HOLDEM
Although many of the concepts in this book apply to any form of poker, this book isn’t a general poker book it’s about Holdem, a particular form of poker that has gained tremendous popularity in North America and Europe.
This popularity probably originated in the no-limit Holdem championship event held at Binion’s Horse-shoe in Las Vegas every May.
It was originally called Texas Holdem. The origins are obscure but the game probably began in the old private cardrooms of South Texas.
One of the features of the game is that it’s typically played with ten players. Because each player only gets two unique cards, the other cards are community cards placed faceup on the table.
You could play as many as twenty-two players if you could get that many around a table. You seldom see more than ten at a table in a casino game. I ’ve played with as many as fourteen in private games.
Why Holdem ?
Why should you choose Holdem as your game and not Seven Stud, Five Card Draw, Omaha, or some other poker game?
First, Holdem is a much simpler game than any of the forementioned poker variations. In Seven Stud you have to pay close attention to the cards that have been played and what was folded.
It requires a great deal of memorizing something that is not easy to do given the pace of the game in a cardroom, especially for a beginner.
Five Card Draw also requires that you remember which player took how many cards.
Omaha requires that you keep in mind that two of the four cards in your hand must be used with three community cards to make your hand.
Omahs requires that you keep in mind that two of the four cards to make your hand.
This is something that can easily be confused in the fast-paced atmosphere of the cardroom, where players think they have a hand only to find out at the showdown that a card on the board or in their hand is not valid in making their hand.
Holdem only requires that you know what you have in your two-card hand and how it meshes with what is on board.
There are no discards, folded cards, or anything else to memorize, nor are there extraneous cards that can cause confusion.
Second, during any given hand in Stud the position of the bettor varies with the high hand, but in Holdem, the position of the bettor doesn’t vary during a hand.
If you know that your position will not change, it allows you to play your position to its maximum effectiveness.
Third, in a Holdem game, more players will stay in the game as opposed to Stud or Draw. This is chiefly because there are usually ten or eleven players as opposed to seven or eight in Stud or Draw; additionally, because of the five community cards, the hands are more promising to more players.
Because more people tend to stay in the game, it yields bigger pots. Of course, with bigger pots you have a better chance to make more money. One winning hand in Holdem can make up for hours of lost blinds and folded hands.
Fourth, it is a much quicker game than most other poker variations.
For instance, you can play nearly twenty hands of Holdem in the same amount of time it would take to play ten hands of Seven Card Stud.
With the faster turnover of the cards, it gives you more opportunities to win. Fifth, it’s just more fun.
why play poker ? / unique features of poker / poker versus other casino games
keeping score with money / the basics of poker / mathematics of poker
