Texas Hold'Em
6. Once the bets are equalized, the dealer gives everyone two cards facedown. These are your hole cards. You should develop a strategy over which starting hands you’ll play, and which you’ll fold.
In this picture, everyone’s had a chance to look at their cards and we’re waiting for wembly to act.
MizVino has and Ace and a Seven the Ace is obviously a great card, but the Seven isn’t as strong, but she’s happy with an Ace and decides she wants to see the flop. Because she is the small blind, she has already put $5 in the pot. But the bet is at $10, so in order to stay in the game, she needs to wager another $5. Notice in the picture that she has clicked on the ‘Call 5’ this means that when the action comes to her, and as long as nobody raises the bet even higher, the computer will automatically call by $5 to equalize the bet when the action comes to her if she checks that box. Using these check boxes speeds up the game.
7. Wembly has finally acted by raising the bet. Notice the check box now says ‘Call 40’ this means MizVino needs to put another $40 in the pot in order to equalize the bet.
8. The action continued around the table with all players calling the bet, and now it’s MizVino’s turn to act. MizVino didn’t recheck any of the boxes after they became unchecked when wembly raised, so the fold, call and raise buttons show up when it’s her turn. (Just to be clear, as long as you don’t check one of those boxes, you’ll get these bigger buttons to click on when it’s your turn.) There’s also a raise slider bar that makes it easy for you to raise. You can drag the arrow to the desired amount, or just type it in. MizVino hasn’t seen the flop yet and can’t be too confident in her hand, but because she has the Ace, she’s willing to call the bet at least.
9. Web4rick called the bet, thus ending the pre-flop betting round and all the chips are moved into the pot in the middle of the table. If web4rick had raised, the action would go around the table one more time, giving people the chance to fold, call or raise. But because he called, this betting round is done.
C. The flop: second betting round
10. After moving the chips from the pre-flop betting round into the pot, the dealer deals out three cards face up that everyone can use to make their hand (also called ‘board cards’ or ‘community cards’). The action starts with the small blind if they’re still in the game, or the next active player clockwise if they have folded already. The minimum bet for this game is $10, so the options are fold, check (because nobody has bet yet for that betting round) or bet a minimum of $10. Since the pot is at $315 (and there aren’t any other bets on the table yet for that betting round), MizVino can bet as high as $315 (if she had at least $315 in chips, but she doesn’t, so she can only bet as high as the value of all of her chips, $225).
11. MizVino has two pair: Aces and Eights (notice that her best hand is indicated in small white letters on the bottom right this is great for beginners who can’t pick out their best hand right away). She decides to only bet $10 because there’s an Ace in the flop, and she doesn’t want people to think she also has an Ace in her hand if she bets too high. In most cases, you don’t want to play so aggressively that you force everyone to fold you need some players left in the game to contribute to the pot.
12. Web4rick calls the $10 bet, but wembly seems to think they have an excellent hand and raises by $230! See how one of the boxes says ‘Call 215’ if MizVino wants to stay in the game, she needs to bet another $215. Because MizVino only has $215 left and not enough to cover $230, the box only gives her the option to call $215. Wembly can see that MizVino only has $215 left, so it’s a pretty good assumption he bet so heavily to try to scare MizVino into folding since she’ll be left with nothing if she loses.
13. Nismo503 finds the bet too high and folds (they probably think wembly has an Ace).
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