Texas Holdem Poker: Fold ‘em, Raise ‘em, Win ‘em!

When you hear cards shuffling and gambling, what comes into your mind?  Poker, isn’t it?  Well, the most popular card game in the gambling world is actually Texas holdem poker.  Housed in casinos and poker card rooms across North America and Europe, its popularity has made its name synonymous to gambling.  It is even available to play online.

Texas holdem poker originated in Robstown, Texas in the early 1900’s.    It was then introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan gamblers and players – these include Crandell Addington, Roscoe Weiser, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim.  From this, its fame has developed further as the birth of the World Series of Poker was presented by Benny and Jack Binion of the Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas in 1970.

Texas holdem poker has one objective:  to make correct decisions on when and how much to bet, raise, call, or fold – so as to maximize one’s long-term winnings on each round of betting, and to win the pot.  And since in this game the player can bet four times, he can play strategically.  One of the strategies a poker player integrates in him is the ability to make a good bluff.  Bluffing is the fundamental nature of the game.  A good bluff can buy the player his way out of the game, and a poor bluff can get the player to lose – a lot – in the game.  Of course, with a good bluff comes no emotion.  In playing poker, it is always quite basic to leave your emotions at the door.

This was best depicted by the cool and collected character of James Bond in the movies.  Cool and collected simply disguised any emotion he had at that moment, making him very hard to read.  Thus, the term “poker face” was highly associated with him.

Basic terms used in Texas holdem poker are:

• Hand – as round is to boxing, hand is to poker.
• All In – having bet all your chips in the current hand.
• Big Blind – a forced bet that is equivalent to the minimum bet.
• Small Blind – a forced bet that is equivalent to half of the “big blind”, but is usually rounded off to the nearest practical value.
• Check - to bet nothing.
• Fold - to discard one’s hand and forfeit one’s interest in the pot.
• Raise - to increase the size of the bet required to stay in the pot, forcing all the other players to agree to the amount if they wish to stay in.
• Pot - the sum of money that players wager during a single hand; likely the “jackpot” of the game.

There are a lot more terms used in Texas holdem poker, and you can learn more about them in poker guide books.  Hence, it is interesting and exciting to learn the ropes of this card game.  After all, it is more of a thinking man’s game.

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