Texas Hold'em rules, without the coloring book

No-Limit Texas Hold'em is a community-card game with two private cards, five shared cards, and four streets of betting. The "no-limit" part is the part that eats bankrolls: on your turn you may bet any amount from a legal minimum up to every chip you have in play. That is the whole sport, dressed up as a card game. If you cannot name the current street, the size of the pot, and whose action it is, you are not playing Hold'em. You are waiting for a miracle.

This page is the rules, written the way a dealer actually enforces them. It is not a pep talk and it is not a chart with a crown on it. Once the mechanics sit in your bones, the strategy pages — starting hands and position, 6-max preflop ranges, postflop fundamentals — start to mean something. Until then you are guessing with extra vocabulary.

The table, the button, the blinds

A Hold'em table is a circle of seats plus a dealer button that moves one seat clockwise after every hand. The button is last to act after the flop. That is the entire positional argument in one sentence. The two seats to the left of the button post blinds: small blind half, big blind the full unit. In a $1/$2 cash game that is $1 and $2. In a tournament the clock sets them, and they go up whether you like it or not. A straddle is a voluntary extra blind, house rule, not core Hold'em. Treat it as a local tax.

Six-max seats: under the gun (UTG), hijack (HJ), cutoff (CO), button (BTN), small blind (SB), big blind (BB). Full ring (nine-max) adds UTG+1, middle position, and lojack. Extra seats do not change hand ranks. They change how many people act after you. A raise on the six-max button is often a fold UTG in nine-max.

Antes exist in many tournaments and in some cash games. An ante is a small forced bet from every seat, or from one designated seat in a "big blind ante" structure. Antes fatten the pot before anyone looks at a card. Bigger starting pots mean wider opening ranges and more incentive to steal. If you skip the ante math you will play too tight for the format you are in, then complain that "this field is crazy." The field is responding to the dead money. You are not.

Hole cards, the deck, and what "the board" actually is

Each player is dealt two private cards face down. Those are your hole cards. Nobody else is entitled to see them until showdown, or until you table them, or until a dealer error forces an exposed card. The remaining five cards come out in public, in three stages: three on the flop, one on the turn, one on the river. Those five are the board. You make the best five-card poker hand from any combination of your two hole cards and the five board cards. You may use both hole cards, one, or none.

That is Ace-King offsuit. Offsuit means the two hole cards are different suits. Suited means they share a suit. Pair means both ranks match. Those three labels are not flavor text. They change how often you flop a flush draw, how often you flop a set, and how often you are drawing dead against a better kicker. If you still say "I had two high cards" without naming suits, you are describing a vibe, not a holding.

A standard deck is 52 cards, four suits, thirteen ranks. No joker. No wild. An exposed card during the deal is a floor procedure, not a negotiation. You do not get a refund because the queen you wanted flashed.

The four streets, in order, with no poetry

A hand of Hold'em is four betting rounds. Miss one and you will act out of turn, which is a live penalty and a free gift online.

1. Preflop. Hole cards are dealt. Action starts with the player left of the big blind — UTG in a full table — and moves clockwise. The blinds already have money in the pot. Everyone else may fold, call the big blind ("limp"), or raise.
2. Flop. The dealer burns one card face down and turns three community cards. Action starts with the first player still in the hand who is left of the button, which is usually the small blind if that seat survived. Last to act is the button.
3. Turn. Burn, then one card. Same action order as the flop. The pot is already bigger. Stack-to-pot ratio is already shrinking. This is where people who "just wanted to see a flop" discover they are pot-committed with reverse implied odds.
4. River. Burn, then the last community card. Last betting round. No more cards. If more than one player remains after the river betting, there is a showdown.

The burn cards are not in play. Do not ask to see them. If the hand is all-in before the river and no legal betting remains, the rest of the board still comes out. Running it twice is a cash-game agreement, not a Hold'em rule. Tournaments almost never allow it. Do not ask a floor to "just run it twice" on the bubble.

Betting: fold, check, call, bet, raise, all-in

On your turn you have a short menu. If nobody has bet yet on this street, you may check (pass the action without putting in chips) or bet. If someone has bet, you may fold, call, or raise. You may also go all-in, which is a bet or raise of your remaining stack. Going all-in for less than a legal raise is a short all-in: it does not reopen the action for players who have already acted, and it does not count as a full raise. That last sentence is the live-poker rule people argue about at 2 a.m. Learn it before you need it.

In no-limit, the minimum opening bet on a street is one big blind (or the size of the big blind at that level). The minimum raise is the size of the last full bet or raise. If the pot is $12 and someone bets $8, the next raise must be at least $16 on top of the $8, meaning $24 total into that pot. You cannot "min-raise" to $9. You also cannot string-bet: announce the amount or put the chips in as one motion. "I call… and raise" is a call. Dealers are not being mean. They are applying the rule that keeps the game from turning into theater.

Caps exist in pot-limit and in some home games. They do not exist in no-limit. The maximum is your stack. That is not a suggestion to put the stack in. If those two sentences still blur, skip to pot odds, equity, and SPR before you fire another bullet.

Hand ranks, from the nuts down to a sad high card

Hold'em uses standard five-card poker rankings. Suits do not rank. Ace is high except in a wheel (A-2-3-4-5). If you grew up with a house rule that spades beat hearts, leave that house rule at the house.

1. Straight flush. Five cards in sequence, same suit. Ace-high is a royal flush. It is the nuts. You will see one about as often as you will see a player who "never bluffs" actually never bluff.
2. Four of a kind. Quads. Kickers matter only when the board itself has quads or when two players have the same four of a kind from the board. Usually the kicker is the fifth card.
3. Full house. Three of one rank plus a pair of another. Aces full of kings beats aces full of queens. The trips are compared first, then the pair.
4. Flush. Five of one suit, not in sequence. Compare the highest card, then the next, down to the fifth. Your hole cards only matter if they contribute to that five-card set.
5. Straight. Five in sequence, mixed suits. Ace can be high (TJQKA) or low (A2345). There is no wrap-around: QKA23 is not a straight.
6. Three of a kind. A set if you flopped it with a pocket pair. Trips if two of the three are on the board and you have the third in your hand. The words are not interchangeable if you want to talk like a player. Kickers decide ties.
7. Two pair. The higher pair is compared first, then the lower pair, then the kicker. On a board with two pair already, your kicker is the whole fight.
8. One pair. Then kicker, kicker, kicker. Top pair with a weak kicker is not "the same hand" as top pair top kicker. It is a different range, a different SPR problem, and a different way to lose a stack.
9. High card. Ace-high is a hand. Seven-high is also a hand. One of them bluffs. The other one is usually air.

At showdown, the dealer reads the best five-card combination for each player. Extra cards do not play. If the board is the best five-card hand for everyone still in, the pot is split. That is a "board plays" chop, and it happens more than people who only remember their hole cards think it does. You can have Ace-King in the hole and still chop with seven-deuce if the board is a straight or a flush that neither of you improves.

A street-by-street hand, because rules without a pot are trivia

Six-max cash, $1/$2, 100 big blinds effective. You are on the button. The hijack folds. The cutoff opens to $6. You look down at Ace-King offsuit.

You three-bet. That is a raise of a raise. The cutoff calls. Two players see a flop. The dealer burns and turns:

Rainbow, disconnected, two Broadway cards missing. Your Ace-King has no pair and two overcards. You still bet because the cutoff's calling range includes worse Ace-high, pocket pairs that hate this flop, and a lot of hands that fold to a second barrel. That is strategy, not rules — but the rules are what let you put $24 in. The cutoff calls. Turn:

No showdown. You do not have to table Ace-King, and in most rooms you should not: showing a bluff or a thin value hand for free is information you are not paid for. If the cutoff had called, there would have been one more street, then a showdown if money still went in. Four streets, or fewer if someone folds, or fewer still if someone is all-in. That is the machine. "I had two overcards so I was good" is not a rule. It is a hope.

Showdown, side pots, acting in turn

If the river betting ends with two or more players still in, the last player who bet or raised on the river shows first. If the river checked through, the player who would have been first to act shows first. You do not get to muck a winner because you misread the board. Cards speak. Mouths do not. Identical five-card hands split. Odd chips, live, usually go left of the button. Fight the dealer for a misread flush, not for a dollar chip.

Side pots exist when one player is all-in for less than others have bet. The short stack can only contest the main pot. Extra money from deeper stacks is a side pot the short stack cannot win. If you win the side and lose the main, you still lost to the short stack. That is the rule, not a cooler, unless the cards themselves were a cooler. When a player is all-in and no further action remains, rooms often table both hands so the runout cannot be argued later. Do not slow-roll a nutted hand in that spot.

Action in turn is a rule. Action out of turn can be binding if the skipped player then checks, depending on the room. You may tank. You may not table-talk a live player into folding, or make "will you show if I fold?" a condition of your decision. Misdeals (exposed card on the initial deal, button in the wrong seat, a skipped player) get restored to a fair deal. Looking at your hole cards and then claiming a misdeal because you dislike them is not a procedure. It is a fold with extra steps.

6-max, full ring, Zoom, cash, tournaments

The ranking of hands does not change when the table shrinks. The frequency of playable starting hands does. Full ring means more players behind you when you are UTG, which means more chances someone woke up with a hand that dominates yours. Six-max means you are in late position more often per orbit, which means you play more pots. If you take a nine-max starting-hand list into a six-max game, you will fold the button too much and then wonder why the blinds are eating you. If you take a six-max steal range into a nine-max UTG open, you will print money for the two seats you forgot existed. Details live on the position page.

Zoom, fast-fold, Snap — different brand names for the same idea: when you fold, you are instantly moved to a new table with a new hand. You do not sit through other people's pots. Volume goes up. Boredom goes down. The rules of the hand do not change. The pool of opponents does, because the people who stay in Zoom are often the people who can stand folding 75% of hands without checking Twitter. Your VPIP still has to make sense. Your manners do not get a pass because the software is fast.

Cash games let you leave when you want and usually play around 100bb deep. Tournaments have a rising blind clock and a prize structure that eventually makes chip-EV and dollar-EV diverge. That divergence is ICM. The streets are dealt the same way. The chips are not worth the same thing. PKOs and other bounty formats add a cash value for a knockout; they do not change the deck, and they do not make 72o a raising hand from UTG. Format is a modifier. Rules are the chassis. Start at formats when the payout is the part that moved.

What the rules do not decide

The rules tell you what you may do. They do not tell you what you should do. Whether Ace-King is a three-bet or a call depends on position, stack depth, and who opened. Whether a half-pot c-bet is mandatory depends on texture and range advantage. Whether you call a river jam depends on pot odds and a story. People skip this page because it feels basic, then post a hand where they "called the all-in" on the flop with a draw, never computed the price, and want a medal for rivering a flush. The flush was luck. The call was a price. The rules created the price.

When you can deal a hand in your head, name the rank of every five-card combination on a paired monotone board, and explain a short all-in without waving your hands, go study which hands to play from where. The deck will not get nicer. Your decisions can.