 The poker is one of the most widespread card games in the world and
among other variants, Texas Hold'em is the most famous, but why is this
so? Why this specific game has become the most popular card game on tv
shows? Let's try to give an answer to these questions...
The Texas Hold'em is played with a full 52 French and it's usually played by 6/10 players at a time.
The game structure is simple and can be described by 6 phases:
1)Blind bets – a blind bet is a forced bet before the cards are being dealt to the players. In Texas Hold'em games, especially in tournament games, the blind bets are made by the first player on the left o the dealer (small blind) and the next one (big blind). The small blind is usually half the standard bet of the game while the big bet is usually twice the small bet. Seldom there can be ante bets, forced bets by all players, but since Texas Hold'em games offer many betting times, antes are becoming more and more rare.
2)Pre-Flop – during this phase the dealer gives two hidden cards to each player, and after this players are free to place the first bets starting from the player on the left of the one who made the big blind. This is the first real betting round of the game.
3)Flop – if there are at least two players left after the flop phase, the dealer will “burn” a card (the first card of the deck is taken off the game without being displayed) and deal 3 cards face up. These cards are common to all the players. After this phase there is another betting round.
4)Turn – in this phase the dealer “burns” another card and then deals another common card (some call these community cards) and starts another betting round.
5)River – the dealer “burns” another cards and deal the last community card on the table. This starts the last betting round and ends the dealing.
6)Showdown – in showdown phase the last betting player unveils his cards and the remaining players can do the same. The higher point wins.
In every phase of the game a player can retire from the game, so it's not that rare to see head to head matches by the last two players from Flop to Showdown phase.
There are basically three variations of Texas Hold'em: limit Hold'em, no-limit Hod'em and pot Hold'em.
The no-limt Hold'em is the one made famous by the WSOP and so many films and tv shows, very emotional and with he special “all in” bet. When a player calls the “all in” bet, he will put in the pot all the chips he has on the table and doing so he has the right to go to showdown.
The limit Hold'em is the most played variant, no bet can be higher than the limit set for the table, usually played in casinos will make bluffs almost useless.
The pot-limit variant is thought to limit the raises in the first phases (pre-flop and flop), infact in this variant a player cannot raise more hat he amount already present in the pot
Hand Ranikngs
The hand rankings in Texas Hold'em are (lowest to highest):
1)high card: when nobody has a better hand, the poker layer with the higher card in his hand wins (ace);
2)one pair: two cards of the same kind, if two players have the same pair, the winner is the one with the higest “kicker” card (the next higher after the pair);
3)two pairs: two pairs, in case of same pairs, here come the kickers;
4)three of a kind: three cards of the same kind;
5)straight: a straight is when a player can have 5 cards in ranked succession out of the seven;
6)flush: when you have five cards of the same suite;
7)full (or full house): when you have a pair and three of a kind out the 5 cards, in many poker games a flush is higher than a full, but not in Texas Hold'em;
8)four of a kind: when you have all the four card of the same kind;
9)straight flush: when you have a straight with all the cards of the same suite;
10)royal flush: this is the dream of every player, the highest possible point, it is basically the highest straight flush you can get: ten throuth ace of the same suite.
One thing to remember is that in Texas Hold'em the suites have all the same value.
So after all this.. why is Texas Hol'em so popular?
Some say it's all due to the movies, others say it's all about the fame of a small group of poker players in the golden age of Las Vegas.
Well this might be partially true, but we think that the REAL event hat made Texas Hold'em so famous is the 2003 main WSOP event victory by Chris Moneymaker.
Chris Moneymaker is a man from Tennessee who attended the WSOP main event because he won a 39 US$ competition in an online tournament.
So maybe this is why... someone REALLY got rich beginning with online poker tournaments, and th tournament was a Texas Hold'em one!
We at GamblersWorld.info have no doubt Chris' victory is the reason why now we have poker tournaments on tv: through skilled play and some luck he made it.
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