Texas Hold'em Rules

Setting Up

The Objective

Win chips by making the best five-card hand at showdown, or by betting hard enough that everyone else folds first. You may use any combination of your two hole cards and the five community cards, including all five community cards (playing the board).

Players & the Button

Play with 2 to 10 players. The dealer button marks the nominal dealer and rotates one seat clockwise after every hand, so position and the blinds pass around the table fairly.

The Blinds

Before cards are dealt, the two players left of the button post forced bets:

• Small Blind: one seat left of the button, posts half the minimum bet.
• Big Blind: two seats left, posts the full minimum bet.

Blinds guarantee there's always something to play for. In a tournament, blind levels rise on a timer so the action keeps building.

Playing a Hand

The Four Betting Streets

On Your Turn

Bet & Raise Sizing

A few simple rules keep betting fair. We play no-limit, so there's no cap on the top end, but there is a floor:

• Minimum bet. If no one has bet yet, an opening bet must be at least the big blind.
• Minimum raise. A raise has to grow the bet by at least as much as the last bet or raise. So if the bet in front of you is 100, you must raise to at least 200 (a raise of 100). If someone then makes it 300, that's a raise of 100, so the next raise must be to at least 400. In short: you can't nudge it up a little; a raise is at least the size of the previous one.
• No maximum. Any time it's your turn you can move all the chips in front of you (go all-in).
• All-in for less. You can always go all-in even if it's short of a full raise, but that undersized all-in doesn't reopen the betting for players who have already acted.
• Table stakes. You can only wager the chips you have on the table; no digging into your pocket mid-hand. No throwing in your car keys or your gold watch, either!

Side Pots

When a player is all-in for less than the bets around them, they can only win the chips they actually matched. Everything above that goes into a side pot, contested only by the players who put it in. A short stack can win the main pot, but never more than they had in front of them.

The Straddle

Betting blind out of turn is not allowed. You can't fire in a raise before the action reaches you. The one exception is the straddle. Whether to allow it is a house call, and at our table it's welcome: a voluntary blind raise posted before the cards are dealt. Only the player immediately to the left of the big blind (the first to act before the flop) may straddle, and it must be exactly double the big blind. It plays as a third, larger blind, and in return the straddler gets to act last pre-flop.

At the Deal

Burn Cards

Before the flop, the turn, and the river, the dealer "burns" the top card of the deck face-down and out of play. It's a small safeguard so nobody can gain from a marked or glimpsed top card.

Misdeals

Some dealing errors void the hand and it's re-dealt from scratch. Common misdeals: a player dealt the wrong number of cards, cards dealt to an empty or out-of-hand seat, or the deal starting in the wrong seat. Call it out the moment you spot it. Once there's been real action (a bet or a fold), the hand usually stands and play continues.

An exposed hole card, though, doesn't kill the hand. If a card is accidentally flipped face-up as it's dealt so everyone can see it, we don't re-deal. That card is set aside and treated as a burn, and the deal simply carries on as if it hadn't happened, so everyone else still gets the exact card they were meant to get. The player who was supposed to receive the exposed card is made whole at the end: once the deal is finished, they take the card that would otherwise have been the burn before the flop.

Ending the Hand

The Showdown

If two or more players remain after the final bet, cards are revealed and the best five-card hand takes the pot. Ties split the pot equally. If everyone folds to a bet, the last player standing wins without showing.

Tabling Your Hand

The player who made the last bet or raise on the river shows first; if the river was checked around, the first player left of the button shows first. To win, you have to table your hand: turn both hole cards face-up on the table. A hand that is never tabled cannot win the pot.

Mucked cards are dead, and there is no saving them, ever. The instant your cards touch the muck they are gone: they cannot be retrieved, un-mucked, or ruled live again, no matter how strong the hand was or how fast you reach back for them. Release your cards into the muck and, for that hand, you're done.

Cards Speak

At showdown, the cards speak for themselves. You don't have to announce or call out your hand, and nobody has to say what they're holding. If you misread or misname your own hand, it doesn't matter. The only thing that counts is what's actually on the table. Just turn your cards face-up and the best true five-card hand wins, however anyone describes it.

House Rules

House Etiquette

• Act in turn: don't fold, bet, check, or reach for chips out of order. Acting out of turn isn't allowed, but if you do, it's binding. If the action reaches you unchanged, your bet stands as posted. And if a player whose turn it actually was bets higher first, your chips are still committed; you just have to match the higher bet to stay in the hand.
• One clean motion for a bet or raise (no string bets); announce "raise" before you move chips if in doubt.
• Don't splash the pot: set your chips down in front of you so the amount can be counted, rather than tossing them into the middle.
• Keep your cards on the table and in view; protect them with a chip or your own card protector, a coin, a small trinket, whatever you like, as long as it sits on top of your cards.
• Verbal declarations are binding. "Call" means call. "Fold" means fold.
• One player to a hand: while a hand is live, no coaching, no discussing it, and don't show your cards to anyone, even players who've folded.
• No talking about a live hand you've folded out of.

The Host's Call

No rulebook covers every odd spot. If a question or dispute comes up that isn't settled here, the host makes the call, and that ruling is final for the night. It's all in good fun.

At Our Table

We shuffle behind the dealer and cut in front. Seats will be randomly assigned.

Running the Night

Tournament Play

• Everyone starts with an equal stack; play until one person has all the chips.
• Blind levels rise on a fixed timer, which is what the clock on the screen is running.
• Bust out of chips and you're out (in a freeze-out). Two players left is heads-up.
• Rebuys. If the night allows them, busting isn't the end while you still have a rebuy left. You can buy back in for a fresh stack and keep playing. Once your rebuys are used up, or the rebuy window closes, the next time you bust is for good.
• Breaks are a chance to top up snacks, chip up, and stretch before blinds climb again.

The Apps We're Using

A couple of apps keep the night running smoothly: