Poker Rules: How to Play Poker, with a Texas Hold'em Guide

That outline is Texas Hold'em, the version most people mean when they say poker, and the one you will meet first in a British card room or online. The rules of poker change from game to game in how the cards are dealt, but three things stay the same: the order of the hands, the betting actions and the idea that you win either by having the best hand or by making everyone else fold.

That second route is what makes poker different from casino games played against the house. You are not trying to beat a fixed dealer rule. You are playing against other people, who can be pushed out of a pot with a bet even when they hold the better cards. Learning how to play poker well is mostly learning when that is likely to work and when it is not.

What you need to know first

The rules of poker assume you know the hands. Before your first hand, learn the ranking of the ten poker hands, from royal flush down to high card. Our poker hand rankings page has the full chart with the odds of each hand. After that, the main thing to master is the order of betting, which the next three sections set out.

These poker rules for betting apply to every variant. Betting goes round the table clockwise, and a round ends when every player still in has either folded or put in the same total. If you raise, everyone who has already acted gets another chance to fold, call or raise again. A player who runs out of chips can still go all in for what they have; they can then win only the part of the pot they matched, and any extra bets form a side pot.

In a no-limit game a raise must be at least as big as the last bet or raise in the same round. With a £2 big blind, if one player raises to £8, the next raise must add at least £6, making it £14.^{2 (source)} That rule stops a player from re-raising by a token amount just to slow the game down.

Acting in one movement

Most card rooms do not let you put some chips in and then go back to your stack for more. That is called a string bet, and the dealer will usually count only the first amount as a call. Say “raise” clearly, or push the full amount forward in one move, to avoid any dispute.^{2 (source)}

The small blind is usually half the big blind, and the big blind sets the minimum bet for the hand. In tournaments, an extra forced bet called an ante is often added in later stages to build bigger pots.^{1 (source)} In a casino card room or online, a house dealer does the dealing and a round disc, the dealer button, marks who would be dealing in a home game.

Position is how close you sit to the button. Players near the button act after most of the table, so they see what others do before deciding. That information is worth a lot, which is why experienced players play more hands from late position and fewer from the seats just left of the blinds.

Before the flop, action starts with the player to the left of the big blind. After the flop, it starts with the first active player to the left of the button. When only two players are left, the button posts the small blind and acts first before the flop, then last on every later round.^{1 (source)}

Texas holdem rules are short to learn because the game uses the same betting actions throughout and only one kind of deal. The dealer burns one card face down before the flop, the turn and the river, so nobody gains from a marked or exposed top card.^{1 (source)} A table usually seats up to nine or ten players.

Two cards from a 52-card deck can be dealt in 1,326 combinations, but because suits are equal before the flop, they reduce to 169 distinct starting hands: 13 pairs, 78 suited and 78 unsuited combinations.^{1 (source)} Most of those hands are folded by careful players before the flop. Our step-by-step guide to Texas Hold'em follows one complete hand, and its section on texas holdem rules for split pots covers the cases that cause the most arguments.

At the showdown, the last player to bet or raise on the final round shows first. If nobody bet on the river, players usually show in turn starting from the left of the button. A player who knows they are beaten may give up the hand without showing, though in many card rooms any player who paid to see the showdown can ask to see a called hand.

Hands are compared by type first, using the standard order, and then by the ranks of the cards within the type. A full house always beats a flush; between two flushes, the highest card decides, then the next. Suits never rank. When the five best cards on both sides are the same ranks, the pot is divided equally, and any odd chip goes to the first player clockwise from the button.^{1 (source)}

The hand rankings page has a tool that compares any two five-card hands and explains which rule decides the result.

In pot-limit, the maximum raise is worked out as if you first call and then bet the whole pot. If the pot holds £20 and the player before you bets £10, you call £10 (the pot is now £40), so you can raise by up to £40, for a total bet of £50.^{2 (source)} Dealers in pot-limit games will tell you the maximum if you ask.

Fixed-limit games usually have a small bet for the first two rounds and a big bet, twice the size, for the last two. That structure makes each decision cheaper but means more players stay in to the end, so hands are decided at the showdown more often.

Omaha looks like Hold'em with extra cards, but the two-card rule changes everything. If the board shows four hearts and you hold one heart, you do not have a flush, because you must use two hole cards.^{3 (source)} Players coming from Hold'em misread their Omaha hands more often than anything else.

In seven card stud, each player gets two cards face down and one face up, then three more face up and a last one face down, with a betting round after each stage. The lowest face-up card on the first round pays a small forced bet called the bring-in.^{4 (source)} Because you see four of each opponent’s cards, stud rewards a good memory.

In poker between players, the house does not take part in the hands. It earns from a table fee, a tournament entry fee or a small percentage taken from each pot, known as the rake.^{5 (source)} Your opponents are the other players, and a strong player can win over time, which is why poker is often described as a game of skill as well as chance.

Casino poker games are table games with a fixed pay table, played against the dealer. Three card poker, the most common in British casinos, pays the Ante and Play bets at even money when you beat a dealer who qualifies with Queen high or better. Every such game has a built-in house edge that no amount of skill removes; our house edge guide compares them with blackjack and roulette.

Online poker for players in Great Britain must be offered by an operator licensed by the Gambling Commission, with the same age and identity checks as other gambling. Our page on how to check a UK gambling licence shows how to confirm a site is licensed.

Looking for a licensed site with casino poker tables? Our UK casino comparison lists the licensed UK sites. 18+

Card rooms add their own house poker rules, but a few are universal. Acting out of turn gives information away and can change what other players do, so most card rooms treat it as binding or penalise it. Keep your chips in tidy stacks where others can see them, because players are entitled to a fair idea of how much you could bet.

Protect your hole cards by keeping a chip or your hand on them. If the dealer collects cards that nobody is guarding, the hand is usually dead. And once you fold, stay out of the hand: comments about what you would have held, while the pot is still being played, are one of the quickest ways to annoy a table. General conduct at casino tables is covered in our casino etiquette guide.