How to Play Texas Hold'em: Rules & Odds
Learn how Texas Hold'em works: the hand rankings, the four betting rounds, and the odds and pot-odds math behind good decisions. Free practice.
Texas Hold'em is the most popular poker game in the world, and it is very different from the other games in a casino. There is no fixed house edge to calculate, because you are not playing against the house. You play against the other players at the table, so winning depends on making better decisions than they do. This guide covers the rules, the hand rankings, how a hand is played in four betting rounds, and the odds that good players use every hand.
Table Edge is a free practice site: everything here uses practice chips with no cash value, and nothing in this guide guarantees a win.
The goal
Each player gets two private cards, called hole cards. Five community cards are dealt face up in the middle, in stages, and everybody shares them. You make the best five-card hand you can from any combination of your two hole cards and the five community cards. You can use both of your own cards, only one, or none (using all five community cards).
You win a pot in one of two ways: by having the best hand at the end (the showdown), or by getting every other player to fold first. That second route is what makes poker a game of skill and psychology as well as luck.
Hand rankings, best to worst
Hands are ranked by how hard they are to make. The numbers below are the exact odds of being dealt each hand in a five-card deal, and the rarer a hand is, the higher it ranks.
| Rank | Hand | Example | Odds in a five-card deal |
|---|
| 1 | Royal flush | A K Q J 10, all the same suit | 1 in 649,740 |
| 2 | Straight flush | Five in a row, all the same suit | 1 in 72,193 |
| 3 | Four of a kind | Four cards of one rank | 1 in 4,165 |
| 4 | Full house | Three of a kind plus a pair | 1 in 694 |
| 5 | Flush | Five cards of one suit | 1 in 509 |
| 6 | Straight | Five in a row, any suits | 1 in 255 |
| 7 | Three of a kind | Three cards of one rank | 1 in 47 |
| 8 | Two pair | Two different pairs | 1 in 21 |
| 9 | One pair | Two cards of one rank | About 42% of hands |
| 10 | High card | None of the above | About 50% of hands |
In Hold'em you choose the best five cards from seven, so strong hands come up more often than the five-card odds suggest. The ranking order is the same. The full list for every hand is in the poker hand probabilities chart.
A hand, step by step
Before any cards are dealt, the two players to the left of the dealer button post forced bets called the blinds (a small blind and a big blind). That puts money in the pot before anyone sees a card, and gives everyone a reason to play. The button moves one seat clockwise after every hand.
There are four rounds of betting, called streets:
- Preflop. Everyone gets their two hole cards. Betting starts with the player to the left of the big blind.
- Flop. Three community cards are dealt together, followed by a round of betting.
- Turn. A fourth community card, followed by another round of betting.
- River. The fifth and final community card, followed by the last round of betting.
If more than one player is still in after the river, the remaining players reveal their hands at the showdown and the best hand wins the pot.
On your turn you can fold (give up your hand), check (pass, if no one has bet), call (match the current bet), or bet and raise (put in more). You can go all-in by betting your whole stack. When a short stack is all-in and others keep betting, a separate side pot is formed for the players who still have chips.
The numbers behind good decisions
Starting hands
There are 1,326 different two-card starting hands. You are dealt a pocket pair (two cards of the same rank) about 5.9% of the time, roughly 1 hand in 17. A specific pair, such as pocket aces, is only 0.45%, about 1 in 221. Ace-King in any suits is 1.2%, and Ace-King suited is just 0.3%. About 23.5% of hands are suited. Strong starting hands are rare, which is why good players fold most hands before the flop.
Outs and the rule of 4 and 2
An out is a card that would complete your hand. You can estimate your chance of hitting an out with a simple rule: on the flop, with two cards still to come, multiply your outs by 4. On the turn, with only one card left, multiply by 2. Nine cards to a flush on the flop, for example, gives about 36%, close to the exact 35%.
| Outs | Flop to river (exact) | Turn to river (exact) |
|---|
| 4 | 16.5% | 8.7% |
| 8 (open-ended straight draw) | 31.5% | 17.4% |
| 9 (flush draw) | 35.0% | 19.6% |
| 12 | 45.0% | 26.1% |
The rule becomes less accurate with many outs, so the draw calculator uses exact figures. All of these assume a standard 52-card deck and that you can see only your own cards. In a real game, cards held by other players may take away some of your outs.
Pot odds and equity
This is the skill at the heart of the game.
- Equity is your hand's rough chance of winning if the hand were played out to the end right now.
- Pot odds are the price the pot is offering you: the cost to call divided by the size of the pot after you call.
If your equity is higher than the price you are being asked to pay, calling is profitable in the long run, even though you will lose some of those hands.
Here is an example. The pot is $100 and an opponent bets $50. The pot is now $150, and it costs you $50 to call, so you would put in $50 to win $150. Your price is $50 out of a final pot of $200, which is 25%. If you hold a flush draw on the flop, your chance of hitting by the river is about 35%, which is more than 25%, so calling is a good decision. If you had only a 16.5% draw (four outs), calling would lose money in the long run.
Everything else in poker (position, bluffing, how much to bet) exists to make your opponents misjudge their own equity or pot odds, or to hide yours.
A few principles for beginners
- Fold more than you play. Most starting hands are weak. Playing fewer, stronger hands is the simplest improvement a new player can make.
- Position matters. Acting last on a street, close to the dealer button, lets you see what everyone else does first, and gives you more information than they have.
- The number of opponents matters. The more players who stay in, the stronger your hand needs to be, because there are more ways to be beaten.
- Don't chase low-percentage draws. Compare your odds with the price the pot is offering before you call.
- Bluffing is part of the game, but not the point. It works when the story you tell with your bets makes sense. Players who bluff all the time are easy to beat.
The preflop trainer shows you what to do with each starting hand and explains the pot odds behind each decision.
Poker is not a house-edge game
Unlike blackjack or craps, a casino poker room doesn't have a fixed edge on your bets. You play against other people, and the house usually takes a small cut of each pot (a rake) or charges a fee for each half hour. That means skill matters far more than in the other games, but also that your results swing widely over short stretches, and that a beginner playing against experienced players will usually lose. Practice for free first.
Money and mindset
Decide how much you are willing to lose before you sit down, and don't add more after a bad hand. The bankroll simulator shows how wide the swings are even for good players.
If gambling is affecting your life, you can reach the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.
Quick recap
- You make the best five-card hand from your two cards and five shared cards.
- Four betting rounds: preflop, flop, turn and river.
- Win at showdown, or by making everyone else fold.
- Count your outs, use the rule of 4 and 2, and compare your odds with the pot odds.
- Play fewer hands, and play them from good position.
Ready to practise? Try the preflop trainer, then play at the free Texas Hold'em table. To compare poker with other games, see the best odds in the casino.
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