Poker Rules No Limit Hold'em
Chances are that when you think about poker, you’re thinking about Texas No-Limit Hold’em.
While it’s one of the dozens of poker variants out there, it’s no doubt the most popular. Chris Moneymaker’s historic 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event win? No-Limit Hold’em. Iconic poker scenes from movies like “Rounders” or “Casino Royale”? They’re playing No-Limit Hold’em.
If you walk into any cardroom around the world and they’re playing poker, they’re probably playing No-Limit Hold’em. Part of the appeal behind this variant is that it’s easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master. We’re here to help you with the first part and hopefully get you started down the right path towards mastering this game.
In this guide, we’ll teach you the basic rules of NLHE, how betting works and we’ll explain the different types of Hold’em out there. After that, we’ll leave you with some resources that can help you develop your game. After that, it’s up to you to study, play and practice to become the best NLHE player you can be.
But before we get into that, let’s start with the basics.
What is Texas Hold’em
Texas Hold’em is a poker variant with roots in Robstown, Texas that date back to the early 1900s. The game’s simplicity, but never-ending depth led to an increase in popularity. The game crept its way to Las Vegas and then started spreading after it became the format of the World Series of Poker Main Event.
Things really picked up after Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event for $2 million dollars after winning a $86 qualifier online. This led to a huge online poker boom in the United States and around the world. That’s how Texas Hold’em came to be the dominant poker variant out there.
As you’ll see, the rules and set up are easy enough. But once you get past the basics, there’s a never-ending road to mastery. There’s always a dash of luck keeping things interesting too. You can play with a minimum of two people and tournaments can have tens of thousands of players.
A buy-in is necessary to take a seat at any poker table. In most limit games, the buy-in is set at 10 times the high limit of the table. For no-limit games, the buy in will generally be set at 20 times the amount of the big blind. One short buy-in is allowed per game, and you may only add to your stack between hands. No-limit hold 'em has grown in popularity and is the form most commonly found in televised tournament poker and is the game played in the main event of the World Series of Poker. In no-limit hold 'em, players may bet or raise any amount over the minimum raise up to all of the chips the player has at the table (called an all-in bet).
If you only have a single deck of cards and one table, the maximum recommended number of players is 10. It’s great to have poker chips or something to gamble with like pennies or dried beans, but if you’re in a pinch, little pieces of paper can work too.
How to play Texas No-Limit Hold’em
The game is simple, take your opponents money. Doing it is a bit more complicated.
You take their money by betting on five-card poker hands. Every players’ hand is made up of two hole cards and five community cards. Your hole cards are private and the community cards are for everyone. You make your hand with any mix of the two. You can use both, one or none of your hole cards when building your hand.
At the beginning of each hand, every player gets dealt two cards, face down. These are your hole cards and they’re just for you. After that, players start betting.
Preflop
You’ll often hear poker players talk about position: late, early, on the button. Betting in poker isn’t a first-come-first-serve scenario, there’s always a strict order that’s dictated by the button.
A random player starts with the button and it moves left after every hand. The player to the left of the button posts a mandatory bet called the small blind and the player to their left posts the big blind, which is twice the size of the big blind.
In tournaments, the blinds are always rising, but in cash games they stay the same unless players decide to change it.
After the hand is dealt, the player to the left of the big blind starts. That player can either check, fold, call the big blind or raise. Action switches from player to player. The players who bet and called then make it on to the next round.
If everyone folds to a bet or raise, the hand ends there.
Flop
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the flop. This is where the first three community cards get dealt. While you may have hit a hand, there are still two more cards to go. So if you need one or two cards to hit a flush or a straight, you’re now hoping they’ll show up later on in the hand.
After the flop is dealt, action moves to the player on the button’s left. Remember after the flop, the button always goes last. If both players check or there’s a called bet, players move onto the turn.
Turn
This is the fourth community card and it plays out just like the flop. Action starts with the player on the button’s left and keeps going until everyone’s folded or called.
No-limit Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament Rules
River
This is it, the last card. The final stage of the hand. At this point, you either hit your hand or you haven’t. This starts the final round of betting and then players show down their hands to see who won.
Poker Hand Rankings
So now that you know the mechanics of how a hand plays out, let’s see how these hands rank.
The hand rankings from low to high are:
- High card
- Pair
- Two-pair
- Three-of-a-kind
- Straight
- Flush
- Full house
- Four-of-a-kind
- Straight flush
- Royal flush
Again, this is using a combination of your hole cards and the community cards. Check out our poker hand rankings page for a more detailed breakdown of poker hand rankings.
Limits
You might’ve noticed that we’ve used the term No-Limit Texas Hold’em and just Texas Hold’em. The “No-Limit” refers to the way you can bet in the game. There are a few different betting styles in Texas Hold’em including: Limit, Pot-Limit and No-Limit.
The most popular version is No-Limit, and that means there’s no limit to what you can bet at any stage of the hand. The minimum is a big blind and the maximum is as much as you have. That means you can raise all-in whenever you want.
In Limit, the amount you can bet is a fixed amount. You can only bet or raise by that same amount. Bets are capped at four bets.
Pot-Limit means the maximum you can bet is what’s already in the pot. So if you’re starting a hand with $1/$2 blinds, you can raise to $5. That’s $3 from the blinds and a $2 of your “call” for a total raise to $5.
Cash games and tournaments
Aside from the different types of betting, there are different types of poker formats. In cash games, the blinds are always the same, you sit down with real money and can cash out whenever you’re done playing. For example, you sit down with $100 and if you win $200, you can stand up and walk away with $300.
In a tournament, everyone buys in for the same amount and gets a set number of chips. The blinds rise until one player is left standing. In tournaments, a percentage of the field makes money back. This depends on every tournament and it is usually from 20 percent of the field to 10 percent.
The biggest reward always goes to first place. The World Series of Poker Main Event is a tournament, and so is most of the poker you see on TV. Sit & Gos are like a mini-tournament. They can be as small as one table or encompass several.
Texas No-Limit Hold’em Resources
So now you know the basics, time to set you down your road of poker mastery. If you’re ready to get going check out our online poker site reviews to see which site matches you the best:
Wsop No Limit Hold'em Rules
Still not confident enough to plunk down some real money? No worries, you can start playing online for free! Most sites offer freerolls to players, these are free-to-play tournaments that reward real cash if you do well enough.
While practice is the best way to improve your game, it should always go accompanied by some good studying. There are tons of poker books, forums, and training websites out there to help you improve your game.
“Harrington on Hold’em” by Dan Harrington is a great place to get started. If you want a wealth of information and a place to discuss any questions you might have, the TwoPlusTwo Forums have been offering invaluable poker knowledge for years. Poker coaching is a bit pricey, but a great option for players who really want to work on their game. Some great players also livestream poker, so you can search for poker on Twitch and
Rules of the Game
No Limit Hold’em (NLHE) is described as the Cadillac of Poker and it is indeed the most popular game in the world by a large amount and nothing will probably ever change that.
Even if mixed games are your passion and specialty, this game cannot be ignored for a variety of reasons. It is included in the Eight Game Mix which is a very popular mix in both tournaments and cash games. And big field NLHE often a part of major tournament series a low buy in and a high guarantee offer tremendous value even if it is not your specialty.
Basic Strategy
This site will not try and offer advice on how to beat $25/$50 six handed cash games or attempt to prepare you for High Roller events; that is out of our scope. But we will try and offer a few tips on how to navigate the NLHE round when included in mixed games.
The most important piece of advice is to be completely honest in regards to your relative NLHE skill level amongst the other players particularly in mixed game tournaments. If your NLHE game is weaker relative to the other games it would be a big mistake to play large pots against more skilled players when your edge in the other games is great.
If you ascertain you are at a disadvantage it is fine to adhere to a small ball strategy and also defend your big blind less even in when a defense is considered standard. It would also be acceptable to put in larger bets or raises to end a hand sooner rather than later. This last piece of advice is often frowned upon because it more or less ends the hand and often allows your opponent to only continue when you are beat. However, you can also play your big hands in a similar fashion and the odds are typically with you that they do not have you beat. Of course if your opponents are folding a lot this means you can also find bluffs, preferably with a blocker.
For example, suppose it is the NLHE round in a WSOP $1500 Eight Game tournament. You have AQ off suit in the small blind and are facing an open-raise from the button. An advanced NLHE player if they chose to re-raise would probably size it as such to get value by keeping dominated hands such as KQ, QJ, and lesser hands in their opponent’s range. However, if NLHE is not your game and you do not want to play a lot of big pots out-of-position you can either choose to just flat call or make a larger raise that will simply end the pot the vast majority of the time when stacks are not that deep. Note that you could also make this raise with AA or even as a bluff if stack sizes dictate that your opponent is not really in a position to just call your raise. It would not be completely wasting the value of AQ because it is conceivable you will get called by dominated hands anyway and your hand helps block AA, AK, AQ, and QQ.
Making larger than standard re-raises pre-flop will often get your opponent to fold and when he does you more than pay for the round of blinds and antes and move onto the next game. But also allows your opponent to make a big mistake by folding the best hand or getting it all in against one of your premium holdings.
Further Learning
No Limit Hold’em for Advanced Players by Matt Janda, (Rating 10/10) – This book is an outstanding resource on the game of NLHE and the principles covered will also make you a better player in any big bet variant.
No Limit Hold’em Theory and Practice by David Sklansky and Ed Miller, (Rating 10/10) – Another great book that can help you in any big bet game and it also provides some great insight on how to handle some NLHE tournament specific situations such as a calling range versus a short stack or with what hands you need to push when you hold a short stack.