Texas Holdem is by far the most popular poker game online and offline. It is played in casinos all across the country and beyond. Interestingly enough, several of today’s famous poker players got their start by playing Texas Holdem online. You can too! In the following paragraphs, we’ll take a look at this fascinating game and where you can play it online.
The Popularity of Texas Holdem
Online Texas Holdem is extremely popular and has been growing in popularity since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker after winning his seat into the $10,000 Main Event with a $40 investment playing Texas Holdem online. While Moneymaker beat out 838 other players to win the championship and 2.5 million dollars, by 2006, there were over 8000 players with the winner, Jamie Gold, taking home an unprecedented 12 million dollars!
The popularity of poker in general and Texas Holdem in particular has continued to grow; amateurs who have never played poker before learn how to play online Texas Holdem, hoping to be the next world champion. The game itself is exciting and offers plenty of opportunities to hone your strategy by playing online. You can play in tournaments or cash games and any size bankroll can keep you playing for hours. You can even play free Texas Holdem Poker online.
How to Play Texas Holdem
While learning the basic rules of Texas Holdem is easy, learning strategy and practicing patience is important in this game and will give you a better chance of being successful. A Texas Holdem table may consist of nine or ten players, although fewer can play as well. When you play online Texas Holdem, the dealing is automated of course, but there is a dealer button that resides at the place of each player in turn. There are two blinds; the small blind and the big blind, called forced betting by some, that must be paid at the start of each hand. The player to the left of the dealer button pays the small blind and the player to the left of the small blind position pays the large blind. All blinds are pre-determined and must be paid at the start of each round.
Two cards are dealt facedown to each player and then a round of betting commences. This is called pre-flop. The flop comes next, which is when three community cards are dealt face up. These are called community cards because all of the players can use these cards along with the ones in their hand to make the best 5-card hand. After the flop, another round of betting takes place and players can bet, raise, or fold.
Then the Turn, or the 4th community card is dealt and another round of betting ensues. The 5th community card, called the River is dealt last and once all the betting is over with, there comes the showdown if more than one player is still in the game. If all but one player has folded, then the last player to remain in the game takes the pot.
Where to Play Texas Holdem
There are many Texas Holdem games online. Download the free software from http://www.pokerstars.com and you can be playing Texas Holdem online in mere minutes. Poker stars is one of the most popular poker rooms on the Internet and offers cash games and Texas Holdem tournaments. This site also offers freerolls, which are tournaments you can enter into without depositing any money at all. You can play Texas Holdem online in a freeroll tournament and have a chance to win a seat at a later tournament that offers cash prizes.
This site is very user friendly and boasts state of the art technology and graphics. You can also deposit money and play for money immediately. While you can ultimately win big at playing online Texas Holdem, you don’t have to have a big bankroll to get started. Any size bankroll will keep you entertained for hours at this site. Full Tilt Poker, which can be found at http://www.fulltiltpoker.com, is another extremely popular online Texas Holdem site. This site also offers freeroll tournaments as well as cash games and buy-in tournaments. Many of today’s famous poker players have played and continue to play at the above mentioned sites.
Texas Holdem Variations
Online Texas Holdem has three variations that you may want to consider. They are Limit, No Limit, and Pot Limit. No Limit is very popular and is the version played in the Main Event at the World Series of Poker. However, gameplay is quite aggressive and beginners may want to start their online Texas Holdem career or hobby playing either Limit or Pot Limit Texas Holdem. Whichever version you choose though, you are sure to love playing Texas Holdem online.
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