even make sense to have a designated dealer, especially if someone has gone out. You still need to move around the dealer chip to know who the blinds are, but the person with the chip doesn’t necessarily need to deal the cards.

Tips on Strategy

Again, I’m no expert. Almost all of this is gleaned from watching television or from various websites.

Since you don’t have any chips at stake most of the time, you should fold a lot more often (the game should really be called “Texas Fold ’Em”). The biggest mistake most beginners make is calling too often just to see the flop. While you might otherwise throw away an occasional good hand, calling too much doesn’t pay off in the long run. With about 5-8 other people, you generally want to play only if you have two high cards, like aces, kings, and queens. Sometimes jacks and tens or pairs depending on your position (more on that later). Having both cards of the same suit or in sequence is also a plus, but generally not enough on their own. Having a low pair is also generally not enough. Ditto for one ace and a low card (a lot of hands get decided by how high that 2nd card is), and a good rule of thumb is to only play unsuited cards if they sum up to more than 21. Patience is key, grasshopper!

Speaking of position, pay attention to it! If you are the first to bet, you are at a severe disadvantage, since you have absolutely no information about what kind of hands everybody else has, so play more conservatively. Later betters (especially the dealer) can be more aggressive depending on how many other people have folded or raised. If you are last to bet (in position) and everybody else has checked, a common move is to raise to try and steal the pot.

Don’t fold if you can check! If you haven’t hit anything after the flop, most beginners’ instinct is to fold. If nobody’s raised yet, you don’t have to, so check instead! After all, it could be that no one else has a good hand either.

Don’t try to eat the chips. They are not edible. Don’t eat the cards either!

Remember, whatever you’ve already bet is a sunk cost, so don’t keep calling with a weak hand. That just compounds your mistake. Of course, note that it’s a human tendency to honor sunk costs irrationally, so if you have a strong hand, you might want to slow play with small raises to “hook” other bettors into calling instead of folding.

Pay attention to the community cards, and don’t just focus on your own possibilities, but factor in what your opponents might have. See if someone else might have a flush or a straight (commonly overlooked) based on the community cards (specifically, figure out what is the best possible hand, or the nuts). Be especially wary of community pairs, which means someone else might have a three of a kind, full house, or four of a kind. There might be a reason they’ve been raising!

If you want to win, you do have to bluff at some point. People will never call you when you have a strong hand unless they think you’re bluffing, and they won’t think you’re bluffing if you’ve never bluffed the entire game.

On the other hand, don’t try to bluff your wife when she knows you better than you know yourself. She’ll just call your sorry little ass.

Know what your odds are. If you are merely close to getting a good hand after the flop, figure out exactly how many available cards would actually make it a good hand (outs). For example, if you are hoping to pair an ace, there are only 3 other aces available. If you have both an ace and a king and want to hit either, that makes 6 possible outs (plus they both make good kickers). And if you have 4 hearts, there are 9 other hearts available to complete your flush (or less, if you’ve left a trail of broken hearts in your wake).

If you really want to do well, learn the odds chart, at least for the common situations, like a flush draw or open-ended straight draw. Then compare your odds of winning against the ratio between how much it costs you to call and how much you would win from the pot.

And lastly, don’t jump up and down with a goofy grin on your face if you get pocket aces.