1. Play Limit Hold'em Poker Online Texas Hold'em (or simply Hold'em) arose from relative obscurity to worldwide recognition in the 2000s, ousting long-reigning seven-card stud from the top poker spot across US casinos. It was the talk around the water cooler, the Beatles of the gambling world!
2. Texas Hold'em is the most widely played poker variation in the world, particularly thanks to its simple setup and play. This article explains all the rules and concepts you'll need to get started playing it. Hold'em is almost exclusively played with three different betting structures: Limit; No-Limit; Pot Limit.

Texas Hold'em is the most widely played poker variation in the world, particularly thanks to its simple setup and play.

This article explains all the rules and concepts you'll need to get started playing it.

Hold'em is almost exclusively played with three different betting structures:

Limit Texas Hold'em Poker Strategy Tips Limit Texas hold ’em is deceptive. It appears easy to play, yet beneath that simple facade lies a game of extraordinary complexity. Many variables must be considered when making decisions, and figuring out the correct play is often difficult.

• Limit
• No-Limit
• Pot Limit

This article focuses on the Limit version of the game. Its full name is 'Fixed Limit,' and it's called that because the betting limits are fixed. At any given time you can only bet in the single governing limit set for that street.

The simplest way to explain how the game works is to run you through a sample hand.

How to Play Limit Holdem

The very first thing you have to do is decide on the stakes in which you're about to play. If you're playing a tournament the stakes will start very small and gradually increase; if you're playing a cash game, the stakes will stay constant.

For this example, let's say you're playing a $2/$4 cash game. This means that in this game the lower fixed limit is $2 while the higher fixed limit is $4.

Hold'em poker functions with a rotating dealer. This means regardless of who's actually dealing the cards, the dealer in the game is the player with the plastic 'Dealer' button in front of them.

After the hand concludes the dealer button is moved to the player to the left of the current dealer, and so on.

If this is the very first hand you can choose who starts as the dealer in any fashion you would like. The most common way is to deal every player one card face up. The high card starts as the dealer.

Putting Out the Blinds

Once you have a dealer the player to the left of the dealer must put the small blind out. The small blind is a forced bet equal to half of the smaller limit.

In our $2/$4 game the small blind would put out $1. (If you're playing a limit in which half would not be an even-dollar amount, such as $5/$10, the small blind is typically rounded down, making it $2.)

The player to the left of the small blind must place the big blind. The big blind is equal to the full amount of the smaller limit; in our example here the big blind will be $2.

Limit Hold'em - The Deal

The cards are dealt clockwise, starting with the player to the left of the button (the small blind) and ending with the player who is acting as dealer (the button).

Each player receives two hole cards, which for now remain face down on the table.

The First Round of Betting

After the last card is dealt the action starts with the player seated to the left of the big blind. This player has the option to call (match the amount of the big blind, or the smaller limit), fold (throw away their cards) or raise.

A raise in limit poker is always equal to the total of the previous bet, plus the addition of the current governing limit.

In this scenario, the player chooses to raise. This means they put in a total of $4 ($2 to call the current bet of the big blind and $2 to raise the amount of the smaller limit).

The action now continues clockwise around the table with each player acting on the same options: call, fold or raise.

When the action meets the small blind the amount of money they've already put into the pot is counted toward the total of their call or raise.

If they choose to fold, that money is lost to the pot.

The big blind has the same option as the small blind here. If no player would have raised, the big blind would have been the only player with a different set of options.

Since (assuming no raise was made) the current bet was $2, which the big blind had already bet before the deal, they had the option to check (continue to the next street without putting any more chips into play) or to raise.

In poker, a betting round ends when every player has had the option to play, and every player has the same amount of chips bet (or has folded).

(Note: There is an additional rule on raising. In Limit Hold'em there is a 'cap,' meaning there can only be one bet and three raises in any single betting round [unless there are only two players remaining in the hand]. This means once there has been a bet and three raises, no player is allowed to raise any further; they can only call or fold.)

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The Flop

Once the first round of betting is complete the dealer deals the flop. To do so, they place one card face down on the table (this card is known as the 'burn card'), followed by three cards face up. Each player looks at the flop and uses it to evaluate the strength of their current holdings.

From now until the end of the hand, every betting round starts with the player closest to the dealer button. This means action starts in the small blind and moves clockwise around the table.

If there is no live player in the small blind, action starts on the next player still in the hand, following the clockwise flow around the table.

The betting in this second betting round is identical to that in the first, with one small exception. The first player to act now has the choice to check (there is no bet, so calling no bet is called 'checking') or to bet (they can bet the lower limit of $2). If they check, the next player is faced with the very same options.

As soon as someone bets, the players' available options become to call, raise or fold. As soon as everyone has acted and everyone has the same amount of money bet, the betting round is over.

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The Turn and River

Dealing the turn is similar to the flop, as the dealer deals one card face down, followed by one card face up. This card is followed by the third betting round.

The turn and river play the very same as did the flop, with only one difference. The betting limit on the final two betting rounds uses the higher limit, making each bet and raise cost $4.

Once the third betting round is completed the river is dealt exactly as the turn was. After the river is dealt the fourth, and final, betting round is run. Upon completion of this betting round, the remaining players in the hand enter the showdown.

The showdown is simple - each player shows their hand, and the best hand wins the pot.

Related Poker Articles

It used to be that skilled poker players — who mostly played fixed-limit games — needed to learn how to adapt their games to no-limit once the NL hold'em 'boom' hit. Today, however, since most players at the tables now cut their teeth on no-limit, they've got to learn the old form of the game if they're going to become winning limit players.

Toward that end, with the availability of limit hold'em, H.O.S.E. and H.O.R.S.E. games online, and with casinos spreading limit games especially during major tournaments like the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, it's useful to understand some key conceptual differences between the two formats.

In this article I'd like to focus on the most significant difference between no-limit and fixed-limit games — implied odds. Then in a follow-up we'll talk further about some of the other most important adjustments players need to make when moving from no-limit to limit.

Pot Odds, Drawing Odds and Implied Odds

In no-limit poker implied odds are hugely important, while in fixed-limit games the significance of implied odds is, well, limited.

For those of you not familiar with the term, a quick primer on 'pot odds,' 'drawing odds' and 'implied odds' is necessary.

'Pot odds' refers to the amount of money you may win when you call a bet compared to the cost of calling that bet. If there's $800 in the pot and your opponent bets $200, to call means paying $200 with a chance at winning $1,000 total — in other words, you're getting 5-to-1 pot odds with your call.

'Drawing odds' refers to the probability that you won't make your hand. If you're drawing to a flush on the river, your drawing odds are the total number of unseen cards that don't help your hand compared to the number of cards that will give you the flush. Specifically, out of the total of 46 unseen cards, the odds are 37-to-9 or a little worse than 4-to-1 against you making your flush.

Finally, 'implied odds' are the pot odds as calculated above but also adding the money you might win on future betting rounds, too. Say you had that flush draw and faced having to call a bet on the turn. You'd calculate your pot odds, but add in the amount you might also win on the river if you hit your flush and bet and your opponent called. In a no-limit game, you could potentially win the size of your opponent's stack on the river (assuming you have him covered). Meanwhile in a limit game, you're only considering the size of another 'big bet' (the higher tier of betting) when thinking about implied odds — e.g., $20 in a $10/$20 limit game.

Texas Holdem Poker Limit

Without considering implied odds, if you are getting better pot odds than the drawing odds, then you should call. But if you're getting worse drawing odds than pot odds, then you aren't getting a good enough price for your call and you should fold.

If, for example, there was only $200 in the pot and your opponent bet $200 on the turn, then you'd only be getting $400 for your $200 call — that's 2-to-1 pot odds. Since your odds of hitting the flush on the river of worse than 4-to-1, that would be a bad call and you should fold.

But implied odds includes an additional piece of information to consider — the amount you might win on the river as well. Implied odds compares the cost of your bet on the turn with the total amount you might win in the hand, including the river.

So in the example above, with a pot of $200 on the turn, and a bet of $200 from your opponent, you'd have to know how much money you each had left in your stacks to know the implied odds. If you each had another $1,000 behind, and you thought your opponent would call off his entire stack if you bet it on the river after hitting your flush, then your implied odds would not be just 2-to-1, but rather 7-to-1 — the $400 pot on the turn plus the additional $1,000 you expected to win on the river if you hit your flush and your opponent called your stack-sized bet.

It should be added that implied odds are often going to be an estimate and not an exact calculation as with simple pot odds. If you know your opponent will call off his entire stack on the river when you make your flush and go all in, then you can be precise about the implied odds. But sometimes you'll only be able to estimate how much an opponent might pay off in such a spot (e.g., sizing your bet effectively to earn the call, not betting too much and having an opponent fold), which means you can't always be quite as exact with implied odds.

Implied Odds: Limit vs. No-Limit

Since players can potentially commit their entire stacks at any point in a no-limit poker hand, implied odds are especially important. There are implied odds in limit poker, too, of course — but they have less significance thanks to the limits on betting.

Continuing with the example of your drawing to a flush with one card to come, if the game were $100/$200 limit hold'em, you would factor in the chances that you could win one extra $200 bet on the river. So if the pot were $400 at the start of the turn and your opponent bet $200 (making the pot $600), you'd have immediate pot odds of 3-to-1 for your $200 call. That alone is not enough to justify continuing with your flush draw (which is a little worse than 4-to-1 of hitting).

But if you considered your implied odds, and figured your opponent would call your bet 100 percent of the time if you hit your flush on the river, you could add another $200 to what you stand to win as you decide whether to call that turn bet, giving you pot odds of 4-to-1 — closer to your drawing odds, but still not really making the call worthwhile.

Implied odds aren't just applicable on the turn and river. They are to be considered right from your initial decision to play your two hole cards. In no-limit games especially, implied odds have to be kept in mind as you are potentially 'playing for stacks' in every hand. That's not generally the case in fixed-limit games, which leads to many other strategic differences, including...

• playing more selectively preflop
• knowing when and how to press your advantages (extracting extra bets)
• being selective with postflop play
• making more river calls
• check-raising more frequently

I'll explore all five of these adjustments in more detail in the next article.

Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles and two books, Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003) and Winning No-Limit Hold'em (Lighthouse 2012). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.

No Limit Texas Holdem Poker Tournament Strategy

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