Aces can be high or low. An ace-high straight flush is called a royal flush, the best possible hand in poker. ♣ Betting Variations. Texas Hold'em can be played in three basic variations: Limit Hold'em: In Limit Hold'em, the amount you can bet or raise is fixed, according to the posted stakes. A bet placed before the turn card (4th community. The player who has the best hand and has not folded by the end of all betting rounds wins all of the money bet for the hand, known as the pot. Texas hold 'em is the H game featured in HORSE and in HOSE.
Low-stakes poker players in casinos love promotions, which allow them, if luck is on their side, to take home a lot more money than they could expect to win through straight poker.
I wrote for PokerNews a basic, introductory guide to the operation and rules of the most common types of promotions here. That guide, however, does not discuss how the presence of a promotion changes the dynamics of the poker game, and how one should alter strategy accordingly. That's what I'd like to start addressing in this article.
Perhaps the most common promotion, at least in the Las Vegas card rooms, is a high-hand bonus. Typically if you have four of a kind or a straight flush or royal flush, using both hole cards, you win some cash. The amount might be fixed, might be determined by spinning a wheel, or might climb every day until somebody claims the bonus and then it gets reset to a baseline.
Let's start with four of a kind. In order to claim the bonus, you'll need to start with a pocket pair and have the other two cards of that rank appear among the five community cards. (Most promotions of this type exist only for Texas hold'em.) What is the probability of this happening?
Suppose I have . Among the board of five community cards, the and will need to appear. Let's assume I don't care whether they come on the flop, the turn, or the river, so that we can ignore the possible orders in which the cards come. We need to calculate how many possible five-card boards there are, and how many of those contain both of the black sevens.
There are 50 unknown cards. How many different combinations of five cards can be picked from 50? The math is tedious but straightforward. If you want to explore the formula, you can consult this Wikipedia entry, but the quick answer is 2,118,760.
How many of these contain the black sevens? We can just specify that those two cards are on the board and ask how many possible combinations of the remaining three cards exist. That works out to 17,296.
Divide the two numbers, and we learn that about 1 out of every 122 possible boards contains the two cards that we're looking for.
What is that worth? Suppose that the high-hand bonus being offered is $100. It might be more or less than that, but that's a fairly typical amount. If you played every pocket pair to the river attempting to win that bonus, the additional equity your pair gains from the promotion is $100 distributed over 122 attempts, or less than $1 per hand.
Even at the lowest-stakes fixed-limit games, that amount is so small that it is completely dwarfed by the standard poker considerations of when a pocket pair is worth playing. Even if the bonus were $500, the equity per attempt would be just $4 — again not enough that it should change how you play preflop.
What if you flop a set and hope to improve it to quads? Now you have two shots at getting one specific card. Each time, the probability is about 2%, for a combined probability of about 4%. Four percent of a $100 bonus is $4 worth of additional equity. In other words, flopping a set in a poker room with a $100 bonus for quads makes your hand worth, on average, $4 more than it otherwise would be. That might be enough to shift how you play in the very lowest stakes of fixed-limit games, but not when the blinds are higher, nor in any no-limit game.
In no-limit hold'em, your object needs to be capturing an opponent's entire stack. Compared to that, the extra $4 of equity is negligible, and should not affect your play. Even if the room were offering $500 — which doesn't happen often — the extra $20 of equity from the flopped set still should not distract you from the goal of stacking an opponent. It especially should not distract you from protecting your own stack from going to an opponent when the board texture and betting send a clear signal that your set is no good.
What about straight flushes? Poker rooms typically offer more for those than for quads, but they are correspondingly rarer. The math is harder to work out because it depends on what you start with. For example, with there are four ways to make straight flushes, while with there is only one. But let's take that as an example.
Texas Holdem Rules Highest Hand
I'll cut straight to the answer, though the math and logic follow the same pattern as we used for the quads. There are again 2,118,760 possible five-card boards, of which 4,324 will contain one of the four three-card combinations that will complete a straight flush with . That yields a probability of 0.2%. In other words, -suited will turn into a straight flush about twice out of every thousand times you play them.
Suppose the casino offers $500 for making that straight flush. The equity that adds to your starting hand is then about $1. Again, it should be obvious that that is not enough incentive to alter how you play the hand. If you are tempted, say, to play from early position in the hope of taking home a big jackpot, you are actually costing yourself money, because the amount you can expect to lose in the pot completely swamps your expected value from the bonus.
Bottom line: Unless high-hand bonuses are exceptionally large (i.e., into thousands of dollars), they are not worth chasing by deviating from what would otherwise be your optimal play. Think of the bonus as a nice little extra that you might get, rather than as something that you are actively pursuing.
I will occasionally revisit this general topic with analysis of how your play should change in the presence of other kinds of promotions.
Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the 'Poker Grump' blog.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Tags
cash game strategylive pokerjackpotshigh hand bonuspromotionscasino pokeroddsprobabilitiesno-limit hold'em
The two players to the left of the dealer must post these compulsory 'blinds' – so called because they are placed before anyone even sees their cards. The player on the dealer's immediate left posts the 'small blind' and the player one further seat round the table posts the 'big blind', which is usually twice the size of the small.
In the illustration, the dealer is in seat five with the button in front of him. The two seats to his left are 'in the blinds'.
After every hand is complete, the dealer button moves clockwise one position around the table, which means that players take turns to be the dealer, the small blind and the big blind.
Low-stakes poker players in casinos love promotions, which allow them, if luck is on their side, to take home a lot more money than they could expect to win through straight poker.
I wrote for PokerNews a basic, introductory guide to the operation and rules of the most common types of promotions here. That guide, however, does not discuss how the presence of a promotion changes the dynamics of the poker game, and how one should alter strategy accordingly. That's what I'd like to start addressing in this article.
Perhaps the most common promotion, at least in the Las Vegas card rooms, is a high-hand bonus. Typically if you have four of a kind or a straight flush or royal flush, using both hole cards, you win some cash. The amount might be fixed, might be determined by spinning a wheel, or might climb every day until somebody claims the bonus and then it gets reset to a baseline.
Let's start with four of a kind. In order to claim the bonus, you'll need to start with a pocket pair and have the other two cards of that rank appear among the five community cards. (Most promotions of this type exist only for Texas hold'em.) What is the probability of this happening?
Suppose I have . Among the board of five community cards, the and will need to appear. Let's assume I don't care whether they come on the flop, the turn, or the river, so that we can ignore the possible orders in which the cards come. We need to calculate how many possible five-card boards there are, and how many of those contain both of the black sevens.
There are 50 unknown cards. How many different combinations of five cards can be picked from 50? The math is tedious but straightforward. If you want to explore the formula, you can consult this Wikipedia entry, but the quick answer is 2,118,760.
How many of these contain the black sevens? We can just specify that those two cards are on the board and ask how many possible combinations of the remaining three cards exist. That works out to 17,296.
Divide the two numbers, and we learn that about 1 out of every 122 possible boards contains the two cards that we're looking for.
What is that worth? Suppose that the high-hand bonus being offered is $100. It might be more or less than that, but that's a fairly typical amount. If you played every pocket pair to the river attempting to win that bonus, the additional equity your pair gains from the promotion is $100 distributed over 122 attempts, or less than $1 per hand.
Even at the lowest-stakes fixed-limit games, that amount is so small that it is completely dwarfed by the standard poker considerations of when a pocket pair is worth playing. Even if the bonus were $500, the equity per attempt would be just $4 — again not enough that it should change how you play preflop.
What if you flop a set and hope to improve it to quads? Now you have two shots at getting one specific card. Each time, the probability is about 2%, for a combined probability of about 4%. Four percent of a $100 bonus is $4 worth of additional equity. In other words, flopping a set in a poker room with a $100 bonus for quads makes your hand worth, on average, $4 more than it otherwise would be. That might be enough to shift how you play in the very lowest stakes of fixed-limit games, but not when the blinds are higher, nor in any no-limit game.
In no-limit hold'em, your object needs to be capturing an opponent's entire stack. Compared to that, the extra $4 of equity is negligible, and should not affect your play. Even if the room were offering $500 — which doesn't happen often — the extra $20 of equity from the flopped set still should not distract you from the goal of stacking an opponent. It especially should not distract you from protecting your own stack from going to an opponent when the board texture and betting send a clear signal that your set is no good.
What about straight flushes? Poker rooms typically offer more for those than for quads, but they are correspondingly rarer. The math is harder to work out because it depends on what you start with. For example, with there are four ways to make straight flushes, while with there is only one. But let's take that as an example.
Texas Holdem Rules Highest Hand
I'll cut straight to the answer, though the math and logic follow the same pattern as we used for the quads. There are again 2,118,760 possible five-card boards, of which 4,324 will contain one of the four three-card combinations that will complete a straight flush with . That yields a probability of 0.2%. In other words, -suited will turn into a straight flush about twice out of every thousand times you play them.
Suppose the casino offers $500 for making that straight flush. The equity that adds to your starting hand is then about $1. Again, it should be obvious that that is not enough incentive to alter how you play the hand. If you are tempted, say, to play from early position in the hope of taking home a big jackpot, you are actually costing yourself money, because the amount you can expect to lose in the pot completely swamps your expected value from the bonus.
Bottom line: Unless high-hand bonuses are exceptionally large (i.e., into thousands of dollars), they are not worth chasing by deviating from what would otherwise be your optimal play. Think of the bonus as a nice little extra that you might get, rather than as something that you are actively pursuing.
I will occasionally revisit this general topic with analysis of how your play should change in the presence of other kinds of promotions.
Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the 'Poker Grump' blog.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Tags
cash game strategylive pokerjackpotshigh hand bonuspromotionscasino pokeroddsprobabilitiesno-limit hold'em
The two players to the left of the dealer must post these compulsory 'blinds' – so called because they are placed before anyone even sees their cards. The player on the dealer's immediate left posts the 'small blind' and the player one further seat round the table posts the 'big blind', which is usually twice the size of the small.
In the illustration, the dealer is in seat five with the button in front of him. The two seats to his left are 'in the blinds'.
After every hand is complete, the dealer button moves clockwise one position around the table, which means that players take turns to be the dealer, the small blind and the big blind.
After the blinds have been posted, all players are dealt two cards face down. These are known as 'hole' cards, and can only be seen and used by one player. By the end of the hand, five more 'community' cards may have been dealt, face up in the middle of the table, which are available for all players to use.
The first three of the community cards are exposed together (known as the 'flop'), then a fourth card (known as the 'turn') is dealt individually, and then a fifth (known as the 'river') is exposed. A betting round separates each deal.
The aim of poker is to make the best five-card hand out of the seven available – two in an individual's hand and the five community cards.
The Four Betting Rounds
If a hand of poker is played all the way to its conclusion, there will be four betting rounds – or four periods during which players can commit their chips to the pot. A player can also 'fold' their cards and leave the action at any time (see below).
A betting round must be concluded satisfactorily before the remaining players see more cards and another betting round begins.
Texas Holdem High Hand Rules Card Game
Pre-Flop – The First Round of Betting
The first betting round takes place before the first three community cards (the 'flop') are dealt. This action is described as 'pre-flop' and at this stage players are wagering based solely on the strength of their two concealed 'hole' cards.
Texas Holdem High Hand Rules For Beginners
The player sitting to the left of the big blind acts first – a position known as 'under the gun'. Players then act in turn, moving clockwise around the table.
Texas Hold'em High Hand Rules
You have the following options when it is your turn to act:
- Fold: This means that you no longer want to play the hand, and are throwing your cards away. You no longer have any claim to the money in the pot, even if you paid one of the blinds.
- Call: This means that you want to play the hand by matching the size of the current bet. Pre-flop, this will be at least the size of the big blind, and may be greater if any other player has raised.
- Raise: This means that you want to raise the size of the current bet. If nobody before you has made a raise, you can make a raise yourself.
- If you are sitting in the big blind and no else has raised before you, you have the option to check. This means that you do not wish to commit any more chips to the pot. You can only check pre-flop if you are in the big blind and no one else raised.
