When Doyle Brunson first came to Las Vegas in 1967 no one even knew what Texas Hold’em was, much less played it. It was difficult to get a game together as only the Golden Nugget Casino would set up a table. Most high stakes players were only interested in stud and draw poker, but Doyle stuck to his Texas Hold’em guns. Brunson put it bluntly, “In draw poker, the player bets twice. In Hold’em, the player bets four times. More game to be played.”

Not only does Texas Hold’em feature more betting than Draw Poker, it features more varied betting, especially No Limit (NL) Hold’em.

The first bet you make in NL Hold’em is really a potential-based bet, rather than in Draw when you already have a full hand. You start with two cards in Texas Hold’em, and the best you ever are pre-flop is about an 80% favorite. That sort of uncertainty creates a more exciting climate than 5 Card Draw as the game is more prone to wild swings. And speaking of wild swings, let us discuss the flop.

In all of the poker games known to man, nothing makes or breaks a hand like the flop does in NL Texas Hold’em. Three cards, all at once, which belong to everyone left in the hand. This layout makes for more inexact mathematical calculations then a game like Stud where a player’s cards are theirs alone. It is for this reason that NL Hold’em becomes a game that is as much about applying pressure to your opponent to fold as it is about recognizing your own hand strength. Sometimes the flop leaves the player with a draw, or a hand that is almost very strong but still needs another card before it is complete. Hands like these would be 4 cards of a single suit or 4 sequential cards, rather than the 5 which would make a flush or a straight, respectively. Often in NL Hold’em, players will bet with draws so as to both apply pressure to their opponent and provide themselves with an opportunity to draw to a strong hand if called. There is more room to fool around with bluffs (and these so-called “semi-bluffs”) in NL Hold’em than in most other games.

While the betting on the flop occurs after a deluge of three community cards, the bet on the fourth card or turn card comes after the little trickle of only one. Statistically speaking, the turn card seldom has a direct effect on any player’s actual hand — but it can set the table for multitudes of additional draws not present in the flop.

This creates a very different betting climate then the one from the flop. Only one card means less has probably changed, not to mention the fact that the pot has inevitably grown from the previous round’s betting on the flop. Bigger pot means higher stakes, so bets made on the turn are almost without exception bigger than bets made on the flop. As the stakes step up, the hand gets more exciting. As the poker hand gets more exciting, the game becomes more popular.

Then comes the river, the cruelest card in the deck. After the river or Fifth Street there are no more additional cards, no more chances to draw out and no more changes in any hand of any sort. The board, or community cards, is complete. While the river is another single card betting round, in tandem with the turn, the river can produce hands totally unexpected from the look of the flop.

The most sophisticated betting usually occurs on the river, as most players have developed an idea of what their opponent has by that point. This leads to any number of bets from a value bet, or a bet that the bettor wants his opponent to call as he presumes he has a better hand, to a bluff.

There are four betting rounds in Texas Hold’em: pre-flop, post-flop, the turn and the river. Over the course of those four rounds, players have more opportunities to determine what their opponents have and take advantage than they would with only two rounds of betting. This allows for more creativity and sophistication in betting, so the game becomes a more intricate web of math, lies and luck than most other poker games.

While the game can be more sinuous at the expert tables, it is still welcoming to the beginning player. There are only two hole cards in Texas Hold’em so the board is a manageable sight for the average player. Unlike in a game like Omaha Hi-Lo, where the player has four hole cards and must play two and only two of them towards a possible two opposite pots that exist simultaneously in one hand which in total, often makes the board a bigger source of confusion than direction. Texas Hold’em is pretty simple – you can play any five of the seven cards to which you can lay claim and the best hand wins.

Once Texas Hold’em started to catch on, its growth was exponential. This is in large part due to the fact that as it has become more visible to the public through books and broadcast, and also to the simplicity of NL Hold’em which has allowed droves of beginners to join in. At the same time the potential for complexity has kept high-stakes gamblers hooked. This dichotomy lays the groundwork for continual growth: every casino in the world now has a Texas Hold’em table operating round the clock; NL Texas Hold’em is the keystone in the multi-billion dollar online gaming industry; and players like Doyle Brunson – who were once chased around the country both by the Police and the Mob –have been canonized as patron saints of the cult of cards.



By: Daphne Greene

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