The High Stakes Poker Club

Texas hold’em, for those of you either in comas or living a rock, is perhaps the most popular variation of poker. Although I’m not a big fan of anything Texas, I make an exception for playing Texas hold em poker. I’m not sure why it has to be named after Texas; that’s really the only negative thing about it. I guess there’s at least one negative about everything so if it has to have Texas in the title, so be it.

Anyway, the rules are relatively simple in Texas hold’em poker. The dealer deals two cards face down to every player. The player then decides whether to fold or to continue with a bet or call. The exciting element of hold’em poker is that the players don’t know their full five card hand until the end of the round. This makes folding in the first part of the round very common.
After the first round - called pre-flop in poker jargon - the dealer lays down three cards face up. All three cards are common cards for each player to use to his advantage. The betting, calling, and raising portion begins again.
The next part of the round - called both ‘fourth street’ and the ‘turn’ card - the dealer lays another card and the round finishes the same as the previous.
Finally, the last card - ‘fifth street’ and ‘on the river’ - is the last card to be dealt in texas holdem poker. Now there are five community cards and two personal cards. Each player now must make the best hand of five using the seven cards. A final round of betting commences and the winner is declared using normal poker hand rules.
What makes texas hold’em poker so popular is that it is usually played with a high number of players and the suspense of not knowing what cards are going to complete your hand makes for an interesting and exciting game.
Texas hold’em’s popularity is also due in part to the massive television coverage that it gets. At almost any hour of the day, you can watch a texas hold’em tournament or even just a draw poker tournament. The point is, there’s always poker on tv. And since people spend a great deal of their time watching tv, it’s only natural that poker’s popularity would increase (Even blackjack has tv coverage; it seems pretty boring to watch blackjack on tv).
And, it’s just a lot of fun to play any variant of poker, especially texas hold’em. Playing online texas holdem poker is a different experience. Playing poker online takes away some of the comraderie and intensity of a live poker game but it’s easier to learn playing poker online because there isn’t the same pressure of the other players staring you down. Of course you never know who you’re playing against with online poker so there’s that to consider.

Find out for yourself the reason texas hold’em has become so popular with online gamblers and why it’s a better alternative for your money than online casino games like keno or baccarat.