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Texas hold 'em (also
Hold'em,
holdem) is the most popular poker game in the
casinos and poker card rooms across North
America and Europe. Hold 'em is a community
card game where each player may use any
combination of the five community cards and the
player's own two hole cards to make a poker
hand, in contrast to poker variants like stud or
draw where each player holds a separate
individual hand.
After slow but steady gains in popularity
throughout the 20th century, hold 'em's
popularity surged in the 2000s due to exposure
on television, on the Internet, and in popular
literature. During this time hold 'em replaced 7
card stud as the most common game in U.S.
casinos, almost totally eclipsing the once
popular game. The no-limit betting form is
used in the widely televised main event of the
World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker
Tour (WPT).
Because each player only starts with two cards
and the remaining cards are shared, it presents
an opportune game for strategic analysis
(including mathematical analysis). Hold 'em's
simplicity and popularity have inspired a wide
variety of strategy books which provide
recommendations for proper play. Most of these
books recommend a strategy that involves playing
relatively few hands but betting and raising
often with the hands one plays.
In Texas hold 'em, like all
variants of poker, individuals compete for an
amount of money contributed by the players
themselves (called the pot). Because the cards
are dealt randomly and outside the control of
the players, each player attempts to control the
amount of money in the pot based on the hand the
player holds.
The game is divided into a series of hands or
deals; at the conclusion of each hand the pot is
awarded to one or a few players. A hand ends
either at the showdown (when the remaining
players compare their hands), or when all but
one player have folded and abandoned their
claims to the pot. The pot is then awarded to
the player(s) who have not folded and have the
best hand. (This is usually only one player, but
can be more in the case of a tie.)
The objective of winning players is not winning
every individual hand, but rather making
mathematically correct decisions. By making such
decisions, winning poker players maximize their
long run winnings, which is achieved by
maximizing their expected utility on each round
of betting.
Most poker authors recommend a
tight-aggressive approach to playing Texas hold
'em. This strategy involves playing relatively
few hands (tight), but betting and raising often
with those that one does play (aggressive).
Although this strategy is often recommended,
some professional players successfully employ
other strategies as well.
Almost all authors agree that where a player
sits in the order of play (known as position) is
an important element of Texas hold 'em strategy,
particularly in no-limit hold'em. Players who
act later have more information than players who
act earlier. As a result, players typically play
fewer hands from early positions than later
positions.
Because of the game's level of complexity, it
has received some attention from academics. One
attempt to develop a quantitative model of a
Texas hold'em tournament as an isolated complex
system has had some success, although the
full consequences for optimal strategies remain
to be explored. In addition, a group at the
University of Alberta is developing a poker
playing program utilizing techniques in game
theory and artificial intelligence.
Because there are only two cards dealt to each
player, it is easy to characterize all of the
starting hands. There are (52 × 51) ÷ 2 = 1,326
distinct possible combinations of two cards from
a standard 52-card deck. Because no suit is more
powerful than another, many of these can be
equated for the analysis of starting-hand
strategy.
Viewed this way there are only 169 different
hole-card combinations. Thirteen of those hands
would be pairs, from 2 through ace. There are 78
ways to have two cards of dissimilar rank (12
possible hands containing an ace, 11 possible
hands containing a king and no ace, 10 possible
hands containing a queen and no ace or king,
etc.). Hole cards can both be used in a flush if
they are suited, but pairs are never suited, so
there would be 13 possible pairs, 78 possible
suited non-pairs, and 78 possible unsuited
non-pairs, for a total of 169 possible
hands. Suited starting cards are usually
considered stronger than unsuited hands,
although the magnitude of this strength in
different games is debated.
Because of this limited number of starting
hands, most strategy guides involve a detailed
discussion of each of these 169 starting hands.
This separates hold 'em from other poker games
where the number of starting card combinations
forces strategy guides to group hands into broad
categories. Another result of this small
number is the proliferation of colloquial names
for individual hands.
Cash games / Ring game
Prior to the invention of poker tournaments,
poker games were played with real money where
players bet actual currency (or chips which
represented currency). Games which feature
wagering actual money on individual hands are
still very common and are referred to as "cash
games" or "ring games".
The no-limit and fixed-limit cash game versions
of hold 'em are strategically very different.
Doyle Brunson claims that "the games are so
different that there are not many players who
rank with the best in both types of hold 'em.
Many no-limit players have difficulty gearing
down for limit, while limit players often lack
the courage and 'feel' necessary to excel at
no-limit." Because the size of bets is
restricted in limit games, the ability to bluff
is somewhat curtailed. Since one is not
(usually) risking all of one's chips in limit
poker, players are sometimes advised to take
more chances.
Lower stakes games also exhibit different
properties than higher stakes games. Small
stakes games often involve more players in each
hand and can vary from extremely passive (little
raising and betting) to extremely aggressive
(many raises). The difference of small stakes
games have resulted in several books dedicated
to only those games.
Poker tournaments
Texas hold 'em is often commonly associated with
poker tournaments largely because it is played
as the main event in many of the famous
tournaments, including the World Series of
Poker's Main Event, and is the most common
tournament overall. Traditionally, a poker
tournament is played with chips that represent a
player's stake in the tournament. Standard play
allows all entrants to "buy-in" a fixed amount
and all players begin with an equal value of
chips. Play proceeds until one player has
accumulated all the chips in play. The money
pool is redistributed to the players in relation
to the place they finished in the tournament.
Usually only a small percentage of the players
receive any money, with the majority receiving
nothing. As a result the strategy in poker
tournaments can be very different from a cash
game.
Proper strategy in tournaments can vary widely
depending on the amount of chips one has, the
stage of the tournament, the amount of chips
others have, and the playing styles of one's
opponents. Although some authors still
recommend a tight playing style, others
recommend looser play (playing more hands) in
tournaments than one would otherwise play in
cash games. In tournaments the blinds and antes
increase regularly, and can become much larger
near the end of the tournament. This can force
players to play hands that they would not
normally play when the blinds were small, which
can warrant both more loose and more aggressive
play.
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