Alot of times some people have small questions about a specific Texas Hold Em Poker rule or another little nuance of the game. I’ll discuss a couple of the rules around betting.

Q: What if you want to call someone’s bet but don’t have enough chips to?

If you don’t have enough chips to call someone’s raises, or bet, you still can call them. You will essentially have to call with all your chips, so you’ll be going all-in. If you do this and win the pot you will win all of your own chips you put in the pot plus an exact proportion of the your opponents bets from the pot. So yes, even if you don’t have enough chips to call, if you think you are going to win call him (with what you can.)

Q: What if there are three players in a pot after the flop but one of them doesn’t have enough chips to call a bet later like on the turn or the river?

Its similar to the last example. The player without enough chips can still call the bet, they just do so with whatever chips they have, essentially going all-in. In this case, that players bet goes into the pot and the whole pot, so everything up to and matching that players bet, is up for grabs for that player. Any bets above and beyond that bet goes into a side-pot so the two players with the more chips can continue betting/playing. At the showdown the all-in player is only eligible to win his pot and the other players can win both pots.

Q: What if another player and I have the same hand at the end of the game?

If two players have the same hand at the end of the game then each of them receive one half of the chips in the pot. So suppose you have J-10 and your opponent has Q-10 and the community cards are A-K-Q-J-6. You both have an ace-high straight so you have the same hand so the pot is split.

These are just some basic questions people have when they are trying to learn every Texas Hold Em Poker rule. The rules in Texas Hold Em Poker are pretty straight forward and learning them 100% in full in very advisable if you want to succeed. Once you learn every Texas Hold Em Poker rule your stress created by not really knowing the outcome will reduce and you can concentrate more on strategy and odds etc.

This Texas Hold Em Poker tip is all about the importance of playing for something when you play poker. By that I mean playing to win something. Obviously money is usual choice for people. Although other things work as well.

Poker is meant to be played for something, period. It doesn’t matter how big or small the stakes are, they just have to exist. Your decisions and play in poker need to mean something. For them to mean something there needs to be consequences. If you make the correct decisions you get a reward, if you don’t, well you miss out. If you ever get the chance to watch people play free poker you will notice that the game play is completely different to that in a paid game. People play so much looser because if they screw up, well, it doesn’t matter.

When you play for free, no one throws a hand away. It doesn’t matter because they aren’t going to lose anything anyway. Everyone always plays right down to the river, trying to get the best hand. The whole facet of betting is removed from the game. Its like a sad play out of probability. This is because there is no penalty if people lose. It takes the whole essence of the game away.

But when your actually playing for something, even if its only five or ten bucks, you will notice a huge difference in the way everyone plays. Suddenly, people are thinking more about the hands they are playing and how much they are betting. They are folding without good cards or later in the game to cut their losses.  Everyone is trying to win because there is a penalty for losing, a penalty that didn’t have to be paid when playing for free, and a reward for winning. The reward wasn’t really there in the free games. People instinctively want to win the reward and want to avoid losing, or missing out.

You can instantly increase your poker game by increasing the stakes. Going from free to something is raising the stakes big time. You will notice, almost automatically or subconsciously, you immediately are thinking more, paying attention, making better decisions, all because you want to win. You should be rewarded for making the correct decisions in poker, so follow this Texas Hold Em Poker tip and actually play poker for something and you will be rewarded.

I know there are 2,598,960 different 5 card poker hands but I don’t know how many would only contain a single suit.

Texas Hold em Poker is the most popular poker game.  Though the history and origins of the game are not clear and is debatable, but the popularity of the game has driven masses. The main reasons that can be picked for its popularity are that it is a rapid game which is hugely enjoyable and offers an exciting mix of skill/ strategy and luck.

The other main reason for its popularity is the advancements in technology especially internet. The recent trends in technology are also making advancements into mobile technology.

Always remember that becoming a successful Texas Hold em player takes patience, skill, luck and an extensive knowledge about the game. However, the rewards (provided you have the right poker strategy) can vary depending on the different types of betting structures and can be equal to large amounts of money  as a skilled no limit Texas Hold’em player.  

Talking about the different betting structures in Hold em, they can be categorised as limit, pot-limit, and no-limit. Each game has its own rules and formats.  Also these betting structures leads to different concepts oh hold em play, which includes concepts like position, control and card play.

Out of the three betting structures, No Limit Hold em is the most popular version of the game. As the name suggests, there are no limits on betting. So this implies that the person has to be cautious, trained and needs a bit of luck, as it can either cost the whole pot or lead to a big win.

So the thing that stands out from all the discussion above is that, you have to master your basic poker skills and move from level to level to hone your skills. This leads to the next section of this article which will now focus on basics of Texas Hold em.

Remember that in Texas Holdem poker the player who makes the best combination of five cards from a possible seven, wins. It is important to memorise the hand rankings in Texas Holdem. There are basically ten types of hand rankings. The highest being the ‘royal flush’ which includes cards from 10 to an ace, and all the cards from the same suit. The next is the ‘straight flush’ which has all the cards from the same suit. The third one is called ‘four of a kind’, which comprises of four cards of the same rank. Remember, highest four of a kind wins.

As you can see from the three rankings mentioned above, the rankings are simple but they have to be memorised before playing. The fourth highest rankings is a ‘full house’ which is a combination of a pair and three of a kind, where highest three of a kind wins. The next ranking in the order is ‘flush’ which has five non sequential cards from the same suit and the highest card wins. The sixth ranking is called ‘straight’ which has five sequential cards from different suits. Remember that ace can be either used as a high or a low.  Seventh ranking is ‘three of a kind’ which has three cards of the same rank. The next ranking is called ‘two pair’ which comprises of two pairs of cards of equal rank, and the highest pair of cards win. The next to last in rankings in a game of Texas Hold em is ‘pair’ which has any two cards of the same rank, and the highest pair wins. The last ranking is called ‘high card’ in which if no one holds any of the above, then the player with the highest card wins (where ace is the highest of all). Knowing about these rankings is the first step to learn poker and how to play hold em poker.

Now all you have to do is memorise these hand rankings, because there is no point hitting the poker table without the knowledge of these hand rankings.
The next article in the series will explain the other important aspects of hold em poker including some useful tips and tricks.

Today I will share with you my top Texas Hold Em Poker Tip. Its called maintaining your discipline. As we all know, luck plays quite the part in our lives every single day, and, certainly it plays a huge part when we play poker. Most of us know that luck isn’t some airy fairy thing that happens to be bestowed upon some people but not others. In reality it is the combination of opportunity and awareness, a mix if randomness, probability if you will, and being attuned to watching for or being attentive to that happening. Luck doesn’t just happen to us, we make it happen.

Luck is the losers lament. You hear people all the time, whining about someone else’s good fortune, sniggering ‘Oh he just got lucky’. Most of us do it all the time. You see a guy driving a red sports car with a beautiful girl in the passenger seat and you think to yourself ‘Lucky son of a’. We all act like skill, either at the poker table or in life, doesn’t play any part in the outcome and it is all merely luck.

By now your probably thinking ‘Why is Alex talking about luck when he should be blurting out the virtues of discipline’? Well the reason is because when playing poker, luck and discipline seem to be virtually connected at the hip. The time most normal poker players lose their discipline is right after they take a bad beat due to being unlucky. Some other guy pulls a flush draw on the river and snaps you, and you lose it. Of course, this is the most important time when you should maintain your discipline. The other situation when most players lose their discipline is when they continually get dealt a string of unplayable cards. Many players will get fed up and try to make something of nothing, usually getting blown away and losing most, if not all, of their stack.

As important it is to maintain your discipline under pressure, you must maintain it in other ways as well. There is a famous quote that goes “The more I practice, the luckier I get”. This is especially true in poker. The key word here is practice. And the key to practice is discipline. You need to take a disciplined approach to your practice if you want to get better at poker. It takes a huge amount of self discipline to deal yourself thousands of hands at the kitchen table, analyzing each and every one and thinking to yourself how you would play each one. It takes alot of concentration and determination to read all the books, watch all the videos, do all the calculations for hours and hours to improve your game.

The best use of discipline is when you are waiting for that starting hand. If you don’t maintain your discipline when your being dealt junk cards, hands like J-3 will start to look like pocket aces. You’ll lose your patience, play loose and end up losing your stack. Of course, the basic ingredient to patience is of course, discipline. Discipline is your best friend when it comes to consistently winning big in poker. That is why its my top Texas Hold Em Poker Tip. Remember to take it with you to every game, every tournament, and stick with it when you play every hand.

I’m looking for a online poker site that i don’t need to deposit anything in order to start playing with real money. So is there any online poker sites that give you like a $5 starting balance or something?

Poker dealers watch alot of poker and have seen alot of hands played. They have seen it all. They get tips when the players take massive wins and watch the despair of the players that lose. Poker dealers often know a thing or two about poker because they are in and around the game so much. I’m going to share my poker dealers tips with you that I got from him when we had little chat.

Poker Dealers Tips – Shut Your Mouth

This is slightly funny, but my poker dealer seemed to think that being quiet at a poker table was very important for your overall game. I don’t know if it was just that he had heard alot of junk slander at the poker table for too long and was fed up or if this actually had some real essence. He explained that alot of players might talk a bit at the table, for whatever reason. It could be to try to put their opponents of, create a distraction, annoy people, get them off their game, or whatever other reason. The tip, which is to NOT do this, is both a bit of courtesy, for the other players and the dealer, and also a method of creating efficiency. Lets face it, poker is hard enough at the best of times. You have way to much to think about and deal with, calculate and estimate, to have the time to be talking crap to the guy next to you. The next time you want to blabber on, calculate some pot odds, guess what cards your opponent has, size up everyones stacks, do something, do anything. Final point: never ever fold your cards and then start talking, this is a big no no.

I thought that this poker dealers tips were pretty good. Constantly winning pots in poker is the tried and proven way of winning more money in your Texas Hold em poker career. Try these tips next time your playing No Limit Hold em and see how well you go.

I know that in the UK and the USA you have to be at least 18 to play poker online but is this is the case worldwide? Is there anywhere that allows 16 year olds to play online poker

And what about private home games. Is it legal to hold a small cash game consisiting of players under 18 if its done in the privacy of someones own home?

I’m looking for a book that helps with online poker play Texas Hold’em No Limit Tournament play, Cash Games, and SitnGo’s. I’m not a new player but I feel if I had some advice from the pros I could be a great player. I want to hit that next level with my poker game.

Also does anyone use Poker Tracker 3?

I have a 52″ octagon poker top that I would like to turn into a poker table, but don’t know how. Does anyone know if this is possible and if so how to do it?