Texas Hold’em Rules – Part 2

The Preflop

Once the small blind and big blind have been posted as well as the hole cards dealt, the game can begin. The first player to act is always the first person to the right of the big blind. This is where you decide if you wish to play on with your hand and see the community cards or sit out and wait for the next hole cards to be dealt. Just in case, the preflop is the first round of betting in Texas Hold’em Rules.

Each player will have the decision of either to fold, check/call or raise their hand. If you decide to fold, you will have to wait until the hand in play is finished before proceeding to the next hand. If you decide to call the blind, you will get to see the first community cards assuming no one raised the blind. If you decide to raise the blind the total of your raise must be at least two times the blind. This is also known as minimum raise.

So let’s say the first player decides to simply call the blind. Then the next player will have the option to fold his hand, call or raise the blind. Now what if the first player raised? Well you will still have the option to fold, call and raise. However if you decide to call, you’ll have to call whatever the player before you raised and if you decide to raise, you’ll have to raise on top of what the other player raised. And you’ll go on in clockwise turn until the last player to act in preflop, also known as the big blind decides whether he wants in or out of the hand.

Note that exceptionally during the preflop, the last player to act is the big blind. Why is that? Simple, in this case there are two forced bets which means the small blind and big blind are basically forced into playing their hole cards before even seeing them. Now whether they get to see the community cards or not is another issue.

Tip: This is the part of the game where you have the least amount of information possible to determine if you have a better starting hand than your opponent or if he has a better hand so use that lack of information to your advantage.

Once everyone decided what to do, we can move on to the following stage, the flop. This is where the game starts getting interesting so don’t miss out on the next post.

Related Posts

• Texas Hold’em Rules – Part 4
• Texas Hold’em Rules – Part 3
• Texas Hold’em Rules – Part 1